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Buggy Bluetooth on the other end... Alexa is running Linux, and the Sony is probably some custom bluetooth stack. Once you move to all Apple bluetooth, things

Buggy Bluetooth on the other end... Alexa is running Linux, and the Sony is probably some custom bluetooth stack. Once you move to all Apple bluetooth, things really smooth out. It seems that Apple does way more testing/validating of their Bluetooth stack.

yjftsjthsd-h 6y ago
I had the idea in my head (so take with a grain of salt) that parts of the BT stack are underspecified such that different implementations tend to have slightly different interpretations of the standard, so the problem isn't even which vendor you use so much as going all-in on any single vendor so the devices all agree on which reading to use. Although of course Apple might well be better anyways; one would hope that billions of dollars in R&D plus caring about quality makes a difference.
- fshbbdssbbgdd 6y ago
  I buy this. All Apple works great, but Apple headset with Windows PC doesn’t seem better than anything else with Windows PC.
- mondoshawan 6y ago
  Actually the spec is overspecified and repeats itself multiple times in different layers. L2CAP specifies a TTL, so does RFCOMM, so does SOC, so does...
- coryrc 6y ago
  I've actually worked in this area. You are basically correct. Sometimes you have to make a choice on which brands/chipsets you support. Devices on different ends of the compatibility spectrum can basically be mutually exclusive. IIRC if you advertise A2DP some devices supporting only HSP won't work, so you can make some hacky workaround but then your nicer A2DP equipment is harder to use. If you only need to guarantee support for X subset of devices you control, it's easy to tweak the settings so they work well together.
PostThisTooFast 6y ago
Even then its behavior differs between iOS and Mac. My BT-using app would run fine under iOS but not the Mac; it turned out that the Mac rediscovers devices several times unnecessarily. So if your application progresses through states based on device discovery, it will be confused by this. Not a huge problem to mitigate once you discover it, but the different behavior is annoying.
blep-arsh 6y ago
They don't smooth out, for me, at least. Airpods Max, for example, can just decide to transmit nothing but deafening static to the other side in the conversation.
hutattedonmyarm 6y ago
Eh, I’m still having weird connection issues between my iPhone and OG AirPods. Less than with my old headphones, but more than I’d like

yjftsjthsd-h 6y ago

I had the idea in my head (so take with a grain of salt) that parts of the BT stack are underspecified such that different implementations tend to have slightly different interpretations of the standard, so the problem isn't even which vendor you use so much as going all-in on any single vendor so the devices all agree on which reading to use. Although of course Apple might well be better anyways; one would hope that billions of dollars in R&D plus caring about quality makes a difference.

fshbbdssbbgdd 6y ago
I buy this. All Apple works great, but Apple headset with Windows PC doesn’t seem better than anything else with Windows PC.
mondoshawan 6y ago
Actually the spec is overspecified and repeats itself multiple times in different layers. L2CAP specifies a TTL, so does RFCOMM, so does SOC, so does...
coryrc 6y ago
I've actually worked in this area. You are basically correct. Sometimes you have to make a choice on which brands/chipsets you support. Devices on different ends of the compatibility spectrum can basically be mutually exclusive. IIRC if you advertise A2DP some devices supporting only HSP won't work, so you can make some hacky workaround but then your nicer A2DP equipment is harder to use. If you only need to guarantee support for X subset of devices you control, it's easy to tweak the settings so they work well together.

PostThisTooFast 6y ago

Even then its behavior differs between iOS and Mac. My BT-using app would run fine under iOS but not the Mac; it turned out that the Mac rediscovers devices several times unnecessarily. So if your application progresses through states based on device discovery, it will be confused by this. Not a huge problem to mitigate once you discover it, but the different behavior is annoying.

blep-arsh 6y ago

They don't smooth out, for me, at least. Airpods Max, for example, can just decide to transmit nothing but deafening static to the other side in the conversation.

hutattedonmyarm 6y ago

Eh, I’m still having weird connection issues between my iPhone and OG AirPods. Less than with my old headphones, but more than I’d like