26 ms·

Wireless Is a Trap

• samMouret 6y ago
  Wireless is OK, you just need to use it correctly. The trick is to treat it as a cellular system, and use the same methodology used to build cellular networks: (1) Use only 5GHz for Wi-Fi. Turn off 2.4GHz WiFi - it's an overloaded, noisy spectrum band. (2) One router per room, alternating channels between rooms. (3) Use MU-MIMO (802.11ac gen2) or 802.11ax. The efficient MTU for Wi-Fi is much much larger than the MTU used for real time communication. MU-MIMO lets you send multiple small packets destined for multiple users inside one big wifi frame. (4) Don't use mesh devices. They multiply the "airtime" of each packet by x2-x4 depending on number of hops and number of packet retries. (5) Leave 2.4GHz for Bluetooth, and "junk" ISM devices (microwave oven, very-low bandwidth devices, etc). People push wireless to the breaking point, then complain it's broken...
  • encom 6y ago
    All good advice, but you forgot to account for the apartment building situation. Your neighbours could be screwing it up for everyone else.
    • samMouret 6y ago
      Thus recommendation #1 - Use 5GHz only. 5GHz propagation across walls is much worse than 2.4GHz propagation, therefore only nearby neighbors may interfere with your access point, and on 5GHz there are enough non-overlapping channels to choose an alternate channel avoiding this interference completely.
      • xvf22 6y ago
        There really aren't when you have 2x80Mhz on either side of you leaving only DFS which can be tricky since a lot of older consumer routers didn't support it. WiFi 6E should help as the allocation is massive with less propagation.
        • samMouret 6y ago
          160MHz channels are a rarity even today, neither the latest Samsung S10 nor the latest iPhone support 160MHz. Much more common is 80MHz channel, and even then, there is a distinction between the "main" 40MHz and the "secondary" 40MHz sub-channel. If you monitor the packets over the air, you'll notice that the secondary channel is much less occupied - all mobile devices switch to 40MHz to save considerable power, unless downloading a big file. In the US, there are 6 available 80MHz channels, which is more than needed (think 4-color graph coloring).
      • mikelward 6y ago
        WiFi analyzer shows about 26 access points on 5 GHz that aren't mine. I agree it should be much better than 2.4 GHz -- only 2 of my neighbors are stronger than -70 dBm -- but more channels would be nice. (I guess 6 GHz could help, but then I'll have to upgrade all my clients, too.)
    • deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
  • mshroyer 6y ago
    > (2) One router per room, alternating channels between rooms. That isn't realistic for most people, though.
    • walshemj 6y ago
      Use power line then - and you probably wont need a router in every room
      • slantyyz 6y ago
        Anecdata, but my experience with powerline networking in a house with relatively new wiring was that wifi performs better and more reliably.
      • notriddle 6y ago
        In my experience, it's not reliable enough. Sometimes it's great, but sometimes it stops working for a few solid seconds. I think it's when the AC starts up.
  • glogla 6y ago
    All of it is true, but before going multiple APs, you should make sure you really need it - you would need to manage multiple networks and getting the APs to work together and allow devices to roam seamlessly might be a pain. This is where the mesh units might come in handy - they are managed and configured in a single place, and can work together nicely - but of course you have to set them up with wire backhaul instead of in the "mesh mode".
    • samMouret 6y ago
      I agree. "Mesh node" with wire backhaul is good and usually solves the seamless roaming issue (YMMV, check before you buy).
      • walshemj 6y ago
        That isn't mesh that's just how wifi is designed to work, with a wired DS (Distribution System) Mesh uses radio for the DS
  • lolc 6y ago
    Well that was a long "just". Installing a few sockets and a switch ist much less effort.
  • kilburn 6y ago
    "Ok" is worse than great (which is what you get with wired setups, all the time every time). I understand your rationale, and I also like the convenience of wifi when it works. That being said, if you can wire "that thing" (whatever it is), just do it. One afternoon of wiring and it will work great for the rest of time. The trade-off is definitely worth it in my experience.
  • zajio1am 6y ago
    > (1) Use only 5GHz for Wi-Fi. Turn off 2.4GHz WiFi - it's an overloaded, noisy spectrum band. Even recent low-end phones sometimes have just 2.4GHz Wi-Fi. Even if all you devices support 5 GHz, running 5GHz-only wi-Fi may cause problems to your guests.
  • swiley 6y ago
    >(1) Use only 5GHz for Wi-Fi. Turn off 2.4GHz WiFi - it's an overloaded, noisy spectrum band. This is an extremely bad idea in some countries, or if you’re not careful which channel you select. In nearly all countries some of the 5ghz channels are shared with RADAR and require DFS. In some countries (eg Germany) all of the channels do. The idea behind DFS is to detect radar pulses and then shut down the network for a period of time, this can be triggered by radar or interference.
    • samMouret 6y ago
      Radar/DFS is a whole other can of worms. My rules of thumb for DFS: (1) If you can use a DFS channel - use it. it's usually less congested than the regular channels (2) If you're unlucky and DFS is triggered once per month or more, try repositioning the AP or changing the AP model to one less sensitive to radar pulses (3) If no luck - use one of the non-DFS channels. Every country has those. In Germany, that would be channels 32-48 or 149+ Note that DFS (5.4GHz) is for weather radar. In some countries it's operated only in winter season. You may want to use different channels in summer and in winter :)
    • tjpnz 6y ago
      I ended up switching to 2.4GHz due to interference and have had substantially better performance since. 5GHz is overloaded in my apartment block.
  • mikelward 6y ago
    That would be great if you can afford so many access points, all your clients support 5 GHz, and you are able to run Ethernet to the access point in each room.
• Jonnax 6y ago
  They mention that the polling increases latency. But by how much? Is windows affected by this? Because I've never noticed it have an impact on video calls.
  • londons_explore 6y ago
    It mostly depends on the actual network hardware, drivers and the access point, not the OS. When a WiFi device does a 'scan' (which it needs to do to know if there might be a better AP to connect to, amongst other things), it has to retune the radio to another frequency. That means it can't listen on the original frequency, and packets get lost. Depending on the network design, they might be retransmitted from the access point (layer 2 retransmit, a few milliseconds), or by TCP after a timeout (1 network round trip, hundreds of milliseconds often). A third option is your laptop tells the AP that it is going into a power saving mode and won't be listening. Packets are then queued for it while it retunes and does a scan. Best would be to have multiple radios, one whose only job is scanning. Then there would be no latency impact at all.
• foobiekr 6y ago
  as a wireless hater (and especially a hater of designed-to-fail rechargeables), I would love it if the trend reversed. I don't want to have to manage charging devices. I want a keyboard that works, always, if it is plugged in.
  • maccard 6y ago
    I've got a couple of wireless devices, and all of them charge using either micro USB or USB C, and my Logitech G mouse is the only one with a custom receiver, all the rest are Bluetooth. It's great. I no longer snag cables to the point of breaking with my chair, and if I do, they're just USB cables and are replaceable.
• mortenjorck 6y ago
  > Dongles. Even though all computers now have built-in Bluetooth, many Bluetooth accessories today still ship with proprietary dongles. I assume this is because the manufacturer was worried about inconsistencies or incompatibilities between their own Bluetooth implementation and your computer’s built-in Bluetooth hardware/drivers. I've never seen this before. Is the author mistaking proprietary 2.4 GHz receivers (that do not use Bluetooth) for OEMs' "own Bluetooth implementation"? They refer to swapping between built-in Bluetooth and the dongle, which sounds like Logitech's line of dual-mode keyboards that can use either Bluetooth or Logitech's proprietary "unifying receiver," which is based on Nordic Semiconductor's nRF24L, not Bluetooth.
  • cecja 6y ago
    Yeah, he doesn't really seem to know about what he is talking about. Looks like an Wikipedia essay to gaslight himself.
  • izacus 6y ago
    What the author means: if you ever worked with actual Bluetooth you'll see that it's full of insane quirks and vendor bugs. This opens up the risk that your product will be seen as bad because the user has a crappy BT chipset in their computer. Just see the debate about Bluetooth headphone latency here on HN: even engineers don't realise that experience is very much dependant on what kind of chipset they have on BOTH sides. This is why manufacturers build their own 2.4GHz proprietary dongles using proprietary protocols - it ensures consistency for the users.
    • delusional 6y ago
      Supposedly the drivers are also full of hacks. Blacklists and Whitelists for which devices actually support certain features. A device might say it supports a specific codec, but then when the phone starts streaming audio it causes the headset to lock up. It's a bunch of hacks all hacking around the other hacks.
    • hanniabu 6y ago
      > it's full of insane quirks and vendor bugs As someone not familiar at the low level, can somebody explain how this can still be happening today? Are there not libraries that help ensure proper implementation? I really don't understand.
• acjohnson55 6y ago
  I ran ethernet cable in hopes of eliminations video call dropouts, but I still have plenty of issues.
  • coldtea 6y ago
    Maybe it's due to the other side of the video call, using their wifi?
  • softgrow 6y ago
    You may have local issues. I ran a series of iperf3 tests in a small but non-trivial network and was surprised. There was a 100Mbps switch that had been forgotten about. Also a wifi network running off a Power over Ethernet link which was 3Mbps compared with 50Mbps over fairly poor Wifi it was supposed to be superior to, which looks pretty darn good to the POE link. A cheap switch and two LAN cables later things are so much better.
