Notice on the Impact of Apple iOS 13 Upgrade on Device Network Setup Experience

Dear customer,

Apple released iOS 13 in September. To strengthen privacy protection, this version introduces new access control policies for Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. If you built your app using the Alibaba Cloud Smart Living Platform SDK, these changes may affect your users’ experience when adding or using devices. To avoid disruption, make the necessary adjustments.

The required adjustments are as follows.

Wi-Fi

To retrieve the Wi-Fi network name (SSID), your app must first guide the user to grant location permission. Otherwise, it cannot obtain the correct SSID—unless the user has already granted this permission.

If location permission is not granted, this policy affects your app in the following ways:

• The SDK method [IMLHotspotHelper getCurrentSsid] returns a default SSID of “WLAN” or “Wi-Fi”.
• Operations such as device hotspot setup, mobile hotspot setup, and zero-config pairing fail because the app cannot obtain the correct Wi-Fi name (SSID or BSSID).

Make the following adjustments and guide your users accordingly:

• When retrieving the Wi-Fi name (SSID) during network setup, if the user has not yet granted location permission, prompt them to do so.
• Guide users on how to enable location permission (using the Tuya Smart app as an example).

1. Turn on location services.

   Go to Settings > Privacy > Location Services.

2. Enable location permission for your app.

   Go to Settings > Your App Name > Location and select a location access option.

Below is Apple’s official announcement:

As we announced at WWDC19, we're making changes to further protect user privacy and prevent unauthorized location tracking. Starting with iOS 13, the CNCopyCurrentNetworkInfo API will no longer return valid Wi-Fi SSID and BSSID information. Instead, the information returned by default will be:
SSID: “Wi-Fi” or “WLAN” (“WLAN" will be returned for the China SKU)
BSSID: "00:00:00:00:00:00"

Bluetooth

Your app must guide users to grant Bluetooth permission before using Bluetooth features. Otherwise, Bluetooth functionality will be unavailable.

If Bluetooth permission is not granted, this policy affects your app as follows:

• After upgrading the phone to iOS 13:

  Before upgrade: Devices work normally.

  After upgrade: Devices no longer work properly.

• Operations such as adding, viewing, or controlling devices, setting up device Wi-Fi, and performing over-the-air (OTA) firmware upgrades fail.

Make the following adjustments and guide your users accordingly:

• During network setup, if the user has not yet granted Bluetooth permission, display a prompt in the interface to guide them to enable it.

  When permission is denied, the Bluetooth central manager state is CBCentralManagerStateUnauthorized.

• Guide users to enable Bluetooth permission.

1. Turn on Bluetooth.
   • Quick Open
   • Go to Settings > Privacy > Bluetooth.
2. Enable Bluetooth permission for your app.

   Go to Settings > Your App Name and turn on Bluetooth.