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Bluetooth 5 will quadruple the range, double the speed

engadget.com

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Re: Bluetooth 5 will quadruple the range, double the speed

#121

Post by Normal_gaussian »

_puk wrote: post #116
icebraining wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why send audio wirelessly when the tech to play it is as small as the receiver? Because you might want to stream audio from the Internet, or you don't want to waste time converting newer audio formats to MP3 and then copying them over, or you'd rather not have cables around you when you work out, or you might want to track what you've listen (particularly useful for audiobooks and long podcasts), etc. Yes, these are…

So you'd be happy with a Chromecast Audio receiver built into a set of headphones?

Bluetooth headphones tend to have device volume control, play, pause, and skip. Many also have microphones and also allow to to take and make calls.

Re: Bluetooth 5 will quadruple the range, double the speed

#122

Post by Gibbon1 »

kalleboo wrote: post #9
williadc wrote: post #2

John Gruber from Daring Fireball has already written his review: > “Next year it will work great” should be Bluetooth’s slogan. http://daringfireball.net/linked/2016/06/10/bluetooth-5

Isn't this a problem with anything wireless in general? WiFi is also plagued with connection issues, inexplicable dropouts, and slowdowns. With Bluetooth in particular it seems like there are a lot of poor implementations (if it's rock solid or buggy seems to have to do with which two devices you're using ) - maybe they would benefit from a more stringent conformity licensing process.

I think there are two problems, one yes wireless is 'bad' You can think.

1. Reliable 2. Cheap 3. Low power

Pick no more than two. Bluetooth was originally designed to be cheap and low power.

The other problem is networking is complicated, and then throwing device API's on top of that makes it very hard to get right. USB had lots of issues originally. And once you leave standard devices like, keyboards, mice, and mass storage devices it gets iffy real quick. (Go scan through the libUSB mailing list archives sometime)

Re: Bluetooth 5 will quadruple the range, double the speed

#123

Post by thinkMOAR »

honkhonkpants wrote: post #10
modeless wrote: post #4

I don't need more range or more speed. I need it to reliably connect and stay connected while devices are well within range of each other, and stop breaking every time I upgrade anything. Unfortunately that would require making it less complex, which is about as likely as a broken egg spontaneously reassembling.

As a matter of fact "more range" is quite the opposite of what I want from Bluetooth. Do I really need to have 5000 keyboards within range of my computer at the office, instead of the 100 I already have? I definitely do not.

Depends on your goal :) if you want to listen in on 5000 different keyboards, then the range extension is quite welcome.

Though personally i don't either.

Re: Bluetooth 5 will quadruple the range, double the speed

#124

Post by digi_owl »

aphextron wrote: post #40
modeless wrote: post #4

I don't need more range or more speed. I need it to reliably connect and stay connected while devices are well within range of each other, and stop breaking every time I upgrade anything. Unfortunately that would require making it less complex, which is about as likely as a broken egg spontaneously reassembling.

> Unfortunately that would require making it less complex, which is about as likely as a broken egg spontaneously reassembling. This is such a great analogy on so many levels. The natural tendency of software projects to exhibit the effects of entropy.

Best i can tell, its because humans prefer adding stuff to maintaining stuff. So things end up sprawling over time...

Re: Bluetooth 5 will quadruple the range, double the speed

#125

Post by coldtea »

BinaryIdiot wrote: post #72
the_watcher wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Headphones are the big benefactor here, for me at least. I can walk to the kitchen with my wireless headphones.

The problem though is the Sun will negatively affect Bluetooth range. If you're inside it's great and you can go into multiple rooms depending on the materials / wall thickness between you and the device. Once you go outside on a sunny day if the phone isn't directly in the line-of-sight (and even then) you'll get constant disconnects. Using multiple headsets / headphones and phones (including iPhone and multiple And…

>Once you go outside on a sunny day if the phone isn't directly in the line-of-sight (and even then) you'll get constant disconnects. Using multiple headsets / headphones and phones (including iPhone and multiple Androids) and I have yet to have one that DIDN'T do this.

Well, I've used wireless keyboards (Apple compact) and wireless headphones (Parrot Zik 2.0), and had zero disconnects under the hottest of Suns in several different countries.

