Is it true that Android 6 and above require GPS for bluetooth?

Question

Android

The PICOOC floor scale app now requires a GPS connection to work with bluetooth. Otherwise, the connection does not occur and the scales turn into completely ordinary floor scales. Out of resentment, I wrote to the manufacturer and received an answer that supposedly android itself requires it. They link to this documentation page , but I didn't see anything similar (I'm not good at English. I'm learning). As a solution, they suggest installing android 5.

Reply text to me

Hi, Sergey
I am very sorry for the inconvenience. We understand your mood, but please listen to our explanation.
About location permission
1. Google requires all phones with Android 6.0 or higher. If the app wants to connect to Bluetooth, it must request the location permission. Please refer to this page (https://developer.android.com/about/versions/marsh...
2. Google recently had a rule that requires all apps on google play to support android 8.0. If not, we will not be able to upload apps to google play. You can refer to the web page (Https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2017/12/improving-app-security-and-performance.html). Therefore, the newest app must support 8.0 system, and it must also support 6.0. In other words, the app wants Bluetooth to connect properly, it needs to request the location permissions.
3.If you are our old user, we hope you know that the previous version of the PICOOC app, the highest supported is the android5.0 system. This means that even if your phone system is higher than 5.0, our app will run the app in android5.0 mode. So, you won't see a request for explicit location permissions.
I hope you can understand us, we don't want to get location permissions, just to meet google's requirements. In addition, I promise you that although my app insists on location permissions, it is just for Bluetooth to connect properly, we have not collected any location information such as your latitude and longitude.
I am very sorry, but I hope you can accept our explanation. If you have any questions, please contact us again!

Answer 1

In fact, when you search for Bluetooth or WiFi devices, you reveal your location. This fact is now pointed out explicitly. However, the main problem is Bluetooth Low Energy, which uses location to find nearby devices.
Get yourself an older version of the app if you care.