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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?

#81

Post by causi »

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 tossed mine for the same reason. I believe the fact all the keys are depressed when the keyboard is folded causes the rubber domes to permanently deform after years under compression.

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

#82

Post by bee_rider »

zachallaun wrote: post #8
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…

One of my favorite wireless devices is a Logitech gaming mouse (G903) that I use with a mousepad that is also a charging mat. It uses a low-latency proprietary wireless protocol: https://www.logitechg.com/en-us/innovation/lightspeed.html

Logitech's silly little plug-in receivers seem to be weirdly better than bluetooth, and they have been for as long as I remember. I don't really get why. If they have some magic technology in there, how has the Bluetooth SIG not managed to copy it?

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

#83

Post by falcolas »

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…

100% - it's these occasional spikes which honk everything up. Google meets immediately assumes your internet is crap and degrades the client, you become a robot to your listeners, and recovery takes noticeably longer than the few hundred MS it occurred in.

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

#84

Post by falcolas »

bee_rider wrote: post #82
zachallaun wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of my favorite wireless devices is a Logitech gaming mouse (G903) that I use with a mousepad that is also a charging mat. It uses a low-latency proprietary wireless protocol: https://www.logitechg.com/en-us/innovation/lightspeed.html

Logitech's silly little plug-in receivers seem to be weirdly better than bluetooth, and they have been for as long as I remember. I don't really get why. If they have some magic technology in there, how has the Bluetooth SIG not managed to copy it?

The magic technology is that it's not following the bluetooth spec. It's a custom spec that works remarkably well, because it's reasonably scoped and not written by a multi-corporation-for-profit SIG.

Their dongles for wireless audio work like magic too - as close to zero latency as I've found in wireless computer headphones.

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

#85

Post by vel0city »

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…

Back in high school we'd transfer photos, ringtones, and games between phones through Bluetooth. It worked reasonably well for the time. Photos from those early camera phones weren't very large, wallpapers were less than like 250x150 pixels usually, and lots of games were a meg or less.

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

#86

Post by swamp40 »

tpmx wrote: post #79
swamp40 wrote: post #70

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 wa…

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". I'm not a Bluetooth expert but that doesn't sound right. Surely the vast majority of BT complexity in a modern stack is in the software? Also, if you're "breaking the standard" in a closed system…

Look up Apple's H1 and W1 chips. They improved it while remaining "Bluetooth compatible".

Bluetooth has too big of a name recognition to just go your own way. Thousands of popular products.

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

#87

Post by bee_rider »

JLCarveth wrote: post #77
bee_rider wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have other non-Apple devices with which you encounter pairing difficulties? My experience with Bluetooth headphones was that on an iPhone they were occasionally annoying, while on Linux they were quite poor and on Windows they were more like a practical joke. This would have been like 4-5 years ago though, maybe all the stacks have been improved.

Honestly my linux desktop (Ubuntu 22.04) is where I run into the fewest issues regarding my bluetooth headphones. I've never had an issue connecting to them.

Hmm. The issues that come to mind are annoying pairing (Arch -- probably my fault, too manual) and some weird random disconnects on Ubuntu, but that might be some power-saving issue specific to my chip. So maybe I just got unlucky random outcomes.

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

#88

Post by prmoustache »

tehjoker wrote: post #59
simonh wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I make an exception for ear buds, because the utility of being able to stand up, and walk around with my hands free and unencumbered by a tether while on a call, is just so great. It helps that Air Pods are among the best implementation there is, but even they are not perfect. I had to disable automatic device switching or they would occasionally get confused and drop the connection to the current device.

i just thread the wire under my shirt, it's pretty similar and you can take the earbuds off and they just hang there

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.

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

#89

Post by blibble »

systemvoltage wrote: post #66
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. T…

vendor id is 16-bit so should be enough for 65535 of them

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

#90

Post by navbaker »

simonh wrote: post #52
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 make an exception for ear buds, because the utility of being able to stand up, and walk around with my hands free and unencumbered by a tether while on a call, is just so great. It helps that Air Pods are among the best implementation there is, but even they are not perfect. I had to disable automatic device switching or they would occasionally get confused and drop the connection to the current device.

I actually have to use wired ear buds with my gaming laptop since I found wireless interferes with also using a wireless Xbox controller.
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