[Update: Live] Your Bluetooth headphones won’t disconnect in Airplane Mode on Android 11

Ben Schoon | Feb 19 2020 - 1:15 pm PT

Android 10 may still be rolling out to the market, but we’re also just a few short months from the first betas of Android 11. Ahead of that release, some new details are coming out, including evidence that Google is improving Airplane Mode in Android 11 to respect your headphones.

In a world free of the headphone jack, Bluetooth headphones are extremely important to your smartphone, but turning on Airplane Mode when you hop on a flight will disconnect them. It’s obviously pretty easy to just turn Bluetooth back on and reconnect, but it’s an irritating little quirk to deal with.

The folks over at XDA-Developers recently spotted a commit in AOSP that hints at a “context-aware Bluetooth Airplane Mode.” The accompanying description explains exactly what that means and, essentially, it leaves Bluetooth turned on when you have a pair of Bluetooth headphones or a hearing aid connected to the device.

Do not automatically turn off Bluetooth when airplane mode is turned on and Bluetooth is in one of the following situations:

Bluetooth A2DP is connected.

Bluetooth Hearing Aid profile is connected.

Of course, this far out from the final release, there’s no guarantee this will make the final build. However, with other Bluetooth improvements still waiting to make their debut, having this Airplane Mode upgrade arrive in Android 11 would be a welcome update.

Update 2/19: Now that the first Android 11 Developer Preview has arrived, we’ve been able to confirm that this feature is live! As long as you’ve got a Bluetooth device paired to your device, swapping to Airplane Mode won’t turn off Bluetooth. Google has even added a little pop-up message to confirm Bluetooth won’t be turned off as you can see below.