    • tuatoru 6y ago
      100 Mbps is enough for 15-20 HD video calls using modern codecs. Gigabit is great for backups, but for ordinary use 100 Mbit is fine. If you're getting lag and dropouts with a wired connection, the problem is most likely bufferbloat.
• alister 6y ago
  Hotels have universally switched to wifi, but I miss having an Ethernet jack. I think that at least some hotel Internet problems are actually wifi problems and not due to the crappy service provider they use.
  • glandium 6y ago
    A lot of hotels still have ethernet, but while the wifi might be free, most often than not, ethernet is not. In many cases some form of tunnelling allows to connect anyway (e.g. IP over DNS)
• zzo38computer 6y ago
  I don't like wireless either, for many reasons (the reasons they list there are only some of them; there are more).
  • tuatoru 6y ago
    Yah, the main thing he doesn't mention--and in most households, it's the primary thing--is retry hogging by devices that have a poor connection to the access point. High end access points use a time slicing algorithm (tdma-ish) and 802.11ax (Wi-Fi 6) mandates something along those lines. So Wi-Fi will eventually improve a little. But for all the household all-in-one modem-router-switch-accesspoint boxes, one device with a poor connection can hog most of the access point's time, doing re-transmits of corrupted data. If you're video calling over wi-fi, turn off every other device that uses the wi-fi.
    • tuatoru 6y ago
      Forgot to mention: - If you still have problems after switching to wired, it's almost certainly bufferbloat. (Avery Penwarr has a nice writeup about this, getting usable video calling with his parent's low-end ADSL connection.)
    • ksec 6y ago
      >High end access points use a time slicing algorithm (tdma-ish) and 802.11ax (Wi-Fi 6) mandates something along those lines. You will be surprised to learn not every WiFi 6 has support of OFDMA turned on.
• kdamica 6y ago
  I exclusively use a wireless mouse. No latency, never have to charge it or change the batteries. I like wireless but I hope there's a better interface than Bluetooth at some point.
  • tuatoru 6y ago
    I use a wired mouse on my desktop with 1000 polls/sec and latency of about 5 ms. On my laptop (which is 9 years newer and has similar benchmark results) I use a wireless mouse which has 125 polls/sec and latency of 20 ms. Yes, one can tell the difference. It is possible to buy low-latency wireless mice. Next time, I will. Bluetooth is a trash fire. I was hoping wireless USB would take off, but that's dead now.
    • buzzkillington 6y ago
      The difference is the screen refresh rate. On 60Hz my wired and wireless mouse feel exactly the same. On 240Hz, yeah, there is a lot of difference.
  • Fnoord 6y ago
    Same here. My first one was an early Naga (around 2011) which could do wired and wireless. I loved having the battery in it, so it was a bit heavier. Unfortunately it wore out. The feet got a lot of wear and tear. Later Naga were only wired, and I missed it. Now I have a Logitech G900 with a Logitech PowerPlay. So its always charged. Obviously, it has less buttons/keybinds than a Naga. On Macs, I like the Apple Magic Touchpad. It can do wired and wireless, and the battery works for ages. Any of these would also work with a magnetic cable. You'd plug it only when you'd have to charge it.
• strstr 6y ago
  The wireless mouse has been the exception to this rule for me so far: the G Pro wireless (and some other mice) don’t have the latency issues, and have egregious battery life (and the charging cable fails over so it’s basically just a wired mouse). The lack of a cable saves a bunch of space and avoids the floppy cable. Probably irrelevant if you don’t game, but definitely quite convenient for FPSes.
  • nemosaltat 6y ago
    I don’t think I’ve ever heard egregious used with a positive connotation. It looked out of place at first, but makes perfect sense etymologically. Thanks! https://www.etymonline.com/word/egregious https://www.etymonline.com/word/egregious
    • tgb 6y ago
      I actually can't decipher strstr's post. Is it in favor or against wireless mice? Is the battery life good or bad? Are they using the mouse plugged in to the charging cable constantly or not? I'm legitimately baffled and not trying to be a grammar police.
      • Legogris 6y ago
        They use egregious in the "extraordinary" sense, meaning the battery life's great. Once it does need charging, it can still be used via the cable during charging. I have to agree, specifically mice have been the least painful Bluetooth experience for me, with a Microsoft. Annoying part is that it changes MAC address when pairing, so regularly using it for more than one computer is a frustration but that's nothing compared to the constant interruptions I've had with keyboards and codec issues with headsets.
  • vladvasiliu 6y ago
    I actually quite enjoy having a wireless mouse even though I don't game (nothing more than OpenTTD or Heroes of Might and Magic). Like you, I have a "gaming" mouse (G700s), in my case I bought it for the high resolution. I used to have g9x, but it developed an unbearable whine. Battery life is downright atrocious, I basically have to recharge it everyday. It's also comically heavy. I often have to move things around my desk, and having papers getting caught up in the wires is aggravating. Also, apart from gaming mice with very supple cables, I always found wired mice to be a pain because of the wire that's never quite in the right position and pulling and / or getting caught on things. The same happens with keyboards, but to a lesser degree. I often use a trackball, which is like a keyboard in that it doesn't move around and I still prefer having those wireless.
• oi-pilot 6y ago
  Looks like mental problems
• etaioinshrdlu 6y ago
  On the topic of wired vs wireless... Has anyone had experience doing anything ridiculous such as getting a 40Gbit Ethernet adapter for say, their macbook? https://eshop.macsales.com/item/ATTO/TLNQ3402D00/ https://eshop.macsales.com/item/ATTO/TLNQ3402D00/
  • musicale 6y ago
    Kind of amazing that a macbook pro has four 40 Gb/s ports... and none of them are ethernet. Compare to 1 Gb/s ethernet which was rapidly adopted by Apple laptops as well as desktops. (Though you can currently get a Mac mini (!) with 10 Gb/s ethernet built in - if you can find something to connect it to.) I've used thunderbolt cables to connect laptops together for fast data transfer. I think in order to get decent performance I had to get disable the software ethernet bridge.
    • Hamuko 6y ago
      >and none of them are ethernet. Might have something to do with the fact that 8P8C is as thick as the entire laptop.
      • andrewshadura 6y ago
        That can be easily worked around with flat retractable sockets PCMCIA Ethernet cards had in the past.
        • Hamuko 6y ago
          You mean this? https://twitter.com/Infoseepage/status/938837890494169088 https://twitter.com/Infoseepage/status/938837890494169088 Looks really bad for longetivity.
    • justinclift 6y ago
      > ... with 10 Gb/s ethernet built in - if you can find something to connect it to. Just as a data point, it's not expensive to add 10GbE (or higher) to a desktop or server/NAS if you're ok with getting 2nd hand gear from Ebay. Gear from Mellanox (specifically) is pretty robust (eg rarely bad), and the ConnectX-3 and above series are dirt cheap. eg: https://www.ebay.com/itm/MCX353A-FCBS-MELLANOX-CONNECTX-3-40GBE-56GBE-SINGLE-PORT-QSFP-CARD-CX353A/254603266377 https://www.ebay.com/itm/MCX353A-FCBS-MELLANOX-CONNECTX-3-40... Note, I don't know that seller at all. It was just one of the first items in the Ebay search results. :)
• mehrdadn 6y ago
  Related: anybody have experience with powerline ethernet? Are there good adapters that can make high-quality/high-speed ethernet connections over power wiring inside a home? I know these are a thing but I have no idea how good their quality is or how strongly they depend on the wire itself.
  • skipnup 6y ago
    In my first flat I had around 400mbit/s via some cheap powerline adapter, in my second flat I couldn't connect them at all... You'll just have to try, it depends a lot on your home wiring and can be interfered by so many things. But if it works it's definitely nicer and more stable than WiFi.
  • aidenn0 6y ago
    I have the Extollo LANPlug 2000 and it has by far the best performance (rock solid pings of about 3ms in my house), but: 1. It works terribly if you use more than 2. There's just some bug in the L2 switching where it will get confused about the destination; broadcast packets get through, but some packets to specific hosts don't go through. Rebooting the adapter fixes it temporarily. I ended up moving one device to WiFi and as a pair it works reliably 2. The firmware it ships with is a bit limited, but they provided me with something more configurable when I contacted support about issue #1
    • amaccuish 6y ago
      I had the same experience with some TPLink adapters. mdns never worked reliably so I couldn't see some printers or speakers on the other end.
      • aidenn0 6y ago
        The more advanced firmware they sent me allows tuning what broadcast traffic is allowed through. Note that with either firmware, broadcast traffic worked fine, but it would just seem to get confused about where a specific MAC was.
      • 6y ago
• sandstrom 6y ago
  I agree, wireless is overrated in “desktop” situations. One solution that I hope more monitor manufacturers would follow is the recent Dell “hub” monitors with built-in Ethernet (RJ-45), USB-C, downstream power, USB-A, etc. https://www.dell.com/lt/business/p/dell-u2421he-monitor/pd https://www.dell.com/lt/business/p/dell-u2421he-monitor/pd Only one cable to connect.
  • culturestate 6y ago
    Apple has been doing this since the advent of Thunderbolt, and I have to believe it was one of the reasons they wanted it and then pushed toward USB-C. With MiniDP and MagSafe it was nice but clunky; with USB-C and USB PD it’s great. I know some people miss the old clicky docks, but I agree with you that the monitor + single cable is a really good solution.
