Force Bluetooth ON and allow Bluetooth connections

[bvondeylen]

I have forced Bluetooth to be ON on the iPads (because of Apple Classroom). Finding out that with Bluetooth being forced ON, I cannot connect to any Bluetooth device???

I cannot believe this would be the case, but it is.

So the only way I can allow an iPad to connect to a Bluetooth device (keyboard, speakers, etc) is to disable management of Bluetooth, but then students will turn it off when they don't want teachers managing them via Apple Classroom.

Tell me I am wrong please.

[bfrench]

The restriction does not force bluetooth to be ON - it only allows or disallows changing bluetooth settings - and only for supervised iPads. If bluetooth is off when you set the restriction on a device it prevents turning bluetooth back on- it does not force it to be ON.

Allow modifying Bluetooth settings (supervised only)

[cbrewer]

You are wrong.

Just kidding - unfortunately, you are correct.

[were_wulff]

@bvondeylen

As others have said, the restriction does not force Bluetooth on or off, it simply restricts or allows access to the setting to turn Bluetooth on or off.

If a user has already turned Bluetooth off when the restriction is pushed out, it will stay in the off state and they will be unable to turn it back on until the restriction is removed.

Similarly, if Bluetooth is already on on the device when the restriction is pushed out, it will stay on and the user will be unable to turn it off.

There is no way to force Bluetooth on or off on iOS devices that I'm aware of; if this is a functionality you’d like to see, please contact your Apple rep as the reason our software does not have a function to do this is because Apple has not implemented that function for MDM solutions.

If you need Bluetooth to be always on, you’ll need to make certain it’s turned on on all of your devices, then push the restriction out to prevent users from modifying the Bluetooth settings and turning it off.

If you have additional questions about that particular restriction, please contact Support.

Thanks!
Were Wulff
Jamf Customer Experience.

[bvondeylen]

This issue isn't to force Bluetooth ON or OFF (although I wish I could force that).

The issue is when Bluetooth is ON and the Restriction is set to no allow changing Bluetooth (so it stays ON), the user cannot ADD any Bluetooth device. How does that make any sense?

Bluetooth is ON, but I cannot connect to a Bluetooth Keyboard, because the Restriction setting is set to not allow Bluetooth modification.

We need it to be ON because of Apple Classroom, so we do not allow it to be modified, otherwise, students will turn it OFF when they don't want teachers managing their iPads.

BUT, we need the iPads to connect to to Bluetooth devices, like bluetooth keyboards and bluetooth speakers.

[pmckeehan]

@bvondeylen

I've been fighting with Apple and Jamf on this for 2 years almost now. We've submitted requests to Apple to no avail as of yet. Jamf is willing to make the changes necessary in the JSS, but Apple needs to allow those setting changes in their OS.

Blue ON (Restricted - cannot be turned off by end-user)
Devices (Add and Remove control)

As bvondeylen has said, we need this functionality for Apple Classroom.

[Sandy]

So...
We finally are able to push a command to turn Bluetooth on
We can send a profile disallowing users from change their Bluetooth setting

Then Apple BLOWS a HUGE hole in it!!
Now, if you ENABLE Airplane mode, it turns bluetooth OFF, but then you can turn WIFI ON and merrily surf the internet while offline in Apple Classroom

[ALengyel]

This does suck... we have had to make the teachers the judge/jury on this issue. If they see them drop off and not reconnect to the classroom app they simply take their iPad until they stop doing it.

We have bluetooth keyboards, and the most annoying issue is when they "forget" their bluetooth device (keyboard) then cannot reconnect it because the policy. I wish there was a way to stop them from "removing" the devices... and not so much as adding them.

Is that possible?

[pumatech]

Just ran into Sandy's issue today. I have bluetooth turned on and disallowed access to change on all our student iPads. However, students can enable Airplane mode and be invisible in Apple Classroom, yet still have WiFi on at the same time! Really? Ugh...

[jrobinson2]

The Airplane Mode workaround has been there for a long time. I realized this a few years ago when my phone said Airplane Mode was on, but still had the Wi-Fi signal. Very odd. We have requested from Apple to give vendors the ability to turn the ability to switch Airplane Mode off, but that in itself sounds like legal stuff waiting to happen.