Why Samsung Got Rid Of Bluetooth On The S Pen

In 2025, Samsung removed Bluetooth support for the S Pen on the Galaxy S25 Ultra. With the recent release of the Galaxy S26 Ultra, there was hope that the company could reintroduce this functionality on top of some others that were still available with the previous S24 Ultra model, but that was not the case. While Samsung didn't say anything about it on this year's release, the company did address the lack of Bluetooth support for the S Pen in 2025. Samsung told Android Police that it removed Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) because the feature wasn't being used much and because "gesture controls on the Galaxy Ring and Galaxy Watch for hands-free photo capture instead."

Even so, fans of the S Pen don't necessarily seem to agree with those ideas, with many taking to Reddit and other online forums to voice their displeasure at the ongoing lack of Bluetooth support. Still, it seems the ongoing complaints haven't been enough for Samsung to change course to this point. Customers and the company alike seem focused on the perks of the new Samsung S26, including a clever cooling trick and the fact that at least the S Pen lived to see another day ... and another phone.

With the removal of Bluetooth support on the Galaxy S26 Ultra's S Pen, users lost several features that relied on that connection, such as navigating the Internet Browser and Notes app, voice note recording, Air Actions, and others.

However, as noted above, Samsung says that users can still use remote control gestures with the Galaxy Watch and Galaxy Ring, as these wearables provide some of the functions previously available on the S Pen. While adding these devices to a tech stack that already includes the S26 Ultra gets really expensive in a hurry, at least users can still take advantage of a few of the lost features in some capacity using the company's wearables.

What the S Pen still does, however, is understand different levels of pressure for precise writing and drawing, and Air Command, which is a quick on-display access to tools. Besides that, the S Pen doesn't need to be paired or charged, which makes switching between target devices a seamless proposition.

With the second release of a Galaxy S Ultra model without Bluetooth capabilities on the S Pen, it's becoming more and more unlikely that Samsung will bring this feature back. While the company isn't shy to revisit ideas, or even discontinue some of them when they aren't a success, like the Galaxy Trifold or the ultra-thin Galaxy Edge devices, it seems the company still believes that removing Bluetooth from the S Pen was a good call.

Besides the company saying that most users weren't taking advantage of the extra perks, Samsung is now completely focused on its new privacy display. This innovative technology has been teased by the company for a while, and it's now officially available. According to Samsung, the panel of the device features two types of pixels. While one emits light directly to the user's eyes, the other emits light to make it easier to view content from all angles. Samsung's privacy display can turn off those side-view pixels, so it makes it impossible to see a full app, notification, or even a specific part of the display from an angle when the feature is turned on. With a continued focus on other areas, it seems unlikely that Samsung will bring Bluetooth back to the S Pen and might just phase out this technology for good.