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Bluetooth 5 Now Available

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Re: Bluetooth 5 Now Available

#61

Post by gumby »

neals wrote: post #2

2x the speed. 4x the range. 8x the capacity "to send messages" Not using the x.x versioning anymore. Just Bluetooth 5 and the next will be 6. Also, apprently, there's 30.000 companies in the 'Bluetooth Special Interests Group' ? [Thanks Krasin, gerardnll for correcting me]

> Also, apprently, there's 30.000 companies in the 'Bluetooth Special Interests Group' ?

You need to pay to join the SIG to put the logo on your device (and to advertise support). So the vast majority of those "members" are just people who paid for that.

Same applies to USB and HDMI.

Re: Bluetooth 5 Now Available

#62

Post by legulere »

> Bluetooth 5 continues to advance the Internet of Things (IoT) experience by enabling simple and effortless interactions across the vast range of connected devices.

What I guess is missing for Bluetooth IoT are standard profiles for IoT devices. Currently there are almost only products which speak their own protocol and need their own app. The only thing that comes a bit close to a standard is HomeKit by Apple that also works over Bluetooth, but it's closed and only Elgato managed to imlement it: http://www.forbes.com/sites/aarontilley/2015/07/21/whats-the...

It's kind of sad, because bluetooth seems to be the right protocol for this:

- it's supported by almost all devices (contrary to zigbee which needs a bridge)

- it's not totally broken in regards to local security like zigbee

- it keeps IoT devices in a local network where they belong in contrast to the WiFi IoT devices that form a botnet

- it takes less power than wifi

Re: Bluetooth 5 Now Available

#63

Post by joshgachnang »

drey08 wrote: post #58

Has anyone here had issues with bluetooth interference from.. traffic lights? My Sennheiser Momentum wireless headphones seem to be running into this issue. It doesn't happen all the time, but when it does I notice it happens when the traffic lights switch (e.g green to red). There must be some kind of signal interfering with bluetooth that's emitted at that point, though I can't understand why since all traffic ligh…

Yes! Every intersection in downtown Chicago I have this same issue with my Jabra Revo bluetooth headphones. I'm not sure if it involves the lights switching, but I always get audio cutting out very badly when I'm waiting to cross the street.

Re: Bluetooth 5 Now Available

#65

Post by FrenchyJiby »

Anyone have a good introduction to Bluetooth ~4.0 + reasonable documentation ?

I've always loved bluetooth, the concept of P2P file exchange got me through high school[1] to think about all the levels of tech involved in making your music shared with someone else's phone, but very let down by the documentation and implementation aspect.

As a curious hacker who would like to decentralize his life, I've always wanted to start programming stuff over Bluetooth for any task (remove dependency on internet for purely-local services). But when I tried actually doing so, I was met with an incredibly complex ecosystem I couldn't find RFCs for (or Russian equivalent), with only Bluez as partial reference [2].

I got the impression that if you're not some deep pocketed company or are doing something with phones (preferably with IoT as key buzzword), you're not welcome to the Bluetooth(®) club.

[1] My first bluetooth headset, a Jabra BT620s, bought for 30€ online, is still functional (if a little beaten) after 14 years, delivering about 6 hours of music streaming before recharge. I had to use earbuds recently for a project, and got myself really crossed with the wires thing. How pampered I have been !

[2] At the time I was interested in using BTLE with a linux laptop that clearly supported it, and a flagship Nexus 5. I gave up when I realised at the time, Bluez had only command line tools to access the Low Energy stuff, and some guy had to reverse-engineer the binaries to access some level of API. I really hope this changed/changes.

Re: Bluetooth 5 Now Available

#66

Post by digi_owl »

lasryaric wrote: post #9

Why is general bluetooth connectivity so "buggy"? Why am I always struggling connecting my iPhone 6s to my bose bluetooth speaker? I would love to understand that.

It depends, but i can't help suspect that sharing the increasingly saturated 2.4Ghz band (microwave ovens, wifi, who knows what else), and being built around channel hopping (apparently this lead to some issues with US regulators) makes for a fault prone system.

This because while i have had problem on urban streets with a device in my hand and one in my ear, i have observed rurally living relatives that can walk around their whole house with the phone sitting in some corner and not suffering a connection outage.

Re: Bluetooth 5 Now Available

#67

Post by oneplane »

moron4hire wrote: post #17

I cannot think of a single way in which Bluetooth has changed my life. Of the Bluetooth devices I have, I do exactly the same things I've always done, just with slightly more annoyance. My smartphone let me answer emails and burning questions on the go, while also letting me give up my car. My VR headset is making me completely rethink what User Experience means to the point of making the current usage of the term UX…

It's not really all bluetooth what you're describing there. Almost all of it is implementation-specific: many vendors do a sad job at implementing bluetooth, or if they buy a module as-is, they do a bad job at integrating that module.

Re: Bluetooth 5 Now Available

#68

Post by digi_owl »

problems wrote: post #56
seanp2k2 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, I wanted to love Bluetooth for keyboards, but my Logitech and Microsoft wireless keyboards (work and home, respectively) work great with their proprietary receivers (basically like a wireless wire), while the Logitech K810 has random key lag and connectivity issues (try typing your password when Bluetooth doesn't work and you can't log in to re-pair it). Windows 10 also seems monumentally bad at Bluetooth, and I…

> basically like a wireless wire Yeah, watch out with those, because a wireless wire is about accurate security wise too. Typically the proprietary dongles have very little security wise.

I recall when the first Logitech wireless keyboards came out.

Me and a friend were at a regional lan party, and he had one of those keyboard. As we soon learned someone else in the locale also had one, because he would ever so often get random inputs on screen...

Re: Bluetooth 5 Now Available

#69

Post by Someone »

Navarr wrote: post #36
inopinatus wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does Bluetooth 5 improve the reliability, latency, or the UX? I didn't need more speed, range or capacity from Bluetooth. But I did want it to cease being synonymous in my household with lag, dropouts and pairing failures.

well I mean, 4x range bumps it to over 100 ft, where as it used to be 30 right? (Or am I just out of date?) But lag and dropouts is definitely my same concern with Bluetooth as well.. That said, it's still my preference if only because it's a standard - but it's getting damn hard to find decent Bluetooth mice now

4x range also may mean you get interference from 16x the number of other devices. In a frequency band where everyone and their dog broadcast (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_2.4_GHz_radio_use), that may not be a net win.

Re: Bluetooth 5 Now Available

#70

Post by digi_owl »

agumonkey wrote: post #50
bjt2n3904 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi! RF Engineer here. Bluetooth sucks for a number of reasons, only a few of which actually relate to RF. First, we're bad at naming things. Is it BLE? Bluetooth Smart? BTLE? Bluetooth 4.0, or Bluetooth 4 Low Energy? And what does this have to do with ANT+? This doesn't seem to be a big problem, but it's a sign of deeper problems with the spec. In the long run it makes it very difficult for developers to implement. B…

You worked on BT specs ? BT seems an acute case of design by comittee. It's huge, full of profiles and corners. Nobody implements it really well, everything moves before it's finished. Makes you dream of wires some times.

As a user i kinda like the profiles, in particular the OBEX based ones. This because it means i can expect two devices to be able to share files out of the box if both of them have a bluetooth radio. Nothing like that exist for wifi, and i have to set up some client-server scheme to make anything happen.
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