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AirPods get stuck in low-quality 16 kHz audio mode when starting a VM

jeffgeerling.com

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Re: AirPods get stuck in low-quality 16 kHz audio mode when starting a VM

#91

Post by ddingus »

geerlingguy wrote: post #68
ddingus wrote: post #33

Headphone jack? Honestly I just hate Bluetooth. I've had it work really well. Been completely pleased. But I've also seen a never-ending raft of this crap. I just don't want to bother. I'll take the wire thanks

I prefer wires in almost every situation (just upgraded to a 16 port switch because I have enough wired devices in the house for it now), especially for audio... but in this case I’m in meetings a lot, I listen to songs sometimes in between, and I move around my office quite a bit. I struggled with a decent USB headset for a while, but after five or so times almost breaking my computer from moving my arm and catching…

Yeah. I have some bluetooth gear. I so very rarely use it, but like you, there are times, right?

I just do not expect much. If it pairs and does anything, cool. Get it done, ditch it quick. When it works well? Total fucking bonus!

I have that gear due to a couple well meant gifts. Like most things, it goes in my road bag. I have a very wide variety of bits in there accumulated over 20 some years. Can handle a ton of odd scenarios. Built it up one fucked scenario at a time. (Like a lot of us probably have)

Edit: New venture, and it is more service related. I am building up a new bag. Lots of new tools instead of bits of tech. Fun!

Every time I go to trim the fat, something comes up. Last time it was some poor tech, early in his career setting up the demo from hell for a trade show. They stuck the guy with some low grade monitor. The combination of the product graphics sub system, it's OS and that screen just would not play well with digital video, which he was equipped for.

Tech support told him analog VGA... the look on his face was hilarious! He thought he was doomed. I went to my room, got the cable and gave it to him.

"WTF?"

I said, "this is how it starts brother, good luck, and keep the cable."

(Yeah, I did replace that one. It is not over yet where analog video is concerned. Soon though. Soon, I keep saying...)

That road bag goes to shows and other engagements where who knows? Worth carrying it.

A lighter version exists in my back pack. Mostly adapters, other bits. Lean and mean. I am mobile enough to warrant some kit or other.

Blutooth has saved my ass a few times. Both kits have a couple basic Blutooth devices, and some USB ones too.

To me, it is like that VGA cable, or odd gender changer, or dongle, USB device, world power brick with tips, etc. An option, and sometimes a welcome one, but not a daily driver.

My dailies are super simple, very robust, ultra low hassle. I just do not have the time and energy. Save that for the tough gigs.

Re: AirPods get stuck in low-quality 16 kHz audio mode when starting a VM

#92

Post by cptskippy »

pfranz wrote: post #74
csours wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Guess what the number one car infotainment complaint is... I don't have a public source, but for some vehicles bluetooth problems are the number one complain OVERALL.

I wouldn't be surprised, but my frustration is a poor implementation or unintuitive implementation. Quite a few cars go into USB-mode as soon as you attach a phone--almost 100% of the time they just want to charge their phone and already have things set up via Bluetooth or the radio. iPhones won't let you play through the phone if you have an attached audio device. Some cars seem to be able to do album art and track…

> I'm constantly surprised by how terrible it is even in high price ranges.

Car makers don't really care. They want features on a list to check off and don't care how well they work. You can't return. The car easily after a month of frustration and realization that the car is the problem not you or your phone trying to interface with them.

Re: AirPods get stuck in low-quality 16 kHz audio mode when starting a VM

#93

Post by hombre_fatal »

shadowoflight wrote: post #77
hombre_fatal wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's also the problem of wireless tech UX being difficult in general. For example, people want the experience of turning on their devices and auto-pairing with their other devices. But headphones, for example, don't have much of a UI to manage this. There's the hellish scenario of everyone in your car hearing the conversation you thought you were having on your back patio in private just because you walked too clo…

Couldn't NFC or some other proximity-sensing tech largely solve these issues? For instance, AirPods will offer to pair with a new iPhone when they're within some fairly short range (I think around 5ft, but I don't know the specific distance) - theoretically, car stereos (and a slew of other devices, for that matter) could use a similar approach, possibly combined with NFC for pairing-on-contact.

That may very well be a good approach, though another technology has been roped into the mix.

And there's also the case where I indeed do want my headphones to pair with my iPhone that's 15m away in another room instead of the Macbook in front of me. And not my car that my girlfriend just started on the driveway 10m away. And I want to manage this from my headphones which only has two buttons and some multi-tap gestures.

The trade-offs get complex. Also, your tether idea is still something implemented per device rather than something Bluetooth as a technology can solve with some simple tweak.

Re: AirPods get stuck in low-quality 16 kHz audio mode when starting a VM

#94

Post by voltagex_ »

pfranz wrote: post #74
csours wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Guess what the number one car infotainment complaint is... I don't have a public source, but for some vehicles bluetooth problems are the number one complain OVERALL.