What do you mean "line of sight"? How far were you? Was it behind some wall or something? With the iPad/phone on my pocket/bag I never had any issue.

Re: Bluetooth 5 will quadruple the range, double the speed

#126

Post by dspillett »

modeless wrote: post #4

I don't need more range or more speed. I need it to reliably connect and stay connected while devices are well within range of each other, and stop breaking every time I upgrade anything. Unfortunately that would require making it less complex, which is about as likely as a broken egg spontaneously reassembling.

> I don't need more range ... I need it to reliably connect and stay connected while devices are well within range

You might need more range.

I have connectivity problems (short drop-outs) with a little BT receiver I use with the bone-conduction headphones (not BT themselves) I use when running if I have the receiver clipped to my shorts on the side opposite the arm I have the phone arm-band on but not if it is clipped to the other side or higher up.

The problem presumably is that the 10m range is an "up to" figure achieved in ideal conditions and having my body between the two devices is not ideal conditions.

Of course if the interference is of the "no signal at all is going to get through the noise floor" variety then increasing the range (presumably by increasing power output?) isn't going to help.

Re: Bluetooth 5 will quadruple the range, double the speed

#127

Post by Figs »

TD-Linux wrote: post #77
r0m4n0 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree, I look forward to the day I can leave my iPhone in a gym locker and work out with just headphones

I'd highly recommend getting a tiny mp3 player (say Clip Zip, though they are now discontinued...) and a short light headphone cable. Why send audio wirelessly when the tech to play it is as small as the receiver? There are also headphones with built in players, I don't know how the quality of those is though.

Because cables get caught on things, tangled up, and are just generally annoying to deal with on your person.

Re: Bluetooth 5 will quadruple the range, double the speed

#128

Post by kabdib »

Gibbon1 wrote: post #81
kabdib wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

BT seems over-complicated, especially considering that it's quite often low-level (I really mean that organizationally) firmware engineers working on products that won't be updated after they ship. Given the types of products that are made with BT support, the hostile environments that they're developed within, and the common after-sales abandonment of support, BT should be a simpler protocol that is a LOT more resil…

Fifteen years ago, looking at the Bluetooth spec my impression was the best way to implement it would have been to send the designers to the Siberia and then start over. The two issues I saw were Bluetooth is based on a frequency hopping radio using a dated low performance modulation scheme. The only nice thing you could say is potentially you can build really low power radio's using that design. However that brings…

The USB emulation thing is interesting. Unfortunately, most USB implementations are disasters, too.

Don't get me started on security. BT is probably a festering pit of remote exploits and vendor backdoors.

Re: Bluetooth 5 will quadruple the range, double the speed

#129

Post by bengale »

jacobolus wrote: post #76
micheljansen wrote: post #69

That's nice, but the biggest UX problem with Bluetooth is still the pairing misery. It's 2016 and it's still nearly impossible to use any one Bluetooth device with multiple other devices. Try switching a Bluetooth headset from an iPhone to a Mac or convincing your car to switch from one phone to another. It's a huge mess and its not just a matter of the technology not working as designed. These are fundamental proble…

Apple’s stylus has a pretty effective and reliable pairing method: just briefly plug it into the tablet. Too bad this method can’t be more generally used.

Im expecting the new beats to have something similar to this, or at least NFC if not.

Re: Bluetooth 5 will quadruple the range, double the speed

#130

Post by tgb »

hanney wrote: post #96
sdl wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So true. At first I couldn't believe it, but it is IMPOSSIBLE to completely remove a paired bluetooth device from windows. After having connected my wireless keyboard to my mac for a day, I tried to reconnect it to windows. It fails silently and doesn't show up any more in available bluetooth devices. The connection to my mac obviously changed the pairing code, while windows still tries the old one. I googled for hou…

I went the 'new keyboard' route when I needed to repair my Logitech K811 - I now have two keyboards on my desk, one for the mac, the other for the PC.. Absolutely ridiculous, but saved me wasting a day of installation (and inevitably having to re-pair the K811 in the future)

Doesn't the K811 have built-in functionality for changing it's bluetooth pairing by a button press? Does that fail to work or were you just disappointed in its build quality?
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