  • dmos62 6y ago
    I'd take a simple monitor and an external hub, in place of a monitor+hub integration, any day of the week. We put two things one inside the other and call it progress, but that's less maintainable, sometimes less portable, more expensive, and, most importantly, less modular.
    • ztjio 6y ago
      More wires more mess more ugly, not everyone has the same priorities.
      • smichel17 6y ago
        Isn't it the same number of wires, since you still need to run a usb cable from the computer to the monitor? So then really all you get is not needing a separate box for the hub. That's admittedly nice -- I have a Dell monitor with usb ports and I use it, mostly because I'm not going to buy a standalone hub when I don't need it -- but if the monitor had a way to mount the external hub on the back, I think that would be the best of both worlds.
• nobrains 6y ago
  Can anyone recommend a bluetooth headset (i.e. speakers and mic) which does not have this issue, as mentioned in the article: "Low quality. Related to the codec issue, many bluetooth devices will play high-quality audio when the microphone is turned off, but degrade to much lower-quality audio when it’s turned on. You can test this for yourself if you have a bluetooth headset: play music on it, then open your microphone settings to the page where it shows the mic input volume. You’ll probably hear the audio cut out for a second, then return at lower quality. (This happens even with devices you might expect to be high-end, like my Airpods Pro + 2018 Macbook Air.)" I have need trying to find any, but have failed till now, and do not have unlimited budget to buy and try many options.
  • izacus 6y ago
    You probably won't find one because the Bluetooth standard doesn't allow it - it demands switch to low quality codecs for two-way communication. This hasn't really changed since BT 2.x. Perhaps using something like Apple proprietary headphones or headsets with non-BT radio receivers would work.
    • ztjio 6y ago
      > Apple proprietary headphones or headsets with non-BT radio receivers would work. That doesn't exist
      • izacus 6y ago
        Which part exactly? Apple has the W1 thing and there are headsets that use their own radio implementation - https://www.logitechg.com/en-ch/products/gaming-audio/g533-wireless-gaming-headset.981-000634.html#product-tech-specs https://www.logitechg.com/en-ch/products/gaming-audio/g533-w...
    • gingerlime 6y ago
      This was my biggest disappointment with the AirPod pros. On my phone the sound and mic quality is good. If I try to use it on my MacBook Air on zoom it’s totally crap. Audio only is good-ish (I get some brief disconnects when there’s no sound some time, but the audio quality is good). With the mic it’s absolutely not.
• mangecoeur 6y ago
  The Bluetooth headset latency kills me, especially now so many devices are losing the headphone jack. As a hobbyist musician its unusable, same issue for games. It’s just worse in every respect and the headsets cost three times as much for the equivalent sound quality.
  • nautical 6y ago
    I completely agree with you .. The latency in wireless headphones is bad .. It is clearly noticeable in games and even in general music playing sometimes .. I cant imagine people playing serious games on mobile devices without headphone jack.
    • mvanbaak 6y ago
      I simply can't imagine people playing serious games on mobile devices period.
      • samoa42 6y ago
        i feel ya. people with a desktop computer are a minority thou.
      • camehere2saydis 6y ago
        I simply can't imagine serious games.
      • cybercatgurrl 6y ago
        I got tired of having ads constantly shoved in my face for games I already paid for that then go free. That's when I realised games on mobile were never going to work for me.
      • imtringued 6y ago
        Handheld consoles have lots of serious games. You just need to be on a platform that values serious gaming, not 5 min play sessions.
  • mnky9800n 6y ago
• trabant00 6y ago
  You're just using the wong kind of wireless. I only use the best: copper.
  • iso1210 6y ago
    Not fibre?
• paol 6y ago
  I've advocated for this for years to anyone who will listen, but it's like preaching in the desert. It doesn't help that many people are on laptops, and the war on ports (in general, and ethernet ports in particular) has made wired options exceptionally inconvenient. Not only you have to go out of your way to buy extra hubs and adapters that are not included with the laptop, you then have to carry a bag full of dongles everywhere.
  • ascotan 6y ago
    Apple should provide a free dongle purse with a purchase of a new laptop.
    • scarface74 6y ago
      Geeks: We want Apple to stop using proprietary ports and standards. Apple: okay here is a laptop that has standard USB-C ports. Geeks: we have to use dongles to support the standard.
      • theonemind 6y ago
        False dichotomy. They could have multiple ports supporting multiple standards. This dismisses a valid complaint, in my opinion, the war on ports in the name of thinness. I've never heard anyone cite thinness as the reason they bought a device (weight, sometimes, but never thinness.)
        • scarface74 6y ago
          So how many “standards” should they implement when usb-c is versatile? Should they include VGA ports like some corporate laptops?
  • ProZsolt 6y ago
    I only miss is 8P8C port, but only when I'm traveling and want wired connection. USB C made my life easier. Now I only have to plug one cable into my laptop from my monitor and have everything(wired network, external display, speaker, webcam, microphone, keyboard and mouse). I don't see a reason to carry a dock with me. A lot of people carrying a Micro USB A to USB A cable and a dock instead buying a Micro USB A to USB C cable which makes no sense
• triyambakam 6y ago
  I avoid wireless because of EMF sensitivity that my wife has. Just to be sure, I've secretly switched on the wifi some days to see if she mentions any symptoms and definitely she does. I personally haven't felt a difference, but it is fun running a wired network - switches all throughout the house and gave me the motivation to set up Pi Hole and a print server.
  • ZeljkoS 6y ago
    Here we go again: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_hypersensitivity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_hypersensitivi... "The majority of provocation trials to date have found that such claimants are unable to distinguish between exposure and non-exposure to electromagnetic fields. A systematic review of medical research in 2011 found no convincing scientific evidence for symptoms being caused by electromagnetic fields. Since then, several double-blind experiments have shown that people who report electromagnetic hypersensitivity are unable to detect the presence of electromagnetic fields and are as likely to report ill health following a sham exposure as they are following exposure to genuine electromagnetic fields, suggesting the cause in these cases to be the nocebo effect." Wikipedia article has links to scientific studies.
    • triyambakam 6y ago
      Eh, I don't really care. I am not harming anyone by offering this for her. If she feels better and I have fun then it's a good time.
      • gspr 6y ago
        > I am not harming anyone by offering this for her. If she feels better and I have fun then it's a good time. Some would say you're harming your wife's understanding of reality, but that's a private matter for you and her. However, by sharing it on the Internet, you are potentially spreading this bullshit, and you must expect reasonable voices to counter your claim.
        • 6y ago
• transfire 6y ago
  And try getting a home builder to install Ethernet. They just look at you with a blank stare.
  • eloisant 6y ago
    In France ethernet with RJ45 is the standard that replaced the older phone line that we were running in the walls. Since you can plug RJ11 to RJ45, you can use a Any decent electrician is France knows how to install ethernet, and they can get install this kind of equipment, equivalent of a distribution cabinet, instead of the regular "phone line" box: https://www.tableau-de-communication.fr/coffret-hager/13-coffret-hager-tn402-32506159440.html https://www.tableau-de-communication.fr/coffret-hager/13-cof... https://www.tableau-de-communication.fr/coffret-hager/14-coffret-hager-tn411-8rj45-3250615944115.html https://www.tableau-de-communication.fr/coffret-hager/14-cof...
  • samoa42 6y ago
    maybe try a different builder then. those are cables and sockets, standardized to the point of beeing a commodity. no magic involved at all.
    • ProZsolt 6y ago
      You shouldn't run it parallel to the electrical line, because it will generate interference. Other than that it's pretty straightforward.
  • wlll 6y ago
    When I had work done in my house I just made sure that they knew that before they boarded up a particular ceiling I needed to run a cable. In the end we all ran the cable together, and now I have a 1Gb/s Ethernet connection to my office.
  • jrace 6y ago
    Depends where you live. Here in Canada almost all new builds have cat6 run to each room to a central closet. Problem now is that most electricians think that because "it is just low voltage wiring" you do not need to worry about interference and can just run it anywhere.
• ImaCake 6y ago
  I will always preference wired over wireless, but I am currently unable to run an ethernet to my desktop (my partner is not keen on having a tripwire run straight across the house). So I did the same ping test that OP did and noted a few spikes, I had 10 pings over 250ms out of 600, all of these were distributed unevenly over time. Guess I could be subject to such wireless degradation. But I can't say for sure without trying an ethernet cable. t : ms 32: 1725.0, 33: 662.0, 68: 406.0, 100: 980.0, 101: 285.0, 312: 454.0, 342: 746.0, 464: 453.0, 480: 1852.0, 481: 841.0
• namelosw 6y ago
  I kept jumping between wireless and wire because I'm annoyed by wires, and keep getting burned by wireless pitfalls through these years. But each round wireless seems to be slightly getting better over time. Here are some tips I collected along the way: 1. 2.4GHz sucks, use Bluetooth when possible. But Bluetooth sucks, too. 2. You want to have fewer Bluetooth devices when possible, reduce the number of simultaneous connections. For example, I only use my Bluetooth mouse for gaming, and trackpad for the rest, so I would disconnect mouse when I'm not playing video games. 3. You want to use some categories of Bluetooth devices first. For example, Bluetooth keyboards usually have great experiences so you may want to make your keyboard wireless first. Bluetooth mice and trackpads are Okayish, but not as great. Bluetooth headphones and speakers are usually bad. If you really want to use Bluetooth for Audio, sometimes devices from the same company may have better connections: Beats Studio seems to have a much better connection than Sennheiser and B&O on Mac. After all, I still love the idea of wireless because it is nice on paper. It is mostly the de facto protocols and implementations that are terrible.
