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Bluetooth 5 will quadruple the range, double the speed

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

#241

Post by digi_owl »

theorique wrote: post #178
creativeembassy wrote: post #140

I 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…

In my experience, after my Bluetooth devices are paired, they seem to be rock solid. (I know - YMMV, "works on my machine", etc.) Where things have gotten the messiest for me is when you connect multiple devices and the system has to make arbitrary decisions - e.g. when my wife and I are both in the car, whose phone should the car sync with? These are design decisions for which there is no exact answer.

Logitech has a lovely solution for that on one of their more recent keyboards. A big fat knob that you rotate to pick between pairings.

https://secure.logitech.com/en-us/product/multi-device-keybo...

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

#242

Post by digi_owl »

TheSoftwareGuy wrote: post #162
rhinoceraptor wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

probably because the hardware for bluetooth stacks have gotten crazy small and efficient. I doubt even apple could recreate it without straight up acquiring a company that already can do it.

That, and there would be the need for an additional chip and antenna.

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

#243

Post by digi_owl »

lotyrin wrote: post #223
CaptSpify wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my experience, if the implementation is wrong often enough that most people think the procotol/spec are to blame, than the protocol/spec are usually too complicated.

In my experience, no standard is too simple for someone to mess up implementing.

The perfect example being USB cables that managed to get 4 wires so crossed they fried a tablet.

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

#244

Post by digi_owl »

abritinthebay wrote: post #185
cyphax wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder what strength the radios broadcast on. I do have a 2.4GHz wifi-router both downstairs and in the attic so you would expect no signal at all, given the situation. I'll admit that by this point it's extremely sensitive to spectrum pollution; a nearby laptop with wifi on will mess with it enough that it starts stuttering. My only issue with bluetooth is with Android; it semi-randomly likes to change pitch and s…

Yeah, anecdotal but every friend of mine that complains about BT does it in relation to their Android devices. I've heard a couple of complaints about Macs but they're rare. Seems the Android BT stack is just more... flaky. I wonder why...

Android 1.0 to 4.3 (iirc) used Bluez, an open source implementation related to Linux.

Come 4.4 Google partnered up with qualcomm (again iirc) to write a new stack from scratch.

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

#245

Post by digi_owl »

freehunter wrote: post #217
vhost- wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I need the range. I routinely grab my phone when I'm cooking dinner and walk to the living room causing my bluetooth speaker to make awful noises.

I am able to leave my phone in my office in the basement and walk upstairs to get a cup of coffee and stay on the call with my bluetooth headphones. Then again, if I'm biking and my phone is in my right pocket and I turn my head to the left, the audio skips. So I don't know if I can blame than on range, but there's something odd going on there.

The frequency range used, 2.4Ghz, is absorbed/blocked by water (rain, fog, leaves, wet dogs, human bodies, etc). Most mobile devices use a fairly weak transmitter both to save battery and because the distance between devices is expected to be short. On top of that, when indoors the signal may be bouncing off walls or other surfaces.

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

#246

Post by digi_owl »

cbsmith wrote: post #226
wirelessfoobar wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Phone manufacturers universally adopted Bluetooth as the standard wireless protocol for peripheral devices. Zigbee and other 802.15.4 protocols will always be at a disadvantage even for tasks the Bluetooth protocol is not suited for. Bluetooth chips are cheap and more widely supported than anything else because Bluetooth radios are manufactured at massive scale for the phone market.

The original poster was talking about scenarios with industrial devices and NOT for pairing with phones...

Bluetooth is already there, and if the same chip can be used in a phone or a button cell powered telemetry sensor, economies of scale kicks in.

And BTLE is specifically designed to work without the pairing dance.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bluetooth_low_energy

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

#247

Post by cbsmith »

digi_owl wrote: post #246
cbsmith wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The original poster was talking about scenarios with industrial devices and NOT for pairing with phones...

Bluetooth is already there, and if the same chip can be used in a phone or a button cell powered telemetry sensor, economies of scale kicks in. And BTLE is specifically designed to work without the pairing dance. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bluetooth_low_energy

> Bluetooth is already there, and if the same chip can be used in a phone or a button cell powered telemetry sensor, economies of scale

Actually, for industrial applications, it's more likely to be Zigbee that is already there, and the economies of scale will favour it over BTLE (particularly when you consider Zigbee allows thousands of devices in a network, while BTLE can't even get to double digits). There's a ton of other advantages to Zigbee for industrial applications (not the least of which is resiliency).

Maybe you want a bluetooth bridge (though WiFi is probably very tempting for that purpose), but bluetooth is bad enough at doing its own job, let alone something else.

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

#248

Post by the_watcher »

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…

I have never had an issue in the sun with my phone in my pocket. Is that considered LOS?

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

#249

Post by DevikaG »

Its really exciting to see that kind of capabilities and potential that bluetooth 5 brings to the table for IoT. However, what excited me even more is the capabilities put forward by bluetooth 5 to boost beacon adoption and location-based services. Given how Google's recent updates such as Google Nearby and Android Instant Apps are also ones with location-based services at its core, bluetooth 5 onces it's launched will definitely boost beacon adoption to a significant extent.

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

#250

Post by IshKebab »

gman99 wrote: post #159
IshKebab wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>Neither Android nor iOS support [pairing ... via the Out-of-Band method]. I'm not sure this is actually true (unless you're talking about bugs with individual manufacturers implementation on Android?). Both iOS and Android support SSP with OOB key exchange via NFC. There are lots of products that have been available that use this for pairing/connecting, eg: https://www.bose.com/en_us/support/article/pairing-a-device…

Android supports OOB via NFC, but only as a special case. You should just be able to call `createBondOutOfBand()` but the method is hidden:

https://android.googlesource.com/platform/frameworks/base.gi...

I'm pretty sure iOS doesn't support pairing via NFC.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/nfc-speakers-from-apple-you-c...

http://www.informationweek.com/mobile/mobile-business/iphone...

So, no, they don't support OOB (except in one limited case on Android).

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