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Isn't that common across all watches that connect to your phone these days? Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Edit: Also, not saying it's a good thing.

My bathroom scale requires gps access via my phone if I want to log data to it...

From my understanding, apps need location permissions if they want to scan for available bluetooth devices rather than having the user pair in the bluetooth settings app. The reason being that advertisers set up bluetooth beacons all over the place and used passive scanning in apps to collect the users location.

What's not clear to me is why they really need to be able to scan for bluetooth. Surely requesting location permissions is worse UX than having the user go to the settings app to pair.

The lowest common denominator user is more afraid of visiting the settings menu than they are of clicking allow on just about any permissions popup.

yeah that's not good! That's why I don't want to buy a "smart" fridge or any of these appliances that require Wifi access.

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