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Bluetooth keystroke-injection in Android, Linux, macOS and iOS

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Re: Bluetooth keystroke-injection in Android, Linux, macOS and iOS

#231

Post by beebeepka »

acdha wrote: post #218
beebeepka wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty sure you have forgotten or never experienced the awful bt devices from 15 years ago. Or maybe latency is not a big issue for you.

Latency is something I notice, but having used Bluetooth since it first came out, 500+ms is either a very noisy radio environment or defective hardware. It’s freakishly outside of normal for the technology - if you were seeing 5ms, maybe 10ms, that’d be within expectations but not even 50ms.

Clearly even modern devices are nowhere near 5ms but hey, let's just agree your perception is more forgiving.

Re: Bluetooth keystroke-injection in Android, Linux, macOS and iOS

#232

Post by shzhdbi09gv8ioi »

aYsY4dDQ2NrcNzA wrote: post #82
shzhdbi09gv8ioi wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My cats insist on sleeping on the desk, so wireless keyboard & mouse is a must for me so I can navigate around cats. They all is USB-C charged so I use a single charger cable for macbook, gaming controller, keyboard and mouse.

Which is how a cat chose your username. I know how that feels.

true story

Re: Bluetooth keystroke-injection in Android, Linux, macOS and iOS

#233

Post by strogonoff »

stavros wrote: post #90
strogonoff wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A laptop by default is not suitable for working any substantial length of time due to the fixed coupling between its screen and keyboard. Separating them—so that you can relax while keeping your screen roughly at your eye level and at comfortable distance, and your elbows bent at comfortable 90 degrees (or more)—gets you 80% there in terms of ergonomics. You could carry around a portable display, but that might be a…

I find the notion that wires are less reliable than wireless extremely contrary to my own experience.

I would not argue that wired is more reliable in terms of connection. It’s just that if you’re working at a laptop then connection reliability competes with wear and tear, ergonomics, and outlier scenarios like “trip on a cable and brick your work machine” (e.g., by spilling coffee or dropping it). In case of a desktop, connection reliability only competes with ergonomics, and to a much lesser extent—I can see myself using a wired keyboard at a desktop, perhaps even a split one (and that’s an additional wire).

Anecdotally, I don’t tend to run into connection issues with wireless keyboards—I do with wireless mice, however.

Re: Bluetooth keystroke-injection in Android, Linux, macOS and iOS

#234

Post by stavros »

strogonoff wrote: post #233
stavros wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find the notion that wires are less reliable than wireless extremely contrary to my own experience.

I would not argue that wired is more reliable in terms of connection. It’s just that if you’re working at a laptop then connection reliability competes with wear and tear, ergonomics, and outlier scenarios like “trip on a cable and brick your work machine” (e.g., by spilling coffee or dropping it). In case of a desktop, connection reliability only competes with ergonomics, and to a much lesser extent—I can see myself…

Hm, yeah, laptops are a bit difficult ergonomically. For me, just the hassle of "this is misbehaving again, is it the battery or interference?" is enough to prefer wired everything, but I get your point about wear and tear.

Luckily, in USB-C, the springy bit is in the cable, so that's where the wear and tear is. If it stops working, the cable is generally easy to replace.

Re: Bluetooth keystroke-injection in Android, Linux, macOS and iOS

#235

Post by strogonoff »

stavros wrote: post #132
jtc331 wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s not what the parent said. The wired connection itself is better, but it has the tradeoff of physical wear and tear and ports that break.

Right, but I count both as reliability, and while I've had wireless connections be flaky tons of times, I haven't had a physical port break yet.

Either you mean a desktop machine, or I envy you. Every one of my laptops had developed issues with physical I/O (be it ports, keyboard, trackpad). The one I especially hate is flaky USB ports that make external HDD spontaneously disconnect while being heavily used, like copying many files over (and it’s not a power issue as it happened both while laptop is powered and with HDDs that have their own dedicated power).

Re: Bluetooth keystroke-injection in Android, Linux, macOS and iOS

#236

Post by stavros »

strogonoff wrote: post #235
stavros wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, but I count both as reliability, and while I've had wireless connections be flaky tons of times, I haven't had a physical port break yet.

Either you mean a desktop machine, or I envy you. Every one of my laptops had developed issues with physical I/O (be it ports, keyboard, trackpad). The one I especially hate is flaky USB ports that make external HDD spontaneously disconnect while being heavily used, like copying many files over (and it’s not a power issue as it happened both while laptop is powered and with HDDs that have their own dedicated power).