I wouldn't be surprised, but my frustration is a poor implementation or unintuitive implementation. Quite a few cars go into USB-mode as soon as you attach a phone--almost 100% of the time they just want to charge their phone and already have things set up via Bluetooth or the radio. iPhones won't let you play through the phone if you have an attached audio device. Some cars seem to be able to do album art and track…

You can cut the data lines in a cable and it should solve some of the issues with unwanted behaviour.

The album art and track progress I don't really care about (eyes on the road!) but via Bluetooth that's AVRCP and there's a stack of standards for people to butcher there, too.

Re: AirPods get stuck in low-quality 16 kHz audio mode when starting a VM

#95

Post by saagarjha »

geerlingguy wrote: post #67
iscrewyou wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you use the play widget on the control center? That’s how I pair mine whenever they are acting iffy. Simply 3D Touch the music/play widget. Click on the little triangle on the top right and select your AirPods. That works for me 100% of the time.

Ditto. Fast and easy, never had an issue on iPhone or iPad from control center. Have only had weird issues from time to time on the Mac.

How long does it take you to pair? I use the control center widget almost exclusively and it takes a while to connect.

Re: AirPods get stuck in low-quality 16 kHz audio mode when starting a VM

#96

Post by voltagex_ »

cptskippy wrote: post #92
pfranz wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't be surprised, but my frustration is a poor implementation or unintuitive implementation. Quite a few cars go into USB-mode as soon as you attach a phone--almost 100% of the time they just want to charge their phone and already have things set up via Bluetooth or the radio. iPhones won't let you play through the phone if you have an attached audio device. Some cars seem to be able to do album art and track…

> I'm constantly surprised by how terrible it is even in high price ranges. Car makers don't really care. They want features on a list to check off and don't care how well they work. You can't return. The car easily after a month of frustration and realization that the car is the problem not you or your phone trying to interface with them.

Two things:

* It's probably not anyone's job to make it better [1]

* They're probably just buying the IVI module from someone else and slapping some logos on it. [2]

1: I'm misremembering or can't find a talk by Seth Godin along the lines of "everything sucks because it's no one's specific job to make it better"

2: https://www.genivi.org/compliant-products

Re: AirPods get stuck in low-quality 16 kHz audio mode when starting a VM

#97

Post by voltagex_ »

dmitrygr wrote: post #43
darawk wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious, to people here who are technically familiar with the standard, do you think this complexity is justified, or is it a case of an over-engineered protocol?

It has 20 years of organic growth and includes a lot of lessons learned from the initial underspecification. Lots of profiles were specified but never used (video delivery, over bluetooth, anyone?). Many were not fully thought through and had to be revised (often in nasty ways to remain backwards-compatible). Sadly backwards compatibility makes it worse and worse every year. If you go and write a stack that complies…

Are you able to tell me if the codec situation (for A2DP) is as big a mess as it seems? One manufacturer is flat out lying about apt-X support, but it seems that if you want to support it you need DRM everywhere and hefty payments.

Re: AirPods get stuck in low-quality 16 kHz audio mode when starting a VM

#98

Post by _asummers »

hombre_fatal wrote: post #93
shadowoflight wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Couldn't NFC or some other proximity-sensing tech largely solve these issues? For instance, AirPods will offer to pair with a new iPhone when they're within some fairly short range (I think around 5ft, but I don't know the specific distance) - theoretically, car stereos (and a slew of other devices, for that matter) could use a similar approach, possibly combined with NFC for pairing-on-contact.

That may very well be a good approach, though another technology has been roped into the mix. And there's also the case where I indeed do want my headphones to pair with my iPhone that's 15m away in another room instead of the Macbook in front of me. And not my car that my girlfriend just started on the driveway 10m away. And I want to manage this from my headphones which only has two buttons and some multi-tap gestu…

In the presence of conflicts, the phone could prompt the user for audio source, then persist it in software until the next time they have a new conflict. It really seems to be an issue when you go from no streaming audio to streaming audio, from the UX perspective, so that should minimize the number of times that prompt appears. Could also solve it by the same way we solve SSID preferences: a static list of paired devices with priority orders and an accessible menu to select a specific one, and then persist that until you change your streaming state again.

Re: AirPods get stuck in low-quality 16 kHz audio mode when starting a VM

#99

Post by voltagex_ »

tedunangst wrote: post #69
Rjevski wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vagrant is using VirtualBox under the hood, and presumably the default VB config is to let the VM use two-way audio, so it preemptively opens both the output and mic channel in case the VM needs it.

I have so many questions, but will not ask them because I don't think I'll like the answers.

THe answer is better defaults. Raise a bug report.

Re: AirPods get stuck in low-quality 16 kHz audio mode when starting a VM

#100

Post by _asummers »

userbinator wrote: post #19

I have tried to read the BlueTooth specs a few times, never really getting anywhere, and am amazed that it all (mostly) works given the immense complexity in those standards[1]. Thus I'm not surprised that bugs like this can occur. [1] The BT5 core spec is freely downloadable. It is a 25MB PDF with over 2800 pages. That's just the core, there are other specifications that layer on top of it.

https://github.com/torvalds/linux/tree/master/drivers/blueto...

The Linux source for it is even less approachable.

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