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The magic comes from proprietary protocols. My airpods pro switch devices intuitively, but when I pair them to my windows laptop with bluetooth things don’t wor

by Joeri 6y ago

The magic comes from proprietary protocols. My airpods pro switch devices intuitively, but when I pair them to my windows laptop with bluetooth things don’t work so smoothly anymore and they are just as cumbersome as any bluetooth headset. I think the core problem of bluetooth headsets is the bluetooth spec itself makes it impossible to deliver a good UX. This isn’t just apple either. My logitech mouse is paired to my laptop via their dongle, and to my desktop via bluetooth. On the laptop the connection is rock-solid, on the desktop it loses the connection once or twice a day for a few seconds. I’m convinced the problem is bluetooth itself, not the device makers.

ufmace 6y ago
There's probably a lot of truth to this. It does go against the common sentiment here that open everything is always better. Well somebody will improve it themselves, right? So why hasn't anybody improved the open standard Bluetooth yet to meet those same standards of quality? I think lately openness is massively overrated. This stuff is hard to get right, and it takes a lot of high-end hardware and tight collaboration between full-time engineers to do it. Random people working part-time in their garages and collaborating over Github will never do it. It works sort of okay for a few particular types of projects, but fails massively for many others, particularly things involving hardware. Only big corps can manage the budget and coordination required to do it right, and they'll only do it if it's closed, so they know they'll get the revenue from customers who want it done right.
- wcarss 6y ago
  I think this is exactly the crux of the issue, but I see a big difference: Bluetooth being "open" doesn't mean much when the kernel and device drivers and electronics are all closed. What would them being "open" mean -- specs are available? No, it would mean they are built in a fashion that allows them to be modified. It would mean that tools are easily available to the lay to allow modification. I fully agree that just publishing the spec of a chip does not enable random people working part time in their garages or collaborating over github to do it, but creating software and hardware from the ground up with modifiability in mind would enable that kind of ad hoc work. Would it solve all problems? Would it fix every bug? No, of course not! I'm not saying that open source is the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe and everything -- I'm saying that a world built out of proprietary, competing, closed-off little gardens at the least guarantees that that which was created sub-standard cannot ever be brought to par. Let me fix my own damned watch, and I really might.
- mixedCase 6y ago
  It's funny because your comment would make sense if the Bluetooth spec wasn't a product of design by committee by a bunch of big companies called the "Bluetooth Special Interest Group", but was instead the fault of someone hacking from home without pants on. While in reality, we could pool together some money to buy pizza for a couple of weeks for some experienced embedded developer with some RF knowledge and odds are they'd produce something better. Without pants on.

by Joeri 6y ago

ufmace 6y ago

There's probably a lot of truth to this. It does go against the common sentiment here that open everything is always better. Well somebody will improve it themselves, right? So why hasn't anybody improved the open standard Bluetooth yet to meet those same standards of quality? I think lately openness is massively overrated. This stuff is hard to get right, and it takes a lot of high-end hardware and tight collaboration between full-time engineers to do it. Random people working part-time in their garages and collaborating over Github will never do it. It works sort of okay for a few particular types of projects, but fails massively for many others, particularly things involving hardware. Only big corps can manage the budget and coordination required to do it right, and they'll only do it if it's closed, so they know they'll get the revenue from customers who want it done right.

wcarss 6y ago
I think this is exactly the crux of the issue, but I see a big difference: Bluetooth being "open" doesn't mean much when the kernel and device drivers and electronics are all closed. What would them being "open" mean -- specs are available? No, it would mean they are built in a fashion that allows them to be modified. It would mean that tools are easily available to the lay to allow modification. I fully agree that just publishing the spec of a chip does not enable random people working part time in their garages or collaborating over github to do it, but creating software and hardware from the ground up with modifiability in mind would enable that kind of ad hoc work. Would it solve all problems? Would it fix every bug? No, of course not! I'm not saying that open source is the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe and everything -- I'm saying that a world built out of proprietary, competing, closed-off little gardens at the least guarantees that that which was created sub-standard cannot ever be brought to par. Let me fix my own damned watch, and I really might.
mixedCase 6y ago
It's funny because your comment would make sense if the Bluetooth spec wasn't a product of design by committee by a bunch of big companies called the "Bluetooth Special Interest Group", but was instead the fault of someone hacking from home without pants on. While in reality, we could pool together some money to buy pizza for a couple of weeks for some experienced embedded developer with some RF knowledge and odds are they'd produce something better. Without pants on.