Ah, I use a Framework, so if (when?) a physical port goes bad, I can just replace it for $10 or whatnot. I've never had issues like you mention, though.

The most flaky removable thing I've encountered is microSD cards, and I don't know if it's the card or the reader, but they tend to only work half the time. I even check them for authenticity of space, so I don't know why they're so flaky.

Re: Bluetooth keystroke-injection in Android, Linux, macOS and iOS

#237

Post by strogonoff »

stavros wrote: post #234
strogonoff wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would not argue that wired is more reliable in terms of connection. It’s just that if you’re working at a laptop then connection reliability competes with wear and tear, ergonomics, and outlier scenarios like “trip on a cable and brick your work machine” (e.g., by spilling coffee or dropping it). In case of a desktop, connection reliability only competes with ergonomics, and to a much lesser extent—I can see myself…

Hm, yeah, laptops are a bit difficult ergonomically. For me, just the hassle of "this is misbehaving again, is it the battery or interference?" is enough to prefer wired everything, but I get your point about wear and tear. Luckily, in USB-C, the springy bit is in the cable, so that's where the wear and tear is. If it stops working, the cable is generally easy to replace.

I’ve had many similar issues with ports, to be honest. Just recently had to get the I/O board swapped on an M1 MBP—one day it decided that one of the USB ports wouldn’t connect 80% of the time. It was relatively inexpensive to do officially even without the warranty (around US$60 all in all), and took just a couple of days, to be fair.

Re: Bluetooth keystroke-injection in Android, Linux, macOS and iOS

#238

Post by stavros »

strogonoff wrote: post #237
stavros wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hm, yeah, laptops are a bit difficult ergonomically. For me, just the hassle of "this is misbehaving again, is it the battery or interference?" is enough to prefer wired everything, but I get your point about wear and tear. Luckily, in USB-C, the springy bit is in the cable, so that's where the wear and tear is. If it stops working, the cable is generally easy to replace.

I’ve had many similar issues with ports, to be honest. Just recently had to get the I/O board swapped on an M1 MBP—one day it decided that one of the USB ports wouldn’t connect 80% of the time. It was relatively inexpensive to do officially even without the warranty (around US$60 all in all), and took just a couple of days, to be fair.

Huh, maybe I'm an outlier. Maybe it's the way you remove your connectors? Some people tend to wiggle them side-to-side, I touch the chassis with my thumb and index finger around the USB, and kind of roll my fingers so they put pressure against the chassis. That leads to the removing force vector pointing strictly straight out of the connector, and I've never had a problem with any port.

Re: Bluetooth keystroke-injection in Android, Linux, macOS and iOS

#239

Post by strogonoff »

stavros wrote: post #236
strogonoff wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Either you mean a desktop machine, or I envy you. Every one of my laptops had developed issues with physical I/O (be it ports, keyboard, trackpad). The one I especially hate is flaky USB ports that make external HDD spontaneously disconnect while being heavily used, like copying many files over (and it’s not a power issue as it happened both while laptop is powered and with HDDs that have their own dedicated power).

Ah, I use a Framework, so if (when?) a physical port goes bad, I can just replace it for $10 or whatnot. I've never had issues like you mention, though. The most flaky removable thing I've encountered is microSD cards, and I don't know if it's the card or the reader, but they tend to only work half the time. I even check them for authenticity of space, so I don't know why they're so flaky.

My previous laptop had indeed its SD slot borked at some point (part of why I don’t care that my new laptop lacks it—I would just not expect it to work reliably, so why have another dust collection point). My first laptop’s keyboard had very occasionally working keys in the middle (I blame my pianist fingers bashing them too hard)—I count that as physical I/O, though not a port issue.

Is it easy to source replacement I/O boards for Framework?

Re: Bluetooth keystroke-injection in Android, Linux, macOS and iOS

#240

Post by stavros »

strogonoff wrote: post #239
stavros wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, I use a Framework, so if (when?) a physical port goes bad, I can just replace it for $10 or whatnot. I've never had issues like you mention, though. The most flaky removable thing I've encountered is microSD cards, and I don't know if it's the card or the reader, but they tend to only work half the time. I even check them for authenticity of space, so I don't know why they're so flaky.

My previous laptop had indeed its SD slot borked at some point (part of why I don’t care that my new laptop lacks it—I would just not expect it to work reliably, so why have another dust collection point). My first laptop’s keyboard had very occasionally working keys in the middle (I blame my pianist fingers bashing them too hard)—I count that as physical I/O, though not a port issue. Is it easy to source replacement…

Yes, but wireless wouldn't have saved you with the latter.
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