  • noble_pleb 6y ago
    I've found that sometimes fiddling with some wireless settings like operation band, channel, tx power, WMM, etc. helps, provided you know what you are doing. Especially so if you're in an overcrowded wifi zone or in a poor reception area.
  • dTal 6y ago
    >2.4GHz sucks, use Bluetooth when possible. Huh? Bluetooth is 2.4GHz.
    • namelosw 6y ago
      I'm sorry for not being clear on this but I'm not sure how to name it in English. I was referring to those wireless devices with a small USB receiver.
      • rkangel 6y ago
        In the professional wireless development space, we call those "generic ISM band crap".
• mrkeen 6y ago
  I recently played doom 1 with my girlfriend on our home wifi (chocolate doom for those interested). Just 2-player LAN coop. The lag made it unplayable. We plugged in some ethernet cables and it ran fine after that.
• anonu 6y ago
  The issue with WiFi is over-crowdedness. Suggestions to fix this are to actually get everyone to lower the power on their wifi transmitters (hard to control). Also, making sure youre on the right non-crowded channel (easier to control).
• gioscarab 6y ago
  I totally agree with the writer, I have dedicated the last ten years to specify and implement a new single wire communication protocol for IOT and home automation applications called PJDL (Padded Jittering Data Link): https://github.com/gioblu/PJON/blob/master/src/strategies/SoftwareBitBang/specification/PJDL-specification-v4.1.md https://github.com/gioblu/PJON/blob/master/src/strategies/So... It performs much better than wireless alternatives.
  • gorgoiler 6y ago
    16kbps over 2km, wow! How sensitive is the system to the quality of connection? If I hide enamel coated filament just beneath my lawn is that going to be good for a one wire bus to work? Does it even need to be insulated?
    • gioscarab 6y ago
      It works even if you use the human body or water as a conductor, as I showcase in this demonstration (sorry for my strong italian accent): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWlhKD5lz5w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWlhKD5lz5w This is the implementation: https://github.com/gioblu/PJON/tree/master/src/strategies/SoftwareBitBang https://github.com/gioblu/PJON/tree/master/src/strategies/So... This is the source code: https://github.com/gioblu/PJON/blob/master/src/strategies/SoftwareBitBang/SoftwareBitBang.h https://github.com/gioblu/PJON/blob/master/src/strategies/So... It is extremely rugged, it works much better than any alternative I have ever tried. Ah, it is free and open-source ;)
      • gioscarab 6y ago
        Looking at the interest my comment generated I decided to create a post here on HN about PJDL, please if you liked up it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23591953 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23591953
      • Jnr 6y ago
        The awesome thing with wireless IoT is that it can be set up without any additional cabling, which can be extremely painful process in most homes. In case of wireless all you need is ESP32, relay and a power supply. And all of that together will cost less than 10$. Can you easily (cheaply) use the already existing power cables for PJDL? I know there are network repeaters that use power cables to transfer data, but I have no idea how much it would cost in IoT scenario. Do you have some examples?
• ChrisMarshallNY 6y ago
  Agree. I have a lot of cables around my desk. It’s not just video calls. My backup is done to a Synology NAS, upstairs. That’s all wired.
• Markoff 6y ago
  what's wrong with wireless keyboard and mouse? battery life is like one year and I don't have also any issues with response times (not gaming though) but yeah, I don't see myself using wireless headphones which would not be perfectly in sync with video and I am using wifi only because installing cable through whole apartment would be too troublesome and not sure if network over powerline would be faster and more reliable than wifi
  • kevincox 6y ago
    Personaly I don't understand the advantages. I've never had an issue with the cable that runs from the keyboard over the side of my desk. Maybe for the mouse as it moves around (although I usually use a wired trackpad) but I'm not too convinced. Maybe if I tried using one for an extended period of time I would change my mind. In general I'm not too worried about the reliability in the wireless sense but I don't like the idea that these things can run out of battery. I like as many of my devices to just work without any maintenance required. (even if the maintenance is minimal) Furthermore I generally don't have batteries on hand. (Right now the complete list of things I own that use batteries is the TV remote and the thermostat) So when I get the low battery warning I need to go and buy some. On the other hand I completely get the case for Bluetooth headphones. I love being able to run to the kitchen without losing my music or still being able to hear someone else speaking. Also when using them with a phone the cable running down to my pocket does actually get in the way. Synchronization shouldn't be an issue because any not-terrible Bluetooth speakers will report their delay to the computer so that everything remains syncronized. I do have one set of cheep earbuds that don't report it to my phone correctly but this is rare (and I probably should have sent them back).
    • ProZsolt 6y ago
      The main advantage for me is that I can pack it away when I need more desk space. (eg.: planning something on paper)
• ksec 6y ago
  I wanted to point out it isn't really "Wireless" fault. It is the problem of Consumer WiFi and Bluetooth. I could get a faster Speedtest transfer from 4G on my iPhone 11 then standing next to my WiFi 6 router. And my WiFi 5Ghz actually has more Spectrum ( but slightly more noisy as I live in apartment ). And in terms of reliability 4G works better than even the best "Enterprise" WiFi network. And these Enterprise WiFI network gear ( Ruckus , Aruba etc ) are already zillions times better than consumer grade WiFi. You then have ISP wanting to sell you Wireless Router combined with their ONT / Modem. If they actually provide something better then I would be happier. But they dont. The only good thing is that you now only have to restart one devices rather than two to test or "reset" your network. I think I recently learned in Germany the law mandate consumer to have the right to buy their own ONT / Modem. So you dont have the crap that most ISP give you due to Cost reason. There is no reason why we cant have standalone 4G / 5G in the Unlicensed Spectrum. Qualcomm actually made a case with MultiFire [1], unfortunately due to politics and interest it may never actually take off. WiFi 6 / 802.11ax was suppose to incorporate lots of learning from 4G/LTE/3GPP Rel into it. But as is typical of design by committees and vendor's interest we now have WiFI 6 that doesn't support most of the original promised features. That is why you start seeing marketing push as WiFi 6+, which is different to WiFi 6E. If all these mess sounds familiar, yes it was called USB. That is one reason why I really like Apple's MiFi programme and standards. Stop giving options and choices to vendors. Stop giving them margins of error in the name of cost reduction. If you are going to make 100 Million unit a year, stop trying to cut the cost down by pennies, up the BOM by a dollar. Make something better. I will paid. Lots of people will paid. And one billion of iPhone user will paid. I want quality, not crap. ( Ok I have gone off topic ) [1] https://www.multefire.org https://www.multefire.org
• gorgoiler 6y ago
  My Magic Trackpad 2 has input lag the first time you touch it after more than, say, a second. Apple support said it might be interference and to turn off any other nearby Bluetooth devices. Oof. Ok, thanks. Perhaps the next product I buy from them in an Apple Store I’ll pay for by wafting my card around the contactless terminal a little before walking out the store saying “if it didn’t go through, try turning off any nearby devices!”
  • legulere 6y ago
    You can use the Magic trackpad and Keyboard also with the cable. It won’t use Bluetooth then.
• kgjhgkhkjh 6y ago
  Is it possible to use the perf tools(http://www.brendangregg.com/perf.html http://www.brendangregg.com/perf.html) and debug top down to find the program that causes the issue rather than guessing the programs and debugging bottom up ?
• rcarmo 6y ago
  I have a wired headset and everything on my home office desk is wired except for my mouse (now mice, since I'm trying out a 3-device logitech M720) and keyboard. (Incidentally, the "lightspeed" dongles Logitech uses do work at 2.4GHz, but with a proprietary protocol -- which I think someone has already gone to the trouble of documenting, since IIRC it uses only the frame sizes and types it really needs to.) Headsets, mics, laptops, are all wired (you can get pretty decent USB-to-Ethernet adapters for cheap these days), and give me zero trouble, but I could never go back to wired keyboards and mice because of the freedom and flexibility you get (I'm trying to wean myself off the Apple keyboard/trackpad combo into a Logitech K380/M720 combo to be able to switch devices more easily). Unless you're a gamer (and really need a wired mouse to shave off those milliseconds), there's really no contest in terms of input devices. Audio, that's another matter entirely (I only use Bluetooth on the go). OTOH, I have an Airport Extreme base station (set to 5GHz) underneath my desk for those times when I do need wireless (like bringing in a laptop for checking things, or my iOS devices).
• gauchojs 6y ago
  I bought a wired Jabra headset for this pandemic times, but nobody actually cares - and we chat without video. Went back to the cheap BT headset - there are too many advantadges of this freedom: can make a coffee, get the baby... while "in the meeting". But the real most important point: I want to bet on the wireless future because I hate wires. I love seeing my table clean when I had a wireless Mac keyboard. And if Apple can make a keyboard that works reliably over BT for several months, then that should be our target...
