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Become? Become!? That's funny. That's Rich. Do you have any idea how bloody insanely complex bluetooth is? Just the the core stuff, https://www.bluetooth.com

by gHosts 7y ago

Become? Become!? That's funny. That's Rich. Do you have any idea how bloody insanely complex bluetooth is? Just the the core stuff, https://www.bluetooth.com/specifications/bluetooth-core-specification/ https://www.bluetooth.com/specifications/bluetooth-core-spec... without the various protocol specs... https://www.bluetooth.com/specifications/protocol-specifications/ https://www.bluetooth.com/specifications/protocol-specificat... or the GATT or ... The bloody core spec is 3000 PAGES of standardese. All in stuff that costs less than a dollar per chip.

techslave 7y ago
what’s is your point about it being a dollar per chip? that it’s implemented by super cheap labor or something? silicon is free. you are paying for the r&d. that’s why volume matters. at the volume of bluetooth chips, they are almost indeed free. most of that dollar is distribution costs. my point is, the cost of the chip isn’t a signal of anything except the ubiquity of it.
- gHosts 7y ago
  True. The likes of broadcom are hugely sophisticated and really really understand the spec. But _none_ of your consumer level gadgets are made by broadcom. Broadcom will sell millions of these cheap as chips chips to second tier players. Who may sell on to third tier players. Who buy or pull a bluetooth stack and sort of vaguely maybe know what they doing, tie it all together and get the BT compliance stamp (which sort of means it doesn't shit all over the RF spectrum and vaguely works)... ...and then the sell it to you. ie. The chip manufacturer hopefully has clue.... then it gallops rapidly downhill from there.
  - Paul_S 7y ago
    All Bluetooth chips come with SDKs and depending on your solution another API in the OS of your board. At that point clients don't need to know much about bt and from my experience don't care beyond "how do I make these bytes appear on the other side". BT is massive but that's mostly BT classic which is slowly going away as more and more chips are BLE only which is saner. That's why we're adding isochronous channels to keep it interesting.
    - gHosts 7y ago
      > Bluetooth chips come with SDKs and depending on your solution another API Yup and a simple embedded version of a useful subset of that is (just counted) about 4000 non-comment non-blank lines _just_ for the header files. And assumes you then understand what the API does which is probably less comprehensively documented than the underlying HCI spec.
  - conradev 7y ago
    Isn’t that how… all consumer hardware works?
    - serf 7y ago
      Yeah, basically -- but most consumer hardware is a compromise and just 'good enough' to meet whatever consumer demands are put in front of them.
userbinator 7y ago
I'm someone who actually likes reading standards for fun (sometimes there are interesting things in them), and have read many of them as a result[1], and even implemented parts of some; but I still find Bluetooth, along with WiFi and GSM/LTE very intimidating. Is there something about wireless in particular that lends itself to this proliferation of complexity? I've read 802.3 (Ethernet) and it was nowhere near as dense and intimidating. [1] MP3, JPEG, JPEG2000, JBIG2, H.261 to 264, MPEG 1 and 2, USB, SATA, IEEE1284, RS-232, a bunch of RFCs, and too many others to list, those are just the ones I remember reading recently...
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- AaronFriel 7y ago
  It's an industry standard designed at closed door meetings where you have to pay to get in and pay to read the spec. It benefits all of the participants to build a big, deep moat where the paying participants have the expertise. This is how, by the way, warts like this occur: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17402274 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17402274
  - ahartmetz 7y ago
    Somehow you'd think it would also benefit participants if it was also reliable and fulfilled end user's requirements. It is not theoretically impossible to have wireless headphones with low enough latency for gaming.
  - SwaraLink 7y ago
    It's true that only paying companies (associate membership or higher) can participate in working groups and contribute to the specifications, but once a specifications has been adopted it becomes public. All of the adopted core specifications, profile specifications, and errata documents are public: https://www.bluetooth.com/specifications/ https://www.bluetooth.com/specifications/
- gmmeyer 7y ago
rotrux 7y ago
> Become? Become?! You stole my comment! No but in all seriousness, this is a long-standing issue. The A) requirement of making BT-enabled devices backwards compatible, B) the monstrous stack of protocols involved in like every use-case, & C) an assumption that Spread-Spectrum Frequency Hopping @ the physical layer is a substitute for encryption, all combine to make a BT kind of especially terrifying. Take for example the Nike Fit Band, an iconic bluetooth peripheral that's been on the market for some time: 2015: https://securelist.com/how-i-hacked-my-smart-bracelet/69369/ https://securelist.com/how-i-hacked-my-smart-bracelet/69369/ 2016: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4737495/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4737495/ 2017: https://www.zdnet.com/article/bluetooth-security-flaw-blueborne-iphone-android-windows-devices-at-risk/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/bluetooth-security-flaw-bluebo... I'm sure I can find one from last year as well, but you get the point. Also here's this for good-measure: http://ubertooth.blogspot.com/ http://ubertooth.blogspot.com/

