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Logitech MX Products are incompatible with AirPods

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Re: Logitech MX Products are incompatible with AirPods

#91

Post by danachow »

pinky1417 wrote: post #84

What fortuitous timing to see this post. I bought an MX Master 3 for Mac mouse for my Silicon Mac Mini about a year and a half ago but quickly shelved it because the cursor would frequently make irritating little jumps. I replaced it with an Apple Magic Touchpad (I don't love the Magic Mouse) because, at least at the time, I was under the impression that the jumpiness was due to a OS-level bug affecting all non-Apple…

> specifically, part 15 of the FCC rules: "this device may not cause harmful interference".

I think you misunderstand what harmful interference means - it has a specific regulatory meaning - and the fact that it causes you grief with your other Part 15 devices doesn’t apply. If that were the case the FCC would be spending all their time just dealing with everyone’s shitty stereo equipment not working.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/47/2.1

> but I wonder if I can spot some unexpected RF emissions.

I highly doubt it - this stuff was already certified. On the other hand it’s not surprising that devices physically near running in the same frequency band will have some undesired operation - this is why safety critical communications don’t operate in an unlicensed band. Spread spectrum isn’t completely magic (as an EE I’m still sometimes amazed any of this shit works at all) —- or maybe I should say it is magic but it still has to come to terms with physical realities.

Re: Logitech MX Products are incompatible with AirPods

#92

Post by upofadown »

pinky1417 wrote: post #84

What fortuitous timing to see this post. I bought an MX Master 3 for Mac mouse for my Silicon Mac Mini about a year and a half ago but quickly shelved it because the cursor would frequently make irritating little jumps. I replaced it with an Apple Magic Touchpad (I don't love the Magic Mouse) because, at least at the time, I was under the impression that the jumpiness was due to a OS-level bug affecting all non-Apple…

>part 15 of the FCC rules

That means that the device can not cause interference to a higher priority service. All the devices are at the same priority.

It also means that the FCC doesn't have to care...

Re: Logitech MX Products are incompatible with AirPods

#93

Post by jamesboehmer »

LeoPanthera wrote: post #3

To summarize: If you use a Logitech bluetooth device, it creates enough interference that high-bandwidth products like the Airpods will not function correctly. If you switch the Logitech device to use their "unifying" adapter, which doesn't use bluetooth but a different proprietary wireless protocol, the problem goes away. Logitech acknowledged the problem about six months ago but thus far have deflected any further…

I found that I also had terrible problems when using any bluetooth headset in voice mode on zoom calls along with MX keys. The entire computer would stutter, keys would lag, the mouse would lag, and I'd sound like a robot on calls. The headset would also get stuck in voice mode after calls, and I'd have to forcibly restart bluetoothaudiod.

The unifying receiver is unusable through a hub or connected monitor, and I don't have enough USB-A ports on the dongle to keep the unifying receiver connected all the time.

Switched to an apple keyboard, and never experienced the problem with the MX mouse connected.

Re: Logitech MX Products are incompatible with AirPods

#94

Post by chipotle_coyote »

SECProto wrote: post #36
LeoPanthera wrote: post #3

To summarize: If you use a Logitech bluetooth device, it creates enough interference that high-bandwidth products like the Airpods will not function correctly. If you switch the Logitech device to use their "unifying" adapter, which doesn't use bluetooth but a different proprietary wireless protocol, the problem goes away. Logitech acknowledged the problem about six months ago but thus far have deflected any further…

My favourite part about wires is that there's never interference or poor connectivity. Aux headphones, ethernet cables, wired mouse and keyboard - all so much more painless.

There are definitely some asterisks there. :)

I have a pair of desktop speakers that have both a USB input (to an onboard DAC) and an analog input; originally, I had the USB input connected to an iMac and used the analog input to plug into my work laptop. Recently, I swapped the iMac for a Mac Studio and a Studio Display, and figured that I could just unplug the Thunderbolt cable to the display from the computer and plug it into the laptop. I kept using the analog cable, though, because I wanted to keep the speakers directly plugged into the computer rather than the hub on the display, probably due to irrational audiophile-esque superstition that this would make the sound laggy or the highs less chocolaty or whatever. (More seriously, I've heard of DACs having stuttering issues when they're run through hubs, and hey, I had the cable, right.)

And the first time I plugged the analog cable into the same laptop that I'd been using, the only difference being that the Thunderbolt cable was also plugged into it, it was terrible.

Despite the audiophile joke above, I don't mean terrible in some kind of "this cable is making the sound subjectively worse" fashion, I mean terrible in a "when no sound is playing, I can hear grinding electrical noise going BZZZZZbzzzzGRRRFTTTTgrrnkFFFFNK constantly" fashion. The problem was clearly the Thunderbolt cable, even though it wasn't involved in the audio circuit at all. It's like it had turned into its own little RF interference generator. While I only had the one Thunderbolt cable so I couldn't swap it, the interference went through two different analog cables.

