Bluetooth pairing sucks on most Google TV devices, but Google wants to change that

Pairing a new Bluetooth accessory with your phone can feel slow and clunky, but imagine doing it on a TV using just a remote. You have to put your Bluetooth device in pairing mode, open your TV’s settings menu, navigate to the Bluetooth page, scan for nearby devices, select your accessory, and finally confirm the pairing request. To make this process less of a hassle, Google brought its Fast Pair service to TVs in 2024. Unfortunately, a year later, Fast Pair is still not widely available on Google TV devices, leaving most users stuck with the old tedious pairing process.

Fast Pair simplifies the process of connecting Bluetooth devices like speakers, earbuds, headphones, and controllers to your phone, tablet, or laptop. When a Fast Pair-enabled accessory enters pairing mode, a pop-up appears on nearby compatible devices. This pop-up lets you connect the accessory with a single tap, saving you from having to dig through Bluetooth settings.

Google first introduced Fast Pair for Android phones and tablets back in 2017. In January 2022, the company announced plans to expand the feature to Chromebooks in the “coming weeks” and to Google TV and Android TV OS devices in the “coming months.”

However, these timelines proved to be optimistic. Fast Pair didn’t actually begin rolling out to Chrome OS until March 2023, over a year later. The wait for Google TV was even longer, with the feature finally making its first appearance in February 2024 — a full two years after the initial announcement.

To add to the confusion, the official “Made by Google” account posted on X in March 2024 that Fast Pair was rolling out to all Google TV devices running Android 12 or newer. As we later discovered, however, this wasn’t actually the case.

A few weeks ago, I spotted a feature flag named com.google.android.feature.FAST_PAIRING — a flag I believed is exclusive to devices with Fast Pair support. When I searched the Google Play Console for devices declaring this feature, only four appeared: the two Chromecast with Google TV models (HD and 4K), the Google TV Streamer, and the Onn 4K Plus.

Given Google’s prior statement, I was puzzled by the fact that only four devices were listed, so to confirm my findings, I reached out to Google. A company spokesperson verified this list is accurate, adding that any OEM can choose to enable Fast Pair and that Google is actively working with partners to bring the feature to more devices.

It’s unclear why OEMs must specifically add support for Fast Pair on Google TV, especially since it’s part of Google Play Services and was rolled out widely on mobile and Chrome OS without needing device-specific support. Perhaps it has something to do with the quirky nature of the Bluetooth protocol. Whatever the case, it’s encouraging that Google is working to expand this capability.