by gHosts 7y ago

techslave 7y ago

what’s is your point about it being a dollar per chip? that it’s implemented by super cheap labor or something? silicon is free. you are paying for the r&d. that’s why volume matters. at the volume of bluetooth chips, they are almost indeed free. most of that dollar is distribution costs. my point is, the cost of the chip isn’t a signal of anything except the ubiquity of it.

gHosts 7y ago
True. The likes of broadcom are hugely sophisticated and really really understand the spec. But _none_ of your consumer level gadgets are made by broadcom. Broadcom will sell millions of these cheap as chips chips to second tier players. Who may sell on to third tier players. Who buy or pull a bluetooth stack and sort of vaguely maybe know what they doing, tie it all together and get the BT compliance stamp (which sort of means it doesn't shit all over the RF spectrum and vaguely works)... ...and then the sell it to you. ie. The chip manufacturer hopefully has clue.... then it gallops rapidly downhill from there.
- Paul_S 7y ago
  All Bluetooth chips come with SDKs and depending on your solution another API in the OS of your board. At that point clients don't need to know much about bt and from my experience don't care beyond "how do I make these bytes appear on the other side". BT is massive but that's mostly BT classic which is slowly going away as more and more chips are BLE only which is saner. That's why we're adding isochronous channels to keep it interesting.
  - gHosts 7y ago
    > Bluetooth chips come with SDKs and depending on your solution another API Yup and a simple embedded version of a useful subset of that is (just counted) about 4000 non-comment non-blank lines _just_ for the header files. And assumes you then understand what the API does which is probably less comprehensively documented than the underlying HCI spec.
- conradev 7y ago
  Isn’t that how… all consumer hardware works?
  - serf 7y ago
    Yeah, basically -- but most consumer hardware is a compromise and just 'good enough' to meet whatever consumer demands are put in front of them.

userbinator 7y ago

I'm someone who actually likes reading standards for fun (sometimes there are interesting things in them), and have read many of them as a result[1], and even implemented parts of some; but I still find Bluetooth, along with WiFi and GSM/LTE very intimidating. Is there something about wireless in particular that lends itself to this proliferation of complexity? I've read 802.3 (Ethernet) and it was nowhere near as dense and intimidating. [1] MP3, JPEG, JPEG2000, JBIG2, H.261 to 264, MPEG 1 and 2, USB, SATA, IEEE1284, RS-232, a bunch of RFCs, and too many others to list, those are just the ones I remember reading recently...

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
AaronFriel 7y ago
It's an industry standard designed at closed door meetings where you have to pay to get in and pay to read the spec. It benefits all of the participants to build a big, deep moat where the paying participants have the expertise. This is how, by the way, warts like this occur: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17402274 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17402274
- ahartmetz 7y ago
  Somehow you'd think it would also benefit participants if it was also reliable and fulfilled end user's requirements. It is not theoretically impossible to have wireless headphones with low enough latency for gaming.
- SwaraLink 7y ago
  It's true that only paying companies (associate membership or higher) can participate in working groups and contribute to the specifications, but once a specifications has been adopted it becomes public. All of the adopted core specifications, profile specifications, and errata documents are public: https://www.bluetooth.com/specifications/ https://www.bluetooth.com/specifications/
gmmeyer 7y ago

rotrux 7y ago

> Become? Become?! You stole my comment! No but in all seriousness, this is a long-standing issue. The A) requirement of making BT-enabled devices backwards compatible, B) the monstrous stack of protocols involved in like every use-case, & C) an assumption that Spread-Spectrum Frequency Hopping @ the physical layer is a substitute for encryption, all combine to make a BT kind of especially terrifying. Take for example the Nike Fit Band, an iconic bluetooth peripheral that's been on the market for some time: 2015: https://securelist.com/how-i-hacked-my-smart-bracelet/69369/ https://securelist.com/how-i-hacked-my-smart-bracelet/69369/ 2016: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4737495/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4737495/ 2017: https://www.zdnet.com/article/bluetooth-security-flaw-blueborne-iphone-android-windows-devices-at-risk/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/bluetooth-security-flaw-bluebo... I'm sure I can find one from last year as well, but you get the point. Also here's this for good-measure: http://ubertooth.blogspot.com/ http://ubertooth.blogspot.com/