Bluetooth pairing request on notification bar?

As per a comment I saw in the android source code

BluetoothPairingRequest is a receiver for any Bluetooth pairing request. It checks if the Bluetooth Settings is currently visible and brings up the PIN, the passkey or a confirmation entry dialog. Otherwise it puts a Notification in the status bar, which can be clicked to bring up the Pairing entry dialog.

So yeah, depending on the BT visibility, the dialog/notification will be shown.

ninja edit: 

This may vary depending on the hardware used.

• If the device was in discoverABLE mode recently
• If the device was discoverING recently
• If the device was picked in the device picker recently

I know this thread is old but I would like to add a simple answer for people having the same problem. The answer above very well explains why and what but does not show a simple solution.

Calling this function before initiating a bonding does the job:

private void feintBluetoothDeviceDiscovery() {    BluetoothAdapter btAdapter = BluetoothAdapter.getDefaultAdapter();    btAdapter.startDiscovery();    btAdapter.cancelDiscovery();}

It just triggers a discovery. Looks somehow stupid but seems to work very well.

See also here: Android Bluetooth Pairing: How to make sure to get bluetooth pairing request in the front dialog instead of a notification?

Yes the thread is old but there is slightly more to it than the solution of @maze.

EDIT: I take this addition following back. I found in my BTLE-only application that I did not invoke startDiscovery in the period allocated for it, and that was why @maze solution did not work. I think the only reason the addition worked is that I had tried my classic & BTLE app just before and the time had not elapsed.

If I want a dialog to popup instead of a notification on a pairing event, I must have called startDiscovery() within one minute of the pairing request. But it takes one more step as well. I have to have a handler for the event in a BroadcastReceiver.

I stumbled upon this because I had written a PHG that uses a continuous background search process which cycles between startDiscovery() for X seconds and then a Btle Scan for Y seconds. It handled BOTH classic and Btle devices. I knew that I needed to have the startDiscovery call but since the classic discovery is handled in a BroadcastReceiver I had handlers for it.

Now I am writing a similar PHG that only does BTLE. I kept the startDiscovery() cycle in the background scanner because I knew I needed at LEAST that in order to get the dialog. But I removed the handlers in the BroadcastReceiver. The only handlers I had were for pairing events. Result - no dialog. SO I added the following back even though they now do nothing but print a log:

    //================ CONNECT ==============================    if (BluetoothDevice.ACTION_ACL_CONNECTED.equals(intent.getAction()))    {        Log.i(TAG, "BT State Receiver signaled with connected for device " + device.getName() + " with bond state " + device.getBondState());    }    //================ DISCONNECT ==============================    else if (BluetoothDevice.ACTION_ACL_DISCONNECTED.equals(intent.getAction()))    {        Log.i(TAG, "BT State Receiver signaled with disconnect for device " + device.getName() + " with bond state " + device.getBondState());    }    //================ START/STOP DISCOVERY ==============================    else if (BluetoothAdapter.ACTION_DISCOVERY_STARTED.equals(intent.getAction()))    {        Log.i(TAG, "BT State Receiver signaled discovery started");    }    else if (BluetoothAdapter.ACTION_DISCOVERY_FINISHED.equals(intent.getAction()))    {        Log.v(TAG, "BT State receiver, discovery stopped");    }    //================ FOUND DEVICE ==============================    else if (BluetoothDevice.ACTION_FOUND.equals(intent.getAction()))    {            Log.v(TAG, "Device discovered: name " + device.getName() +                    " Bond state " + device.getBondState());    }

Unfortunately I don't know if I need all of the above or just the 'ACTION_FOUND' handler. I suppose I could remove the others one by one and see if I still get the dialog, but I have been hit by a streak of laziness.