• mzakharo1 6y ago
  Many people dont realize, but WiFi chipset is very important. Get cheap/free stuff from your ISP, and it will give you trouble (especially under load/multiple clients). Buy expensive gear with Broadcomm/Qualcomm hardware in it, and you will be better off. ASUS with rt-merlin firmware is a solid choice. Also, placement of router is very important. Most people have their wifi in the basement, where their cable/phone line comes in, spending some time, and running a physical wire somewhere to the center of the living space, setting up router on a shelf or a table will go a long way in propagation. I have mine setup in the center of my bungalow, and I have 5Ghz WiFI reaching from my driveway to the backyard, no issues, and never any hickups. Also, if you pick a high end router (Like ASUS 86U with merlin) -> you get some proper Wifi diagnostic tools built in, like number of packet retransmits, bad FCS, etc, which will help you diagnose your issues. Multiple people on the same band is not as big of an issue as many claim it is. 5Ghz (no B/G legacy frames), and 80MHz bandwidth ensures that most traffic is very short in actual airtime. Not perfect, but, it is orders of magnitude better than 2.4Ghz, despite there being really only 2 80MHz channels available. There is also, channel 165, which is 20Mhz only, but rarely occupied.
  • thecureforzits 6y ago
    > ASUS with rt-merlin firmware is a solid choice. Just so long as you don't mind giving Trend Micro access to all your information.
    • mzakharo1 6y ago
      rt-merlin allows you explicitly to turn the TrendMicro stuff off, TrendMicro is only useful for QoS, and if you have a fat Internet pipe, you probably dont need it. ASUS-merlin has DNS-over-TLS support, which, combined with NextDNS, will help you block trendmicro off if you really dont trust it.
  • hamandcheese 6y ago
    FWIW, Xfinity provided me an "xFi" modem/router combo that performed great. I replaced it with a standalone modem + a Unifi Dream Machine from Ubiquiti, and my wifi speeds are significantly slower now. Still worth it to regain control of my network, though.
• superjan 6y ago
  To windows 10 users with bad wifi experience: windows power management has become more agressive, it caused dropped VPN connections continuously until I put power management to High performance for all power profiles. It took me aLmost a year to figure out the cause.
• grandinj 6y ago
  Somewhere on HN in a similar discussion a bluetooth stack engineer showed up and explained that the entire bluetooth comms stack is a Rube Goldberg house of horrors, so this really no surprise. And then there are the bufferbloat people who finally tracked down the fact that in various common situations, the normal Wi-Fi protocol has a nasty interaction where it self-degrades to ridiculously slow speeds, and will take 2-5 MINUTES to recover. We just don't have enough people doing serious whole-stack hardware+software analysis on our wireless stuff. At least outside of cellular telephony - probably because the money is more concentrated there.
  • mzakharo1 6y ago
    Are you talking about this? https://www.bufferbloat.net/projects/bloat/wiki/What_can_I_do_about_Bufferbloat/ https://www.bufferbloat.net/projects/bloat/wiki/What_can_I_d... P.S. SFQ is enabled part of QoS (on my asus86u). There are enough people working on WiFi, you just have to invest money/time to buy/configure proper AP hardware. In cellular, AP is managed by a team of engineers, and in consumer WiFi space, it is a race to the bottom.
    • grandinj 6y ago
      https://www.bufferbloat.net/projects/make-wifi-fast/wiki/ https://www.bufferbloat.net/projects/make-wifi-fast/wiki/ and jim gettys blog https://gettys.wordpress.com/ https://gettys.wordpress.com/ are good places to start
  • rkangel 6y ago
    I maintained a commercial Bluetooth stack for several years. My opinion is that the stack is actually not too bad (although Low Energy complicated it). The problem is that it has to be all things to all people. There's discussions about codecs elsewhere on here - quality, latency etc. There is a lowest common denominator so that everything works for everyone but the information as to whether you're getting something else is hidden, both at purchase time and run time. Two things that would help: Manufacturers actually putting supported codecs somewhere in the purchase information. Why does tech specs on my Bose QuietComfort not have that information anywhere? If you Google you can eventually find a support question and answer. Exposing runtime negotiation results to the user. In Windows when I'm connected to Wifi it shows signal strength and other basic info via the icon in the taskbar. When I'm connected to Bluetooth why is there not a display listing the profiles and codecs in use ("High Quality Audio mode via Aptx Low Latency", "Headset mode" etc.). We actually need something similar for USB now as it has the same problem as Bluetooth - one transmission medium for a whole lot of different things all of which have to be able to negotiate to a common denominator. It happens a little bit with just the charging component (phone lets you know it's charging slowly if the charger can't negotiate up enough) - why isn't similar information provided somewhere for the rest of the USB features ("Connected to device X, can't enable feature Y as cable doesn't do Z").
• alacer 6y ago
  I mostly agree but would say wired is a better technology than wireless in terms of safety, reliability and cost. I only use wireless for an occasional phone call usually on the road in case of car trouble, with my keyboards and with my Visonic home security system sensors. Timothy Schoechle of the National Institute for Science, Law & Public Policy in Washington, DC recently wrote a paper called "Re-Inventing Wires: The Future of Landlines and Networks" on this subject. It's available as a PDF download from https://gettingsmarteraboutthesmartgrid.org/pdf/Wires.pdf https://gettingsmarteraboutthesmartgrid.org/pdf/Wires.pdf
• ProZsolt 6y ago
  I still prefer a wired connection, but I don't think wireless is evil. The main problem is people use crap equipment, most likely provided by the ISP. Most of this equipment has chips that overheat a degrade the performance. Most of the ISP only provides AIO router+modem combos. People use it instead of buying a good router+wireless access point. This reminded me to this article I read a few years ago: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/10/review-ubiquiti-unifi-made-me-realize-how-terrible-consumer-wi-fi-gear-is/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/10/review-ubiquiti-unif...
• deleted 6y ago
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• graton 6y ago
  I enjoy the convenience of wireless. But I do make a conscious effort to put devices that are going to stay in one location on Ethernet if possible. I even specifically bought a certain Roku model mainly because it had Ethernet. So basically the only things on WiFi are laptops, phones, and devices which don't support Ethernet. For the most part I don't notice issues with my WiFi. I do use the Ubiquiti Unifi access points for providing WiFi in the house.
  • diablo1 6y ago
    I know people who have to have everything wireless. Little do they realize that all that extra radiation is probably slowly killing them. On top of that is the security risk of having personal data leaking out of your room to whomever decides to eavesdrop on the signal (A threat model which becomes clearer when you see how easy it is to collect signal leak)
    • asimpletune 6y ago
      > Little do they realize that all that extra radiation is probably slowly killing them Haha, honestly people could probably use more radiation, i.e. sustained daily sunshine, to live healthier.
    • the_pwner224 6y ago
      The sun beams down 1 KILOwatt of light (50% infrared, 40% visible, 10% other) to every square meter on the ground. Most of the infrared and much of the visible light is absorbed by your skin. Your WiFi router on the other hand has a power of 50-150 MILLIwatts, and won't let you set it higher because that's illegal. And your phone etc. run at around 15 milliwatts. I guess if you built a ridiculously high powered WiFi antenna (which would be illegal) and stood next to it for a while, you would cook yourself. But BT/WiFi ain't gonna do shit to you. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=i4pxw4tYeCU https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=i4pxw4tYeCU
      • wavepruner 6y ago
        Standing outside in the sun all day everyday is absolutely deadly.
• deleted 6y ago
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• 12bits 6y ago
  One of the worst parts of being a network-worker in a University, is managing the wireless and the expectations of how wireless should perform at every square inch of the campus. I understand the frusterations of the students, but at the same time learn a bit about the pros and cons of the technology you're so dependent on.
• deleted 6y ago
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• zelienople 6y ago
  I use my Bose QC35 Bluetooth headphones with my MacBook to watch movies. The system has a comfort meter: when my head is in exactly the most comfortable spot on the couch, the Bluetooth signal drops out completely. It also drops out when I touch my head or my face. I have tried reorienting the laptop to no avail. No matter where the laptop is (or, in fact, any components of the system, including the couch between 1m and 2.5m distance from the laptop) it always finds the same comfort spot to drop out completely. If I move my neck about 15 degrees to an uncomfortable angle, the signal is perfect. An anecdote, yes, but a relevant one.
  • rv-de 6y ago
    your body absorbs the EM radiation and shields the receiver from the transmitter.
    • zelienople 6y ago
      Sure, but that does not strictly explain the phenomenon. The headphones have clear line-of-sight to the laptop in both the "off" (comfortable) position and the "on" (infinite set of uncomfortable) positions. The absorption of the radio signals by my large capacitance, I would think, doesn't change much with position. Also, it turns off when I scratch the back of my head.
    • FalconSensei 6y ago
      So, poor design? I mean, it doesn't matter what's the technical explanation is, it doesn't work, right?
  • atomi 6y ago
    I had the same issue and resolved it by buying a USB extending cable and attaching an external Bluetooth transmitter closer to the ceiling. It's not pretty but it works.
    • zelienople 6y ago
      I may try that. Thank-you.
