Google announced Chrome 103 on Thursday, making it easier to share photos from Android to your Chromebook. The company also said an update is coming that will simplify Bluetooth connections.
As described in a blog post by Alexander Kuscher, director of Chrome OS Software at Google, the update builds on the Phone Hub app released for Chrome OS last year. It works with smartphones running Android 5.1 and above, and you can view text messages, phone battery life, and transfer tabs from your Chrome mobile browser to your Chromebook’s browser.
In Chrome 103, photos you take with your Android phone will automatically appear in the Phone Hub under a new “Recent Photos” section.
The Chrome OS Phone Hub app shows recent photos from an Android phone.
You can then download the images to save to your Chromebook so you can edit them, email them, or do anything else you’d rather do on a computer rather than a phone.
Google is also updating its Near Share feature in Chrome 103. Near Share uses Bluetooth Low Energy, WebRTC, or peer-to-peer Wi-Fi to share files over the air between Chromebooks and Android phones. Chrome 103 gives you the option to connect a Chromebook to a saved Wi-Fi network. The next time a new Chromebook connects to your network, you won’t need to find your Wi-Fi password to set it up if your Android phone is already connected.
The process described by Kuscher seems simple enough. On an Android phone, just go to the Wi-Fi network, click Share, and tap a Nearby tile below a QR code. After that, you can see and connect the Chromebook to the Wi-Fi network, according to the blog.
Connect a Chromebook to Wi-Fi without using a password.
“Nearby Share provides the Wi-Fi credentials (such as in the network name and password), and the Chromebook automatically connects to Wi-Fi. And, of course, it’s also saved for the next time the Chromebook needs to be used that Wi-Fi network,” explains Kuscher out.
Kuscher also said Chrome 103 will get a Fast Pair Bluetooth update “later this summer.” This feature allows you to connect Bluetooth devices, such as headphones, without having to figure out which button to press on the product or do anything in Chromebook settings other than turn on Bluetooth.
Just turn on your Chromebook’s Bluetooth and it will automatically detect when a new Bluetooth headset is on, nearby, and ready to be set up. A pop-up notification will appear and with one tap your new accessory is connected and ready to use,” Kuscher wrote. “No more digging through settings or struggling to find the right button to press to pair your headphones.”
This feature would be different from similar technologies like Windows Swift Pair, which presents a popup on the PC when it detects a Bluetooth device, but only if the wireless device is in pairing mode.
Kuscher said the feature will work with “hundreds of different headphone models,” including, unsurprisingly, Google’s Pixel Buds. Kuscher didn’t specify which models of the Pixel Buds would support the feature, but shared an image of the $99 Pixel Buds A-series that came out in June 2021.
Google didn’t say whether older Pixel Buds would work with the upcoming feature.
Finally, the Screencast video editing app for Chrome OS, which Google announced a few weeks ago, will be rolling out this week, Kuscher said.
