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Ask HN: Bluetooth kinda sucks. Why don't we have something better?

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Re: Ask HN: Bluetooth kinda sucks. Why don't we have something better?

#131

Post by vel0city »

asdff wrote: post #125
prmoustache wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I am on a videocall with my coworkers and want to fill my glass with water, I like being able to go to the kitchen without having to undock and drag my laptop all over the house. Same if I need to find something in a shelf. That is pretty much the only reason I use bt headset.

I'm surprised your bluetooth headphones don't just cut out when you do that. My experience is blutooth has a range of like 30 feet and that quickly diminishes when you introduce walls into the equation.

It really varies based on the equipment in question and the environment they exist in. At home, my headphones paired to my laptop will give me range almost all around the house. Paired to my desktop in the same room, it starts dropping just outside my office. Paired with my phone, I get somewhere in between. With my laptop and phone in an RF-noisy environment, it might only go 20 or 30 feet. With my motorcycle helmet to my phone, it won't even make it if my phone is on a case on the opposite side of the bike, but I think that's mostly because there's almost no chance of direct line of sight without my body and motorcycle in the way and there's no good reflections when out on the open road.

Re: Ask HN: Bluetooth kinda sucks. Why don't we have something better?

#132

Post by ricardobeat »

natch wrote: post #99
wvenable wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you sure the problem is Apple and not the device on the other side?

Both sides are Apple, fully updated, expert user, in close proximity, good charge, blah blah blah. Maybe it’s me… or… just maybe… Bluetooth does have room for improvement.

In my experience the W1-equipped headphones all work flawlessly, pairing is instant. The only thing that is still annoying is the difficulty of managing multiple devices & headphones, when the built-in 'right thing to do' (like connecting to the last used device) can conflict with your real intent.

Re: Ask HN: Bluetooth kinda sucks. Why don't we have something better?

#133

Post by ricardobeat »

thematrixturtle wrote: post #21
Jenk wrote: post #12

Why did Betamax lose out to VHS? Why did MiniDisc never take off? Why does the internet still rely on JavaScript? From my sideline perspective it's probably because Bluetooth was developed without knowing how successful and expansive its use would become. It was developed by mobile phone companies to connect wireless earpieces to mobile telephones, and that was it. The entire scope of the product that is Bluetooth. T…

I worked in telco in the early 2000s when Bluetooth hype was at its peak, and that's just not true: if anything, Bluetooth was hailed as the Next Big Thing because it would enable "Personal Area Networks" (PAN), a now all-but-forgotten buzzword. But don't take my word for it, here's the IEEE in 1999: Examples of applications include Collaborative Maintenance, Mobile Worker, Medical Sensing, Data Synchronization, etc.…

To this date I'm perplexed by how hard it is to send anything from one device to another in close proximity.

I remember being surprised when the first BT capable (Motorola?) phone I had couldn't send photos to a laptop, maybe twenty years ago. iPhones never got that ability over bluetooth. Airdrop is still hit and miss.

Bump.me was the closest thing to perfection, unfortunately Facebook acquired and immediately threw it in the dumpster.

Re: Ask HN: Bluetooth kinda sucks. Why don't we have something better?

#134

Post by vel0city »

Karunamon wrote: post #56
rockostrich wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I even have an extra long network cable I can throw across the living room for the laptop This seems unnecessary unless you have high latency requirements, like for FPS or fighter gaming, but even then WiFi (and network coding for these games) has gotten so good that lag is barely noticeable anyway. I say this as someone who has my desk hardwired with an unmanaged switch because it seems silly to not take the time…

To be a bit pedantic, lag and throughput aren't the main bugbears for wireless anymore, it's stability. If you live or work in a reasonably populated area, there is often enough Wi-Fi pollution around to make things like gaming or video calls painful. Sure, you'll get around 20 ms to the AP most of the time, the problem is it will occasionally spike to 200 or 2000 for a moment and there's very little you can do about…

> Sure, you'll get around 20 ms to the AP most of the time

If you're getting 20ms to your AP you're in a pretty poor environment or you need to upgrade away from 802.11b.

While on a video call on my laptop just now, while my home theater receiver is streaming internet radio over WiFi, while I've got a dozen other devices active on my WiFi, my average latency to my router is ~1ms. Running a speed test on my phone pushing pulling >500Mbit, my latency spiked...to 12ms!

Just like with the rest of this discussion about Bluetooth being bad, if you've got poor equipment and a poor environment you're gonna have a bad time. I have some cheap USB WiFi adapters which are terrible and struggle to get good performance. I don't use those except for temporary things or when I just don't care about network performance. I don't have issues with the Intel WiFi chips on my desktop or laptops or my Ubiquiti APs.

Re: Ask HN: Bluetooth kinda sucks. Why don't we have something better?

#135

Post by stinkledinkle »

foobarian wrote: post #33
thematrixturtle wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked in telco in the early 2000s when Bluetooth hype was at its peak, and that's just not true: if anything, Bluetooth was hailed as the Next Big Thing because it would enable "Personal Area Networks" (PAN), a now all-but-forgotten buzzword. But don't take my word for it, here's the IEEE in 1999: Examples of applications include Collaborative Maintenance, Mobile Worker, Medical Sensing, Data Synchronization, etc.…

I worked a bunch with BT closer to the physical layer, and I have to say I was always impressed by how well specified and implemented things were up to the link layer. I think it works fantastically well. But unfortunately it's an invisible achievement, kind of how IT folks don't get recognized when things work; instead when people say "Bluetooth sucks" it's usually due to poor app profile implementations/specs. As a…

Also the android bluetooth stack has always been trash, with it varying per vendor on how bad it got. It's getting better, but still.

