Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 165 posts

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

#61

Post by rchaud »

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.…

> Bluetooth was hailed as the Next Big Thing because it would enable "Personal Area Networks" (PAN), a now all-but-forgotten buzzword.

Apparently I have a PAN. First time I'm hearing the term!

I use BT to quickly transfer images and PDFs I find online from my phone to my laptop. All I needed to do was select "Share to Bluetooth" menu on my Android phone and select my MacBook from the list of available devices.

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

#62

Post by he_is_legend »

rockostrich wrote: post #44
noir_lord wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's sad that my family uses the available Bluetooth devices less than if there was a wire we could just plug into. I specifically buy wired gaming headphones, wired mice and wired keyboards - if there is any sensible wired option I'll take it every time, I even have an extra long network cable I can throw across the living room for the laptop. Wireless stuff is just less reliable and always seems to throw issues w…

> 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…

> if I go downstairs with my work laptop then I'm going going to drape an ethernet cable across my living room just so my connection is 1 Gbps still instead of 400+ Mbps

Are you missing the word "not" in there somewhere? Or being really obtuse? Your comment makes little sense as is. Initially you encourage hard wired unmoving appliances, but then also get behind draping a cable across a room to make sure movable appliances also get the best possible bandwidth?

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

#63

Post by rgoulter »

mikestew wrote: post #27
causi wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. I well remember spending $150 for a ThinkOutside folding bluetooth keyboard and mouse for my PDA in 2005 and thinking it was the coolest thing ever. Shame you can't get a modern folding keyboard with that build quality.

I might even still have my ThinkOutside lying around somewhere, but the keys were getting a bit sticky for some reason. There is something about that market that I'm obviously missing, because I'm astounded that no one has cloned the thing. Though I don't have the use case for one that I used to, I'd still spend the money again. It is such a cool little device, I'd find something to do with it.

I think it's relegated to low-volume hobbyists. e.g. this is low-profile, wireless, and looks well made. https://lowprokb.ca/products/corne-ish-zen

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

#64

Post by soheil »

Another way to look at it is that BT is such a successful technology that it lowered the barrier to entry for a lot of devices that would simply not exist was it not for BT. It means that with any technology we would have the same problems, lots of cheaply made devices with half ass implementation.

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

#65

Post by wvenable »

natch wrote: post #51
davidhyde wrote: post #35

The Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) is responsible for publishing all the Bluetooth specs and you can download them here: https://www.bluetooth.com/specifications/specs/ Notice that everything appears to be there: very detailed specs and information about testing. However, when you try to implement one of these specs you quickly realize that you cannot do it with the spec alone. You need example code, base imp…

So, you are suggesting that the Bluetooth SIG did just a fine job with the technology, no problems there, and that people like Apple don't see fit to use the money in their budget to cough up a membership fee? Seeing as how it is Apple devices on which I often encounter pairing difficulties. Super convenient for the SIG that they can point fingers like this (I wonder if that's why they set it up as you describe, ugh)…

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

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

#66

Post by systemvoltage »

davidhyde wrote: post #35

The Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) is responsible for publishing all the Bluetooth specs and you can download them here: https://www.bluetooth.com/specifications/specs/ Notice that everything appears to be there: very detailed specs and information about testing. However, when you try to implement one of these specs you quickly realize that you cannot do it with the spec alone. You need example code, base imp…

Same with USB consortium. Gotta pay like $10k to get a USB vendor ID. What the fuck were these people thinking to rally up behind this draconian standard? There is a limit to how many vendors they can have, iirc 10k.

But for all the issues with it, usb seems to work on devices without Bluetooth-like issues.

Standards should be open and free for common public and only have to pay once you reach certain company size. Things like ISO standards aren’t free.

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

#67

Post by k4ch0w »

You know, I think if you look in the home automation space you'll see a lot of interesting protocols in the works. Zigbee, Z-Wave, Thread, and Matter. I think people are working on this problem for the IOT space. Bluetooth is really a strong easy to support protocol and BLE is also an amazing feat when it comes to battery life. Terribly boring to reverse engineer though. I think you also see it more because phones support it by default.

I think a lot of the time it can be devices that implement the protocols poorly because I share your pain with my airpods max. However, I have a pair of a bluetooth headphones that have been amazing for 5 years.

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

#68

Post by xlii »

natch wrote: post #51
davidhyde wrote: post #35

The Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) is responsible for publishing all the Bluetooth specs and you can download them here: https://www.bluetooth.com/specifications/specs/ Notice that everything appears to be there: very detailed specs and information about testing. However, when you try to implement one of these specs you quickly realize that you cannot do it with the spec alone. You need example code, base imp…

So, you are suggesting that the Bluetooth SIG did just a fine job with the technology, no problems there, and that people like Apple don't see fit to use the money in their budget to cough up a membership fee? Seeing as how it is Apple devices on which I often encounter pairing difficulties. Super convenient for the SIG that they can point fingers like this (I wonder if that's why they set it up as you describe, ugh)…

AFAIK it's not about Apple, but about other producers either polluting spectrum or plainly ignoring specs.

There was a post about Logitech not creating a lot of interference with their MX products (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31939424). Interestingly enough getting rid of Logitech devices fixed most of the BT issues I had.

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

#69

Post by ecliptik »

rchaud wrote: post #53

I'd been using BT for the past decade as a wireless receiver for audio or mouse/KB. It's only very recently that I discovered that you could use it to transmit files from Device A to Device B. No middleman app or cloud sync service needed! Considering how awful USB file sync is between Mac OS and Android, I don't even break out the cable to transfer files anymore. The downside is that transmission speeds are very slo…

This was one of the original uses for Bluetooth - replacing PDA cradles, serial/USB cables, and IR for syncing things like contacts, email, calendars, etc.

There were articles in the early aughts about the "failure of bluetooth" [1] since syncing with 802.11 to a network was a better option.

1. https://www.cnet.com/tech/tech-industry/bye-bye-bluetooth/

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

#70

Post by swamp40 »

I'm pretty sure Apple got some tweaks put into the Bluetooth chips they use to help out with some of the connection reliability issues. Put in at the bare metal level before the stack so as to avoid breaking the "standard".

Apple has also used out-of-band pairing mechanisms to enhance the customer experience. But again, there is only so much they can do.

There are many problems built into the standard and so there was only so much they could do.

Ironically, the standard itself is preventing better experiences.

It's been over 10 years now since BLE came out. Many companies have crashed and burned or abandoned products or just accepted poor user experiences in those 10 years.

The Bluetooth SIG is a monstrosity. I bet you would have to break off to fix the problems in under 10 years. And the SIG would probably sue to prevent that.

Post reply on HN