• vmception 6y ago
  Wow you would think that article was written in 2008! I have had a very good experience with 802.11ac for all applications, and Bluetooth 5.0 (iphone 11 pro), and Bluetooth 4.2 with apple keyboard and mouse. Wireless headset to a macbook is pretty bad, pretty awesome to the iphone. I do not have dongles. Knowledge of interference and the wireless devices you use is important. I spend a non-negligible amount of time when choosing a wireless router, and will immediate benchmark it. The routers from the ISPs are still pretty bad in comparison to the ones you can buy for $70 - $120. If I am using a desktop I will also benchmark the dongle. You also have to acknowledge proximity to power cords and transformers, which will degrade your experience. It always requires a holistic solution to optimize and I don't know if the writer's problems can be fixed. Even two years ago I kept one or two devices on Ethernet if they were close to the router. But I have since removed them.
  • eveningcoffee 6y ago
    Any recommendations?
• jgeada 6y ago
  The other interference problem is that all devices talking to a particular access point are all transmitting on the same frequency. As wireless is a shared transmission medium they all have to take turns and if two or more devices happen to try to transmit at the same time they'll corrupt each other's message and have to go through the random exponential back off to try to find clear air, leading to random changes in latency & throughput.
  • Havoc 6y ago
    >all devices talking to a particular access point are all transmitting on the same frequency Not necessarily. I just bought a Triband wifi6/ax router for like 150 quid. 5GHz band A -->> Main computer 5Ghz band B -->> iPhones & tablets & laptop 2.4ghz band -->> Everything else that is potentially noisy (ahem sketchy IoTs)
• Havoc 6y ago
  Bluetooth - yeah fully agree. Having endless troubles just getting the headsets reliably connected. And my standing desk seems solid enough to physically block bluetooth signals which is an issue if tower is below desk & mouse above. Wifi on the other hand I find pretty stable. As long as you're on 5ghz. Haven't gotten the new ax/wifi6 to work yet though despite buying relevant tech
• jgeada 6y ago
  The other interference problem is that all devices talking to a particular access point are all transmitting on the same frequency. As wireless is a shared transmission medium they all have to take turns and if two or more devices happen to try to transmit at the same time they'll corrupt each other's message and have to go through the random exponential back off to try to find clear air, leading to random changes in latency & throughput.
• deleted 6y ago
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• derefr 6y ago
  > Dongles. Even though all computers now have built-in Bluetooth, many Bluetooth accessories today still ship with proprietary dongles. I assume this is because the manufacturer was worried about inconsistencies or incompatibilities between their own Bluetooth implementation and your computer’s built-in Bluetooth hardware/drivers. No, in most cases where you see dongles (keyboards, mice, gamepads) it’s because the dongle is not speaking Bluetooth to the device, but rather a “raw” pre-paired fixed-frequency RF wire protocol. Devices connected by such dongles (usually marketed as just being “wireless” rather than being “Bluetooth” devices) are basically electrically connected to your computer—just with an RF-modulated bridge stage for the electrical signal path. There’s no “wireless controller” or “modem” in these peripherals; they’re just letting the signal path flow out the antenna. The disadvantage of these (besides the inconveniences of a dongle) is that these “raw” RF protocols provide no consideration for interference with one-another, besides maybe being e-fused to each operate on a different randomized sub-channel of the commercial-use 2.4GHz band. This means that you can’t have very many of these devices operating in the same “shared medium” (e.g. the same open office); and in fact, a channel collision for these devices won’t just interfere with one-another; they’ll often—lacking any device-ID header or per-device encryption key—just plain interoperate with one-another, with your “wireless” keyboard dongle picking up the typing of some coworker’s “wireless” keyboard! (They’re a lot like RF TV remotes in this regard.) Note that devices that market themselves as Bluetooth but also come with a dongle are either 1. lying, and don’t actually use Bluetooth; or 2. have Bluetooth and “wireless” as separate modes. There are good reasons to offer both as separate modes: • Compatibility. “Wireless” devices just look like USB devices, so you can use them to e.g. config your BIOS; or talk to any machine that can speak USB1.0, e.g. some old Win98 beige box. And plugging the dongle into a KVM is just like plugging a USB-connected device into a KVM; you can switch your keyboard’s “focus” between hosts using the KVM, without the host itself needing to re-pair with the peripheral. Switching Bluetooth peripherals around by having the Bluetooth controller on the KVM is much more fraught process. • Battery life. Bluetooth, at least before BTLE, burned energy to a far greater extent than the “wireless” protocols—mainly because the “wireless” protocols aren’t spending any energy on background activities like identity announcement for re-pairing, or frequency-hopping for better SNR. (This is why you see “wireless” peripherals that last months on AAAs, but all Bluetooth devices shipping with Lithium cells: the Bluetooth peripherals need charging frequently-enough that the number of AAAs they consume would be untenable.) • Latency. No e-sport player would ever use a Bluetooth peripheral, since the Bluetooth input path often adds one or more in-game frames of latency (relative to the USB input path), before the input hits the game’s physics engine. “Wireless” peripherals have no such problem.
• bhauer 6y ago
  Many people complacently or willingly use wireless technology for fixed-location devices. While I can appreciate that running Ethernet cable can be a bit frustrating, seeing a desktop computer using wifi makes my head hurt. Especially in the current work from home era, I've seen a resurgent enthusiasm for desktop computing. The simple rationale is: if you're going to be stuck at home and have a decent home work environment, why suffer the downsides of portable devices? Why not leverage the upsides that come from fixed-location workstations (large displays, faster higher-wattage CPUs and GPUs, wired full-size input devices, wired networking, and so on). It's been amusing to see how many people have had their eyes re-opened to the advantages of high-end desktop computing thanks to environmental circumstances.
  • sukilot 6y ago
    WiFi is faster than most people's WAN connection so it's fine. High wattage machines make rooms uncomfortably hot and expensive to cool.
    • floatboth 6y ago
      Fast WAN connections are becoming more common. Also while WiFi has decent bandwidth, the latency/jitter/loss are still ass.
• Pxtl 6y ago
  I've vastly improved the quality of my wifi by upgrading my routers and my devices. The important thing to remember is that wifi always performs as the worst device on your network. A dead-zone device hurts every device on your network. A G-only device hurts every device on your network. So, 2 routers in my sms house, hooked together wired. All my priority devices have new dual-band hardware and are on the 5ghz network. Old devices are relegated to the 2.4ghz network, which is quite spotty owing to that. Unexpected things can do real damage too. I had an older PC that had its wifi dongle plugged into a USB 2 port and it would frequently get multi-second ping spikes. The same wifi dongle worked fine on a USB3 port. I ended up wiring that one in. Personally I've abandoned all wifi hardware companies other than Asus - every other one has let me down at least once, if not repeatedly. In every other respect, Asus seems to be incapable of making devices that rate higher than a B plus, but in the lowered expectations of the world of wifi hardware companies where "occasionally functional" seems to be considered good enough, Asus' spotty quality is a huge step up.
• ricardobeat 6y ago
  This depends a lot on your particular situation and equipment. I ran the ping test exactly as shown, with wi-fi and wired, and there is negligible difference in average latency or standard deviation. Even when using ethernet, the PC connects through an Orbi mesh router, two hops away from the base station. A round trip to local IP addresses is between 9-10ms. Switching to wi-fi adds 2-3ms to that.
• Pxtl 6y ago
  I've vastly improved the quality of my wifi by upgrading my routers and my devices. The important thing to remember is that wifi always performs as the worst device on your network. A dead-zone device hurts every device on your network. A G-only device hurts every device on your network. So, 2 routers in my sms house, hooked together wired. All my priority devices have new dual-band hardware and are on the 5ghz network. Old devices are relegated to the 2.4ghz network, which is quite spotty owing to that. Unexpected things can do real damage too. I had an older PC that had its wifi dongle plugged into a USB 2 port and it would frequently get multi-second ping spikes. The same wifi dongle worked fine on a USB3 port. I ended up wiring that one in. Personally I've abandoned all wifi hardware companies other than Asus - every other one has let me down at least once, if not repeatedly. In every other respect, Asus seems to be incapable of making devices that rate higher than a B plus, but in the lowered expectations of the world of wifi hardware companies where "occasionally functional" seems to be considered good enough, Asus' spotty quality is a huge step up.
  • cma 6y ago
    > A G-only device hurts every device on your network. Doesn't need to be on your network, just in your vicinity like from a neighbor.
    • sizzle 6y ago
      What is the G only device doing that degrades performance on a dual band wireless network?
    • db48x 6y ago
      Yea, that's a fact that most people miss. Every transmission on the same channel as your wifi network slows you down. Every time two devices on that channel transmit at the same time, they both have to retransmit. They both wait a random time before retransmitting, which is good, but then they do the retransmission at a lower speed too, occupying more channel time, in order to make it more likely that their transmission succeeds. This can mean that every device eventually gives up on high-speed transfers, and starts sending every packet at the lowest possible speed.
• pdkl95 6y ago
  > That means in dense areas (e.g. apartment buildings), routers will often ... interfering with each other. Obviously the radios wouldn't interfere with each other if we could prevent the radio waves from leaking into other apartments. If only we had something that could be added to the router that would guide the radio waves directly to the wireless devices instead of indiscriminately radiating in every direction. Some sort of wave guild. /lol
• 0x38B 6y ago
  I'm happier and happier with my wired Shure SE215s. I realize that wireless is super convenient, but for someone who doesn't use their headphones a whole lot - mostly for long conversations and videos, cables don't bother me so much. And another plus is I can just change my cables when they wear out (MMCX standard): less waste, less to throw away. What does bother me is having to use a dongle with my Pixel 3; the Apple USB-C to 3.5mm adapter is thankfully better (and smaller!) than what Google shipped with the Pixel 2, which suffered from really annoying echo problems.