Re: Ask HN: Bluetooth kinda sucks. Why don't we have something better?

#136

Post by david927 »

rhacker wrote: post #55
david927 wrote: post #2

There's a long list of comments in that thread discussing "why" it's the case, with most simply saying "it's difficult." I disagree. I think it's the same reason why so much of our software is poor quality: taking something from "works" to "works well" is a cost sink. It will cost you and yet doesn't add much to the bottom line to compensate. It's sad that my family uses the available Bluetooth devices less than if t…

I don't think you explained why you disagree. If it's difficult, why is that wrong, why do you disagree?

I think it's the same reason why so much of our software is poor quality: taking something from "works" to "works well" is a cost sink. It will cost you and yet doesn't add much to the bottom line to compensate.

Basically, there's a gap between "it works" and "it's effortless" and that's a pricey gap that doesn't net you a lot in return financially.

Re: Ask HN: Bluetooth kinda sucks. Why don't we have something better?

#137

Post by vel0city »

asdff wrote: post #123

Honestly the 3.5mm jack is better technology. - connecting does nothing confusing, just changes default output speaker for most software - pairing multiple devices just needs a splitter then it works the same as pairing one device in terms of ux - can connect multiple headsets to one device - can connect multiple devices to one headset - can purchase replacement 3.5mm cables cheaply at any convenience store around th…

I can stay seated on the couch and connect my phone to my stereo. It turns on the receiver and changes the input to Bluetooth upon connection. From there I can then play anything and control the volume on the stereo from my phone. All without needing to even get up from the couch, or potentially even needing to go into the room with the receiver.

The receiver has good Bluetooth range. I can change the output to the speakers by the pool (albiet through the receiver app or from the receiver's remote or its face buttons) and take my phone pool-side. Then I can change the music (and the volume, once again) from my phone through just Bluetooth.

Both of these are experiences where Bluetooth is better than a 3.5mm jack.

Re: Ask HN: Bluetooth kinda sucks. Why don't we have something better?

#138

Post by mixmastamyk »

colinmhayes wrote: post #130
asdff wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are shorter than 3 feet you can just wrap the cable around the device or shove it in the pocket with the device. If you are longer than 3 feet on the torso you are quite a human specimen anyway and are probably buying a lot of custom things for living your life.

Or... you could just get a wireless device and not deal with wrapping and shoving cables every time you want to listen to something. I put airpods in my ear and the music starts playing. It's just a much better experience than wired headphones were. No reaching through my shirt. No getting the cable caught anyway. No pulling my device around when I get up but forget to unplug.

Or you could just use a typical headphone cable that's not a real problem. Takes a few hundred milliseconds to put thru front of shirt when getting on a bike. Checking the tires and breaks, right? Faster than putting on a helmet.

Don't forget the various BT and battery issues, (not to mention spending another hundred+ dollars) which are documented extensively elsewhere on this page.

Re: Ask HN: Bluetooth kinda sucks. Why don't we have something better?

#139

Post by viraptor »

vel0city wrote: post #11

As for multiple headsets to one device, a lot of devices have challenges playing a certain audio stream to multiple output devices. For instance, my laptop has a speaker and my monitor has a speaker. There's no default way in Windows to play the same audio out on both of these outputs. I would need software to emulate a sound device and end up duplicating the stream to both other sound devices to target both outputs…

> its true for the defaults of a lot of Linux

Not anymore. New distributions have moved to pipewire audio, so since about this year you can open qjackctl, Carla or any of the audio routing apps and drag and drop audio from a chosen app to any number of outputs. (not sure if you'd count not built into the traybar mixer panel as default or not)

Re: Ask HN: Bluetooth kinda sucks. Why don't we have something better?

#140

Post by vel0city »

viraptor wrote: post #139
vel0city wrote: post #11

As for multiple headsets to one device, a lot of devices have challenges playing a certain audio stream to multiple output devices. For instance, my laptop has a speaker and my monitor has a speaker. There's no default way in Windows to play the same audio out on both of these outputs. I would need software to emulate a sound device and end up duplicating the stream to both other sound devices to target both outputs…

> its true for the defaults of a lot of Linux Not anymore. New distributions have moved to pipewire audio, so since about this year you can open qjackctl, Carla or any of the audio routing apps and drag and drop audio from a chosen app to any number of outputs. (not sure if you'd count not built into the traybar mixer panel as default or not)

Not all distributions have made the change for the defaults to pipewire. Ubuntu 22.10 (the latest LTS release of Ubuntu) still uses ALSA as the default, as just a quick example. It can still be changed easily enough.

And yeah, there are apps like qjackctl and Carla and others which do let you do this kind of mixing. But yeah, I'm talking about the basic sound settings that most users are going to instinctually mess with and make quick changes. As mentioned, there are software stacks that will let you mix inputs and outputs on Windows using synthetic devices, but that's not the natively exposed tools present on a standard install. On most modern Linux distros, you could get it done with some fancy CLI work out of the box, or you'll want to install tools like qjackctl.

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