Samsung Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge seems to have a tough time with Nearby Device Scanning feature that lets a user search for connectable devices in its close vicinity. Interestingly, Samsung has launched its Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge a few days earlier. The affects of this feature on the battery of the phone are still unknown, as it has been recently launched and users have not conducted many tests.
According to Slash Gear, as the name of the feature suggests, in this mode, the device will be scanning for nearby devices. The devices close to the vicinity that have ability to get connected with Samsung Galaxy S7 and Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge will be detected. As soon as a device is found in the proximity of the user's device, they will get a notification regarding the device's availability. This feature consumes low energy and scans even when phone's Bluetooth being turned off.
According to Android Developers, scanning should be avoided or stopped immediately after finding the desired device. Also, loop scanning should be avoided, and scanning time should be set to limited. A device may have moved out of the range, and repeated scanning will only drain the battery.
Samsung seems to have programmed this feature in much optimized way, says Android Community. Though nearby device sharing was a feature available on the Samsung Galaxy S6, Nearby Device Sharing is a new feature exclusively for Samsung Galaxy S7 series. However, this setting can be accessed via Settings >Wireless and networks>More>Nearby device scanning (turn it off).
This feature has not been tested so far, and shall surely require some time after it is thoroughly tested by experts, with device using this feature for several days and then not using this feature for a few days. It would be interesting to see how efficiently Samsung has programmed its phone to embed this feature without loosing much of energy.