Can't wait for nearby ads[1] to hit me from a far larger distance in the future.
Bluetooth 5 will quadruple the range, double the speed
131–140 of 250 posts
Re: Bluetooth 5 will quadruple the range, double the speed
#132You know there's a problem when a majority of the comments (on a website filled with software engineers and other technologically inclined people) are all claiming that Bluetooth simply sucks in terms of usability. Imagine how hard it would be for someone like my parents to debug a Bluetooth pairing issue.
I think they need to focus 100% of their efforts on addressing some of these issues which seem to have been a problem since the beginning.
Bluetooth is “almost there” in my opinion. It’s incredibly convenient (when it works), and I can envision how great it will be once they work all the kinks out. It has been getting better and I’m confident it will keep improving.
Let me just add another data point:
I have a 2013 Android phone and a 2011 car. Luckily, the car supports playing audio through Bluetooth which is really cool when it works. However, every time I get into the car, there’s a 50/50 chance that BT audio will actually work. The phone always pairs with the car, but it seems like it doesn’t reliably “negotiate” the audio capability. Sometimes I can make a phone call which seems to reset the system and can cause it to start working, but other times I have to actually power cycle the phone.
The other issue is that every once-in-a-while, there will be this spontaneous audible crackle. After the initial crackle occurs, there will be periodic crackles about once every 10 seconds from there on out. The only way to get it out of this state is to make a call or restart the phone. It seems almost like there’s some kind of memory leak in a buffer or something which causes it to eventually run dry and bounce off of being empty.
These issues seem more software related and probably have nothing to do with the Bluetooth standard itself, but I won’t let that stop me from ranting.
Re: Bluetooth 5 will quadruple the range, double the speed
#133Here is a device I would pay for:
A USB dongle that somehow pairs to my Apple Keyboard and Touchpad and presents itself as a standard USB keyboard and mouse to the OS.
I could plug said device to my cinema display's USB hub. This way both me and my wife could use the same workstation by simply plugging in the computer.
Re: Bluetooth 5 will quadruple the range, double the speed
#134That'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.
Even with the Apple pencil, the pairing reliability is not great. Every time I disable Bluetooth on my iPad, I have to re-pair.
I'm surprised they didn't use some custom protocol, especially given how bad Bluetooth is, and they control the entire software and hardware stack.
Re: Bluetooth 5 will quadruple the range, double the speed
#135Maybe I'm living in the past and haven't been informed, but is Bluetooth still unsecure?
Bluetooth 4.0 and 4.1 had a broken key exchange that was vulnerable to both passive and active attacks [1]. This could be remedied by a custom in-band or out-of-band key exchange, but I think it was rare for device manufacturers to go to those lengths. The key exchange vulnerability was addressed in Bluetooth 4.2, which implements ECDH and is at least theoretically secure. [2] [1] https://www.usenix.org/conference/wo…
Except... that pairing in Bluetooth 4.2 is still broken. And they apparently even used an algorithm from Bluetooth 2 that was known to be broken.
https://pomcor.com/2015/06/03/has-bluetooth-become-secure/
Basically Passkey Entry is broken so eavesdroppers can trivially learn the PIN. You must use a dynamic PIN (not always possible).
Oh and if you're thinking you can implement your own pairing method that is actually secure, via the Out-of-Band method, think again! Neither Android nor iOS support it.
Re: Bluetooth 5 will quadruple the range, double the speed
#136Forgive my ignorance, but how come the range is affected by the protocol? Wouldn't it be the aerial?
It could be new modulation techniques. You can often transmit further if you lower your data rate.
Re: Bluetooth 5 will quadruple the range, double the speed
#137That'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…
I couldn't agree more. I have a set of headphones that I love using with my phone and several computers. It's such an annoyance to connect it from one to the other and it doesn't appear that ANYONE is even working on making this better anymore. There was that brief period where some bluetooth devices included NFC where you could take it to the device to pair which was actually interesting but it only happened to such…
I bought an August EP650 Bluetooth headset recently that has NFC pairing. The problem is that my phone is the only other device I own that also supports it.
Re: Bluetooth 5 will quadruple the range, double the speed
#138For those who have given up on Engadget (I can't be the only one): http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/06/bluetooth-5-spec-comi...
What's wrong with Engadget?
It's 80% clickbaity bullshit and 20% mediocre gadget reviews. Long gone are the days when Engadget was a relevant source of tech journalism. On a tangentially related note, does anyone remember Engadget's apple-only sister site TUAW? That was a great outlet for a good long while until Engadget started to shit the bed a couple years ago.
Re: Bluetooth 5 will quadruple the range, double the speed
#139That'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…
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 with an HP wireless elite keyboard and mouse with it's proprietary plug. I plug that into a usb switcher and then plug the switcher into my mac and windows machines.
I get sooooo tired of Windows either remember old stuff or forgetting new stuff. It is such a kludge of an OS.
Re: Bluetooth 5 will quadruple the range, double the speed
#140I could not care less.
- 1.0 to 1.2: Hard to pair, and very unreliable. First major version, I'm sure they'll fix it...
- 2.0: More bandwidth. Still hard to pair, still unreliable.
- 2.1: Adds "Simple Secure Pairing". Still hard to actually pair. Still unreliable.
- 3.0: More bandwidth. More features. Still hard to pair, still unreliable.
- 4.0: Bluetooth Low Energy released. Still hard to pair, still unreliable.
- 4.1: More features. Still hard to pair, still unreliable.
- 4.2: More features. Still hard to pair, still unreliable.
- 5.0: More range, more bandwidth. Still hard to pair, still unreliable.
I have the latest Apple "Magic" Trackpad, hooked up to a Mac Pro. At least once a day, latency will take a dive, or it will completely disconnect. I have to turn the trackpad on and off repeatedly, to see if it will finally re-pair by itself. No other recourse, you can't easily access bluetooth settings on a mac with only a keyboard. (Which I made sure to get with a USB plug, since my last bluetooth keyboard had the same issues.)
I also have a Samsung Level BT headset, paired with a Samsung Note 5 phone. I can listen to Google Music or Player.fm for between 1 and 10 minutes until the headset will suddenly blast noise at full volume, and become unresponsive until I turn it off and back on again. Left my ears ringing on more than one occasion.
I've replaced my "magic" keyboard with a USB one, and recently hooked the trackpad back up via USB. I've stopped using the Samsung Level and went back to an old pair of headphones with a 3.5mm plug (that Apple is now trying to get rid of.)
I had a past without wires. I am moving to a future with them.