• chrismorgan 6y ago
  > However, every time I can remember helping someone track down the source of their connection problems, the culprit has turned out to be their wifi. This is not my experience. I’d estimate wifi to have been the problem only 20–40% of the time. I’ve found a poor ISP to be the problem much more commonly. And then the last few percent of cases is other miscellaneous network topology problems typically from failing wired hardware, buggy router or dying dumb switch. (I’m excluding “too far away from the router” from my reckoning, because in such cases that’s been known to be the problem, and it feels unfair to criticise wifi for that unless you’re going to criticise ethernet cables for not being where you want them. Notwithstanding this exclusion, I have found that being near the edge of a wireless network’s reach is great at messing with both the router and computers; where I am at present, if I go a few metres further away from the router, my Surface Book’s wifi connectivity stands a decent chance of kinda breaking after a while, so that it starts losing 5–30% of packets and getting average round-trip times to the router of 150ms—which together make it very close to completely unusable—until I next restart the computer (restarting the wifi adapter isn’t enough). I haven’t determined who’s at fault, the router, the adapter, or Windows 10.)
• Evan__ 6y ago
  His point about wifi network polling is spot on. I noticed this exact issue once all of my meetings moved to Zoom. It turns out that location services on my Mac frequently poll all of the nearby networks, causing tons of dropped packets which broke up the audio and video in Zoom. Once I figured this out, which took a while, I had to completely disable location services to resolve it. Switching to a Unifi router and picking an empty DFS channel also improved my wifi experience significantly since I live in a NYC high rise. For those that don't know, many routers allow you to use a set of 5GHz "DFS" channels that are normally reserved for aircraft radar. By regulation, any router broadcasting on a DFS channel must be able to detect radar interference and switch to a non DFS channel immediately for a period of 30 minutes or so. If you live in an area that aircraft regularly hit with radar this be very disruptive, but if not, these channels often perform better than the dedicated 5GHz channels since most routers don't use DFS channels by default.
• kgjhgkhkjh 6y ago
  Buy a router that supports flashing https://openwrt.org/ https://openwrt.org/ . It saves a lot of time. After about 2 years of trial and error i figured why the network becomes bad and stops working when i run torrent, i never suspected the router would be the culprit and thought ISP had an issue, turns out ISP is very reliable most of the time and its the router that is having problems. The problem with router is the debug logs are a joke and does not tell anything. OpenWrt made significant change to my life. Thanks OpenWrt deveoplers.
• crazygringo 6y ago
  Yes, latency and quality degradation suck. But in most cases, for most people, wires suck even more. Seriously. I can't walk around my apartment to tidy it up while on an audio call on my computer if I'm wired. When I walked around the city with wired headphones to my phone, the wires would constantly snag or something or other. Wires are constantly getting tangled, or I have to spend time carefully rolling and clipping them and unclipping them and unrolling. Wires suuuck. They suck baaad. If I'm doing something professional with audio or AV where quality/latency are paramount, then sure I'll use wires and dongles as necessary. They're a "pro" thing. But for everyday use? Wireless is still generally good enough, and the pros waaay outweight the cons. Which is why the world has been switching en masse.
  • atoav 6y ago
    I bought a pair of 190 Euro Sennheiser HD-25 II roughly 10 years ago. I had to swap my cable once in these 10 years which costed me 35 Euros (and the fact that after ten years you still can buy that cable speaks for itself). In the same timeframe my girlfriend went through roundabout 400 Euros of cheapass (or just cheaply manufactured but overpriced) headphones and earplugs, both wired or bluetooth. Some lost, many broken etc. And I nearly used my headphones everyday, in the subway, when jogging, as a DJ on the stage, for sound recording on film sets standing outside in winter during rain. I stepped on them more often than I am comfortable with. Wired headphones aren't bad — shitty wired headphones are.
  • leoedin 6y ago
    I completely agree. Wireless works for me 99% of the time, and it's really, really convenient. I was a Bluetooth headphone holdout, but getting a set completely changed my working life. With wired headphones I'd forget they were in and pull half the stuff off my desk when I got up. The wires frequently broke. The absolute convenience of a pair of good Bluetooth headphones is totally worth the latency. It's not even that bad on my plantronics over ear headphones - certainly usable for calls and TV. They've been an absolute life saver for video calls when there's background noise.
  • coffeefirst 6y ago
    It's a tradeoff. Like everything else, it depends. I'm not wiring up my house for ethernet any time soon, I found a 5g band that performs well and can call it good. But I've all but given up on wireless headphones. If I had a dollar for every time my airpods died or disconnected and refused to reconnect during a video call, I'd have enough dollars to buy new airpods now that their batteries are nearly shot. There's still a time and a place for them, but it mostly involves walking the dog.
• halotrope 6y ago
  There is two changes that had a surprisingly large impact on the perceived flow and effectiveness of my daily work: 1. Ditching notebooks for fast desktops 2. Replacing wireless connectivity (esp. networking) wherever possible.
  • tokamak-teapot 6y ago
    I’ve been doing the same. I’ve recently replaced the following: * Macbook wifi -> wired Ethernet * Apple Bluetooth trackpad -> wired mouse * Apple Bluetooth keyboard -> wired * Bluetooth / Logitech 2.4Ghz mouse -> wired The one problem this hasn’t fixed is keyboard connection to the MacBook. I still have to unplug the USB cable from the (Anker) hub and plug it back in again whenever the MacBook has been asleep. It’s better than forcing a re-pairing of Apple’s own keyboards (yes I’ve had two) with their laptop every day or two though.
    • floatboth 6y ago
      Why would you get rid of the Logitech 2.4ghz mouse? These are great (well, the gaming mice), absolutely no difference in performance vs wired, no pairing required..
      • tokamak-teapot 6y ago
        I'd sometimes have to remove the dongle and re-insert it for it to be recognised (again) by the OS. When I used it via bluetooth it would keep failing to connect and need manual deletion from the list of paired devices and re-adding. Also its dongle seemed to interfere with my wireless Apple keyboard. Not sure but it seemed to correlate a few times. It's much better with its own dongle, yes, but ... I got sick of the occasional issues. No issues with a wired mouse.
      • Marsymars 6y ago
        Experience might be different depending on OS. On macOS, my Logitech mouse would regularly forget its settings, forcing me to reload the profile I’d saved in the software.
• sizzle 6y ago
  Going from 2.4Ghz to 5Ghz was great for stability and speed... until spectrum started pushing 5Ghz as default and crowding the 5Ghz spectrum here. Then I hooked up cat5e and upgraded to gigabit service and it's been bulletproof on my desktop. I can't go back to wireless after wired. I wonder if 5G is going to feel like Ethernet gigabit instantaneous levels of speed?
  • FridgeSeal 6y ago
    I love ethernet connections - you plug it in, it goes. Doesn't care what your neighbor is doing, and it's my understanding that there's less overhead in sending-receiving data over it.
• pR0Ps 6y ago
  Ugh. I had the exact same issue with Qt and it took me forever to track it down[0]. Even though it's been fixed since 2017 I can confirm that there's still lots of network-using software out there that isn't using the most recent Qt library. Installing any of it will destroy your ability to have lag-free video chats or do any other real-time streaming. I've always been in the "wires wherever possible" camp and it's things like this that are keeping me there. Hopefully headphone jacks don't go totally extinct anytime soon... [0] https://cmetcalfe.ca/blog/diagnosing-periodic-high-ping-times-on-macos.html https://cmetcalfe.ca/blog/diagnosing-periodic-high-ping-time...
• kevindong 6y ago
  My opinion on WiFi is that as long as the end user(s) have a decent router/access points (AP), it's great. If the end user has a crappy $25 router or are trying to cover a ridiculously large area with a single AP with a very sub-optimally placed AP (e.g. think bottom of a closet), then yeah they're gonna suffer. Almost no one needs a $200 prosumer router nor a Ubiquiti setup, but everyone needs something better than a $25 router. My experience is that the sweet spot is around $70. Bluetooth is definitely a disaster though. Apple has made great strides with their AirPods and the (It Just Works)™ philosophy behind their products, but even the AirPods aren't perfect. Once every month or so, my AirPods just refuse to connect for whatever reason and I have to restart the device outputting sound to get the connection working again.
• laurentdc 6y ago
  What's with the hate against wires? Wires always work. My wireless printer never worked. Well it prints once, then I have to power cycle it to print again. Thanks Samsung. The minimalism point doesn't really cut it: you still need a wire to charge batteries inside things, so it's one more item. And batteries go bad in a matter of years, so you need to buy a soldering iron and a LiPo cell from shady sources unless you're into replacing >$100 devices every three years or so. Or buy external AAA batteries and a wall charger like 90s toy cars. I don't mind the aesthetics of wires. I love the mess behind my desk and the thought that electrons are being pushed at 40 Gb/s to form an image. Mix and match different colors and braid types for a free steampunk look.
