Why is the Belkin SOUNDFORM™ App asking for Location Permissions?

Like many Android™ apps, the Belkin SOUNDFORM™ app requires access to certain features of your Android device to function correctly. Beginning with Android version 6.0, Google™ merged the permissions for Bluetooth® and Location services together. This means that any app that needs access to your Bluetooth devices was also required to ask for Location Permissions whether it needed them or not.

Originally, Bluetooth was going to be used for more than just connecting your phone to your headphones or to your car stereo. Location services was set as a requirement for devices that do more than just audio transmission. Also, local discovery of nearby Bluetooth devices was to be used to help with services such as GPS to find your location. Most devices only used the Bluetooth Radio Permission of this set and ignored the Location Permissions but were still required to ask for it. The Belkin SOUNDFORM app falls under this category. The Belkin SOUNDFORM app only needs access to your device's Bluetooth radio so it can discover your Belkin SOUNDFORM compatible audio product.

When Google released Android version 12, they chose to split the pairing of Location Permissions and Bluetooth Radio Permissions. If you are running the Belkin SOUNDFORM app on a device with Android 12 or higher, you will no longer be asked to allow access to Location Permissions.

If you are using an Android device with Android versions 6 through 11, you will be required to allow the Belkin SOUNDFORM app access to your location services, although we are required to ask for this permission we do not use, store, or transmit any of this data. The Belkin SOUNDFORM app only requires access to the Bluetooth radio of your device to discover, connect to and control your Belkin SOUNDFORM compatible audio product.

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