(Pocket-lint) – Nearby Share, Google’s own branded version of Apple’s AirDrop technology, will soon offer an easy way to send a Wi-Fi password from an Android 12 device to a Chromebook laptop.
Google has been regularly adding features to Nearby Share over recent years, so that it can better rival AirDrop. Nearby Share can share apps, files, and more from one of your devices to another or to a nearby friend. With Android 12, the feature was updated to share a Wi-Fi network from one Android device to another Android device. Now, as first reported by Chrome Story, Google has begun expanding this capability to Chromebooks, allowing ChromeOS users to receive a Wi-Fi network connection from an Android 12 device.
Sending a Wi-Fi network over Nearby Sharing relays all the information required for a Chromebook to quickly get online – including the network name, security type, and password. The two devices – the Android 12 device and the Chromebook – simply need to be within Bluetooth range of each other.
Just don’t expect the Wi-Fi sharing to arrive for Chromebooks until Chrome OS 100 or 101 – or March 2022 and April 2022, respectively – at the very least.
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Like most experimental features for Google Chrome or Chromebooks, this Wi-Fi sharing option will start out hidden behind a flag in chrome: // flags.
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Writing by Maggie Tillman.
