One of the banes of my geeky existence is setting up and using smart home and IoT devices. Every manufacturer figures out one way to let you connect to their product and you have to follow their step-by-step guide to the letter, and even then, it's better to be prepared for frustration and a few retries. That's especially true for WiFi devices, but Android Q is ready to make things easier.

In the Q announcement post, a small section outlines "Improved peer-to-peer and internet connectivity," explaining that apps will be able to have a list of preferred SSIDs and there will be a new Wi-Fi picker that surfaces asking you if you want to connect to any of those.

Previously, setting up a new smart home product required you move out of its app, manually look for the Wi-Fi direct network you had to connect to, go back to the app, and hope Android didn't decide that new network had no internet, wasn't good enough, and simply switched you back to your regular Wi-Fi. The same issues arose when connecting to IoT products that use WiFi, like 360 cameras. My Insta360, for example, manages to connect wirelessly to my phone about one time out of five — I keep trying until it works.

Although the prospect of these changes in Android Q is exciting, I doubt we'll see this in action for another couple of years. If my time testing and reviewing all kinds of IoT and smart home products has taught me anything, it's that their apps are notoriously behind on implementing any new Android APIs, guidelines, or design direction changes.

Source: Android Developers Blog