(This is not as weird as hearing RF interference over one specific pair of headphones from a headphone amp when nothing was playing but only when I was using a specific USB cable running to the same outboard DAC, which also happened to me years ago.)

Re: Logitech MX Products are incompatible with AirPods

#95

Post by ungamedplayer »

noirbot wrote: post #40
SECProto wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My favourite part about wires is that there's never interference or poor connectivity. Aux headphones, ethernet cables, wired mouse and keyboard - all so much more painless.

I dunno, if you haven't run into audio or video interference on a wired device, you're lucky or have quality cables. I've definitely picked up radio stations on headphones or had nearby electrical currents induce an annoying buzz in a microphone or distort a video signal.

Get a ferrite ring for your cable, solves more of these issues than you'd imagine.

Or a clip on, something like this : https://www.cablechick.com.au/cables/ferrite-core-rfi-and-em...

Re: Logitech MX Products are incompatible with AirPods

#96

Post by cjdoc29 »

deviantbit wrote: post #88
LeoPanthera wrote: post #3

To summarize: If you use a Logitech bluetooth device, it creates enough interference that high-bandwidth products like the Airpods will not function correctly. If you switch the Logitech device to use their "unifying" adapter, which doesn't use bluetooth but a different proprietary wireless protocol, the problem goes away. Logitech acknowledged the problem about six months ago but thus far have deflected any further…

I have never experienced this problem at all. I have MX Keys, MX Mouse and Airpod Pro's.

Which Mac are you using?

Re: Logitech MX Products are incompatible with AirPods

#97

Post by glowingly »

AceJohnny2 wrote: post #23

It's not just Logitech's use of bluetooth. My Airpods also caused me lose wifi connectivity on my Macbook when using 2.4Ghz wifi (802.11n to an old Buffalo WZR-HP-AG300H/WZR-600DHP running OpenWRT [1]). The issue only happened when using the airpods, and only when using the 2.4Ghz network. Switching to 5ghz solved the issue, and I've since switched to wired. I was kind of stunned that Apple's own wifi was incompatibl…

If in the US, "OpenWrt WiFi 6" options are largely the Linksys/Belkin E8450/RT3200, the TPLink EAP615 In Wall, the Unifi U6 Lite, and U6 LR. Both U6s and the Belkin/Linksys units are AX on 5GHz spectrum, and N on 2.4GHz. TPLink's EAP615 is AX on both.

Re: Logitech MX Products are incompatible with AirPods

#98

Post by ungamedplayer »

phaedrus wrote: post #68
noirbot wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dunno, if you haven't run into audio or video interference on a wired device, you're lucky or have quality cables. I've definitely picked up radio stations on headphones or had nearby electrical currents induce an annoying buzz in a microphone or distort a video signal.

Got any tips for eliminating or mitigating the interference? Recently some retiree in my area got himself a new, illegally-high-powered CB radio so he can talk to truckers from his house. It comes through on the wired headphones I wear while working from home.

If its not massively out of spec, get a ferrite ring for your cable.

Re: Logitech MX Products are incompatible with AirPods

#99

Post by cjdoc29 »

junar wrote: post #80
cjdoc29 wrote: post #26

Of all the years I've been reading HackerNews, this is the one that moved me to actually sign up. So I have three Intel-based MacBook Pros but of different model years - 2017 (15in), early-2019 (13in), and mid-2019 (16in). The mid-2019 16in MacBook Pro in combination with Logitech MX Mouse (Mac version) and AirPod Pros cause significant interference on the microphone. The result? I sound like a "robot" on Zoom calls.…

What about using a different microphone? In my experience, listeners prefer the built-in MacBook Pro microphone over the AirPods Pro microphones. Or if you have a USB microphone, you can try that as well.

Using a different microphone (Logitech Webcam) works fine. I really need to switch off the AirPods microphone to get things to work.

It's mostly fine, but I also step away from my desk. I wish I could also prioritize my microphone.

1. Webcam (if I'm at my desk, I have my webcam) 2. MacBook Pro (if I'm away from my desk, my computer is still probably within range of my MX mouse)

Re: Logitech MX Products are incompatible with AirPods

#100

Post by ungamedplayer »

technick wrote: post #83
altairprime wrote: post #5

I encourage only US owners of both the defective Logitech products and of AirPods, to write a complaint to the FCC reporting the problem as you experience it and asking the FCC to respond. https://consumercomplaints.fcc.gov/hc/en-us/requests/new (Interference; Unlicensed.)

Complaining won't do anything because each individual product has already passed thru fcc certifications. All devices operating on the 2.4 ghz band must accept interference as it's not a licensed band.

Thank you ! A lot of people mistake how this band seems to work. Its not that the device can't create interference, its that it must ACCEPT interferance.
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