Idle Android phone pings Google 348 times per hour in 72-hour test

I captured 72 hours of idle Android packets behind pfSense

A researcher placed three factory-fresh Pixel 8 phones on an isolated Wi-Fi network and captured all outbound packets through a pfSense firewall for 72 hours. Even when locked and untouched, each phone sent an average of 348 requests per hour to Alphabet servers—over 8,300 per day. The data includes nearby Wi-Fi router MAC addresses, device serial hashes, and push notification heartbeats. A GrapheneOS phone under identical conditions sent zero outbound requests per hour. The post does not disclose whether the test phones were logged into a Google account or had default services disabled, which could affect the results.