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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?

#91

Post by jaywalk »

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…

20ms to your router? That's horrendous.

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

#92

Post by PeterisP »

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…

> Surely the vast majority of BT complexity in a modern stack is in the software?

Depends on what you call software - of course it's code, but pretty much all of the complexity of the stack is in firmware code of the BT chip, not in software running on your main OS/CPU.

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

#93

Post by abhaynayar »

ecliptik wrote: post #69
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/

> aughts

Nice, never knew what to call that decade before.

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

#94

Post by tpmx »

PeterisP wrote: post #92
tpmx wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Surely the vast majority of BT complexity in a modern stack is in the software? Depends on what you call software - of course it's code, but pretty much all of the complexity of the stack is in firmware code of the BT chip, not in software running on your main OS/CPU.

Is this still the basic division of work?

https://hearinghealthmatters.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/9/...

Bottom layers beneath the HCI layer divider in HW, layers above software running in the "BT firmware chip" (I'm going to guess ARM-based)?

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

#95

Post by systemvoltage »

blibble wrote: post #89
systemvoltage wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Yea a bunch of these are reserved. I remember jumping through the whole process when we were designing a usb device.

To counter my own point, it takes money and people to run a standards committee and it is important to keep in mind that funding has to come from somewhere. Here are more details of what it takes to run one: https://stackoverflow.com/a/22968431/3908009

IMO they should either be funded by gov or by large companies.

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

#96

Post by themanmaran »

fallingfrog wrote: post #42

Yeah, the bluetooth in my car is so hopelessly pathological that I always turn off the bluetooth in my phone and turn the internal phone speakers up if I want to use the maps app. If I don't, first it will immediately pick some song at random on my phone and play it at full volume without my asking. If the radio is turned off, it will still connect to the phone, which disables the phone speakers, but then it will not…

Car bluetooth is a whole different world of terrible software. I wish there was a standardized interface that car manufacturers would use, rather than hand-rolling their own.

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

#98

Post by bornfreddy »

noir_lord wrote: post #5
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…

> 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 agree 99% - the exception being the mouse. Since it is meant to be moved around, any obstacle (such as cable) really changes how it handles. I didn't believe it until I went to wireless and then (for a short time) back.

Otherwise agree for keyboard, network, headphones,... Wires work.

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

#99

Post by natch »

wvenable wrote: post #65
natch wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

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.

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

#100

Post by spicybright »

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…

Granted, I know very little about this, but I wonder if you could wipe the slate above the link layer for a "new protocol".

Devices all have bluetooth chips already, which is probably the hardest part of adoption.

Then you can define a new system on top, and even swap out the bottom if this new "red tooth" catches on.

Ofc you still have a massive uphill battle, particularly getting manufacturers to agree to a more sane spec than what we have currently (which I wouldn't hold my breath on, that's for sure)

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