Bluetooth 5 will quadruple the range, double the speed

Post by elementalest » Tue, Jun 28, 2016, 5:23 AM UTC

nowarninglabel wrote: post #22

honkhonkpants wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm currently wearing a heart monitoring device that communicates over Bluetooth and would greatly benefit from greater range. Which is to say, there's certainly a market for folks needing greater range.

Post by kabdib » Tue, Jun 28, 2016, 5:34 AM UTC

theGimp wrote: post #6

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

That's just gratuitously negative and dismissive. Bluetooth 4 is actually not bad at all in my experience. Pairing is painless relative to old versions; sound quality is flawless; connections are quite reliable. The "strain" is to be expected around other devices since Bluetooth uses 2.4GHz, a very crowded band. I can't speak to the technical bits since I never looked at them, but my experience as a consumer has been…

Post by theGimp » Tue, Jun 28, 2016, 5:43 AM UTC

kabdib wrote: post #33

theGimp wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's just gratuitously negative and dismissive. Bluetooth 4 is actually not bad at all in my experience. Pairing is painless relative to old versions; sound quality is flawless; connections are quite reliable. The "strain" is to be expected around other devices since Bluetooth uses 2.4GHz, a very crowded band. I can't speak to the technical bits since I never looked at them, but my experience as a consumer has been…

Depends on the devices. My car, for instance, has about a 50% chance of successfully hooking up to my iPhone. BT needs fewer features and better implementations. But apparently interop and reliability are not sexy enough for the BT standards folks to worry about. Can you imagine TCP/IP being in the same quality hole that Bluetooth is in?

Post by flamethroeaway » Tue, Jun 28, 2016, 5:49 AM UTC

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.

Post by kabdib » Tue, Jun 28, 2016, 5:56 AM UTC

theGimp wrote: post #35

kabdib wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on the devices. My car, for instance, has about a 50% chance of successfully hooking up to my iPhone. BT needs fewer features and better implementations. But apparently interop and reliability are not sexy enough for the BT standards folks to worry about. Can you imagine TCP/IP being in the same quality hole that Bluetooth is in?

Right, I agree that it depends on the device. A Chevy model I don't recall had the stupidest bug where you sometimes couldn't pair unless you reset the car computer... by leaving the driver's door open for 5 minutes. I don't blame the Bluetooth standard though, messy as it might be. That's clearly terrible implementation on the car manufacturer's part.