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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?

#161

Post by mewpmewp2 »

vkoskiv wrote: post #142

Even after the pairing hassle, every time I play music on my Apple AirPod Pros (that cost over 200€, btw (!!)) the first second or so of songs consistently sound like garbage. Evidently whatever transport they are using can't handle sudden changes in bitrate, and they have to use a lower quality for that bit. Absolutely crazy to imagine that this passed QA at Apple!

I have PowerBeats Pro which also cost over €200.

And the most annoying thing is that usually I have to attempt connecting them multiple times to get both pieces to work. Sometimes I have to put them inside box and take out multiple times. I'm not sure what is up with that. If it doesn't connect the first time and only finds one earpiece it will stop trying to find the other earpiece?

Another major annoyance I had is, if I have them paired with both Android Phone and my MacBook, the Android Phone and I'm currently connected to them with MacBook, and I have my phone bluetooth on, my phone periodically will take over the connection. This may be the phone fault though, to constantly try and open the connection even if I didn't ask it to?

Overall they are just plain frustration to use. And I've had to reset PowerBeats Pro's countless of times to have them work at all.

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

#162

Post by ricardobeat »

molasses wrote: post #159
ricardobeat wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

What was bump.me? Photo sharing is why Instagram, Facebook and Whatsapp is insanely popular. Sharing photos is just difficult. I've had to resort in the past of putting a small web server on the phone, just to get files off it via WIFI. But of course that's clunky. If peer to peer networking were easier, trustable etc, it could be a real life saver. There's some feature in Google Files that's WIFI sharing, but I have…

You’d select a photo or any file to transfer, bump your phones together and ta-da, it was sent over. No accounts or friend lists necessary.

It used a mix of geolocation and wireless signals to determine the match and worked flawlessly. You could even do the same with a computer by bumping the phone against the spacebar!

This was over a decade ago. It’s very depressing to see great tech like this just disappear into the void.

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

#163

Post by t-3 »

rockostrich wrote: post #149
Karunamon wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I live in a city. Opening my wifi menu on my MBP, I see dozens of networks. I've never really experienced any spikes like you mentioned every with gaming or video calls.

It probably heavily depends on your networking equipment. Most modern APs should have interference detection, MIMO, beamforming, variable channel width, etc., but if you're on 2.4GHz in a crowded building with thin walls I'd imagine things could get pretty hairy. Even in ideal conditions, wireless will have far more dropped packets, transport overhead, power draw, etc.

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

#165

Post by Handytinge »

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.

I had to convert that, and I'm shocked. One of your devices is surely faulty. My Airpods Pro with pretty much any device I connect them to, I can easily get 150m (500ft) LoS, and easily 50-100m (150-300ft) with walls in a normal building, with no quality loss at all.
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