  • dijit 6y ago
    Personally, I'm also a big fan of wires. My partner however, she fucking hates them. I can try to run-down her thought process for you: 1) Wires look untidy This doesn't have to be true necessarily, but making wires neat is an art form, having a wire that goes behind the sofa from the TV for example is something that will never easily be hidden. 2) Wires are hard to clean/collect dust Wires that don't have that fancy plastic routing plates seem to accumulate dust, and are hard to clean around generally. Loose wires that spiral are the worst but even single cables running across the edges of the room seem to be harder to clean. 3) Wires dont "add any benefit". For her, if it works it works, and when it doesn't (and I explain that it's because the signal is poor or there is interference) then her reaction is: "You're smart, you work with computers, make it work."- so I do ugly things like run powerline over ethernet which has it's own cons. -- There is a generalised ignorance about how wireless communication systems work in the non-tech populace, nobody thinks about a 'shared segment of space', they think in terms of themselves, their router, and principally "their connection at the time" to the wifi router.
    • paultopia 6y ago
      I fucking hate wires too, so I'd add the following to your partner's complaints: 4) Wires make the physical environment much more shaky. I have a cat. Like all cats, he occasionally gets rambunctious. When he goes zooming around the desk, the more things that are connected with wires, the more likely that something gets yanked by something else into a catastrophic (as it were) orgy of destruction. Of course, one could just unplug everything that isn't in use, in which case one runs into: 5) Wires create complicated organizational challenges in practical use For example, many of us have more devices than one has things to plug them into (whether that is outlets to plug into the wall or USB ports on the computer or whatever); changing devices means rooting through a pile of cords to figure out which one happens to go into which thing that needs plugging in. Wires also impose location limitations on the things they're attached to, as extra-extra long wires sometimes degrade data quality too, or are spec-violative because of some kind of safety consideration[1], or impose other ancillary safety considerations such as the risk of tripping, of putting furniture on some power wire and fraying it like crazy, further cat dangers, etc. etc. Maybe in an industrial environment, where the entire physical plant can be adapted to the needs of the equipment, it makes sense to wire everything. But in a home, where people have needs independent of servicing their devices and don't have the money to, for example, hire someone to cut holes into the wall to run all the cables through there, wires can seriously degrade a bunch of realistic practical considerations. Source: myself, a person who has recently moved to a building that provides free cable, and hence has cable TV for the first time in his life; has now discovered that in order to make a basic cable tv + internet setup work, one needs 3 wires into the TV, 4 wires into the modem and a splitter on the cable jack, 3 wires into the cable box which apparently is also a TV, and, since modern TVs have shit speakers so a sound bar with 2 or 3, I forget which and can't tell in the wire forest, wires into that. The cable wire is run entirely across the living room, since apparently the only place to connect to the cable company is on the opposite side of the living room from where any rational person would put a TV, all resulting in this horror; [2] all of which is powered buy a single duplex outlet with multiple surge protectors in it, which, at least if you believe the Yale fire marshal, is a no-no[3], but other random places on the internet disagree and, any way, what choice do we have in the Land of Endless Wires? [1] For example, USB-C PD apparently has a limitation of 6 feet in the spec? https://superuser.com/questions/961176/usb-type-c-power-delivery-profile-max-length https://superuser.com/questions/961176/usb-type-c-power-deli... [2] https://imgur.com/0UWlCYW https://imgur.com/0UWlCYW [3] https://www.ucop.edu/risk-services/_files/bsas/safetymeetings/powerstripsafety.pdf https://www.ucop.edu/risk-services/_files/bsas/safetymeeting...
• scarface74 6y ago
  After going from a house to an apartment, when we moved back into a house - it was a new build - we made sure that every room was wired for gig-e. We didn’t want to take any chances on wireless. My wife uses an iPad with a 6 foot stand to teach online fitness classes. She even got an Ethernet adapter for the iPad.
• jhokanson 6y ago
  That was a great story about actually managing to debug a wireless problem. I wish there were better diagnostic tools commonly available that would clearly explain these things. I'm not sure if in the author's case there is some software that would listen for extensive polling and flag that as an issue - even better if it could log running programs at the time and try and guess which one is causing the issue. I'm constantly having problems with my mac laptops and after many hours (10+) of internet searching I still have no idea why the wifi doesn't always work reliably. Some days or weeks (months?) it is great. Other days every hour it is disconnecting. Sometimes resetting the router helps, sometimes it doesn't. The whole situation is extremely frustrating. Some issues: Why am I getting a DNS issue when my wired desktop never has a wireless issue? Sometime I swear that the laptops becomes much less reliable at the opposite end of my house as my router but the signal strength is generally still excellent (4 bars). Anyway, I'm not asking to have my particular issues solved (although that would be much appreciated!!!!). The real issue just seems to be that debugging these issues is extremely difficult and not based on principles but just random things that people can try (e.g., delete your plist files).
• bluedays 6y ago
  I agree, wireless Internet is pretty terrible. However, I find that I prefer everything else wireless. I wish there were more solutions for mechanical wireless keyboards, in fact.
• WrtCdEvrydy 6y ago
  Wireless transmission is pretty interesting. When doing the OSI work and getting to the 'physical' layer for WiFi, I was surprised to see how transmission worked and how often you'd have conflicts when broadcasting packets on the same frequency range.
• sandos 6y ago
  Ive wanted an alternative for 1-wire since I really do not need very quick updates, but I do want really long and questionable wiring! This looks like a perfect fit!
• taf2 6y ago
  When we first opened our office we had a small kitchen interestingly when we turned it on the wifi access in the whole office went down for the duration of the microwave running. Turns out if you have 2.5ghz WiFi it can be interfered with some microwave ovens that maybe have poor insulation... also the signal meter on the computer measures the signal as strong the whole time but packets drop like crazy
• aeturnum 6y ago
  I genuinely don't understand what the author is trying to say. It seems like their thesis is this: > Wifi (and bluetooth, etc.) sucker you in by making it seem like they “just work.” But if you investigate, you’ll often find that the wireless link is operating in a degraded state that performs much worse than a wired equivalent. Wireless technologies are founded on exchanging the convenience of wirelessness for reduced performance and reliability. There's no "gotcha." That's the whole idea. Maybe that trade isn't for you, but it's not a secret. If you take any course on physical networks, they go over the advantages of not sharing the medium. As for the hellishly complicated tech stack that is bluetooth...sure. I don't think it's because bluetooth is wireless. We've had regular articles here on the total mess that is UBC-C[1]. Wired standards are not free from complex protocols and error-filled implementations. All things being equal I imagine that wireless protocols will tend to be worse - but all things are frequently not equal. There are no free lunches and wireless technology trades performance for convenience. I myself have some wired devices and some wireless devices and am quite happy with the result. Edit: This feels like saying "Phones sucker into making you think they're a computer. But if you investigate, you'll often find that they have less processing power than many other computers!" [1] From 15 days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23435805 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23435805
  • cbsmith 6y ago
    There's also the reality that USB isn't really that much less of a mess than Bluetooth. With Bluetooth you have interoperability problems between the controller and the target device. With USB, you have that + the interoperability of the cable.. and it's a mess. USB does overall work better than Bluetooth, but the problems he's highlighting in the article very much exist in the wired space (including the device polling screwing up latency).
  • 0x8BADF00D 6y ago
    His beef is with broken network and BT stacks, I suspect. Not with the actual underlying standards.
  • sbierwagen 6y ago
    >There's no "gotcha." That's the whole idea. Strange. I have closely inspected the box my wifi router came in, and I so far have failed to find "This is worse than wired ethernet" printed anywhere on it. Perhaps you could show me a single wifi AP, anywhere, where the ad copy says anything even remotely close to that.
• battery423 6y ago
  Switched on friday back to wire. My VPN was acting up and my video calls as well.
• mcv 6y ago
  About the network polling addressed in the article, why does any app even need to poll for networks? On every computer, there's only ever one single app that needs to poll for networks, and that's the app that maintains your network connection. For every single other app, network should simply be considered a transparent service that they simply use and don't control. They have no business looking at other wifi networks. They don't even need to know whether they're on wifi or ethernet. Maybe they can ask the network app how crowded the network is, or whether whether they're free to use as much as they want or if they should tone it down a bit (which could be either because it's too busy, there's not enough bandwith, or because it's a metered connection), but other than that, they don't need to know. Lately I keep running into these sort of weird, stupid problems in OS design, and it's making me want to write my own OS (which I won't do, because I lack the skill and knowledge). I agree with much of the rest of the article too. I've always been annoyed that Apple doesn't sell a wired touch mouse. I love the touch mouse, I just don't love running out of battery while working. And I certainly don't like the way their more recent mice need to be charged with a wire inserted at the bottom! Who ever thought that was a good idea?! In some situations, wireless can be very convenient, but when you're not walking around, wired is usually better in many ways.
• dandare 6y ago
  Regardless of the product advertisement Jabra 75 does NOT support native Bluetooth connection to computers (although Jabra is not quick to admit it) https://medium.com/@daniel_36042/jabra-we-know-our-bluetooth-headsets-dont-work-with-laptops-sorry-no-refunds-80ed4cb2fc6f https://medium.com/@daniel_36042/jabra-we-know-our-bluetooth...
• dang 6y ago
  Url changed from https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/8hxvfZiqH24oqyr6y/wireless-is-a-trap https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/8hxvfZiqH24oqyr6y/wireless-i... to the canonical source.