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If you know any bluetooth headsets that don't have similar quirks to what the post talks about, let me know, because otherwise I'm thinking this is Bluetooth an

If you know any bluetooth headsets that don't have similar quirks to what the post talks about, let me know, because otherwise I'm thinking this is Bluetooth and it wont get better until we ditch it. Quirks of Bose AE2 that I'm dealing with: 1) Switching to the low fidelity Bluetooth headset mode when the mic is activated. Why does this still exist? I'd be happier if they just didn't add a mic if they can't support better quality audio. 2) The headset nominally supports connecting to two devices, except there's no mixing. One channel is primary and will override the other. Annoying when you're on a meeting on a laptop and a notification arrives on your phone and the audio cuts out to play the notification tone. 3) To add, sometimes Apple devices just play silence? Meaning, the secondary device will get muted and it will take a minute for you to figure out why it's not playing. There's no user control over this primary/secondary aspect. 4) Oh, yes, I use three devices daily which results in a lot of manual switching. 5) The devices or the headphones don't always automatically connect for some reason. It's not clear either if it's from me manually switching them or what.. 6) Endless issues with Spotify "Failing to play song" when the audio output switches. 7) Not bluetooth, but this headset gives the "Low power, charge me!" chime when the battery is low, even when plugged in and charging.

AlotOfReading 5y ago
re #1: This is basically because it's written into the standard that everyone implements. There are non-standardized extensions to get around this that nobody implements because they're non-standard and a perpetual "This will be fixed by the next standard!". There are also codecs that mitigate the issue by solving the underlying bandwidth problem, but nobody implements those because there's licensing and thus it's not universal. All of this is made worse by the fact that there's really only a few vendors out there. Almost everyone buys the same stuff, which makes the same tradeoffs and the result is that everything sucks in basically the same ways.
- symlinkk 5y ago
  Which is why people pay extra for Apple products, because they don’t make excuses like “this sucks because of the Bluetooth standard”, they build something that works even if it’s incompatible with non-Apple systems.
  - AlotOfReading 5y ago
    Funny you should say that because one of the issues with Catalina was MacOS forcing all headsets, airpods included, to use the terrible default codec I was explaining. Moreover, this then forces all other audio data on the system down to the same terrible quality [1]. The official response was that this was "expected behavior". This is probably also the explanation for annoyance #3 in the article. [1] https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/282705/airpods-extremely-poor-mic-quality-on-mac https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/282705/airpods-ext...
  - spopejoy 5y ago
    #1 was explicitly mentioned in TFA, so not sure why this is an oppy to say airpods fixes common bluetooth problems, instead it seems Apple is equally burdened by them??
dnadler 5y ago
So, I just switched from Android to iOS, and I've noticed that the bluetooth reliability is significantly worse than what I've become used to. I switch from a Pixel 4a to an iPhone 11, and both my Bose QC 35 headphones and Sony wireless earbuds are having lots of issue that I never head on the pixel. So, my takeaway is that iOS is behind here, though I don't know enough about the underlying tech to say anything for sure. Just my anecdotal experience...
- nemothekid 5y ago
  FWIW, Android is now on it's 3rd (4th?) Bluetooth stack rewrite (latest being Gabeldorsh?). I haven't done Android dev in a long time, but bluetooth reliability was a real pain to get sorted even for Google.
ChickeNES 5y ago
> 6) Endless issues with Spotify "Failing to play song" when the audio output switches. Are you on Windows? I have the same issue with iTunes on Win11
- guntars 5y ago
  I'm a on Mac, but it's interesting that you have the same issue on an entirely different system. Clearly we haven't figured out how to reliably have audio devices popping in and out of existence, all while playing music.

AlotOfReading 5y ago

re #1: This is basically because it's written into the standard that everyone implements. There are non-standardized extensions to get around this that nobody implements because they're non-standard and a perpetual "This will be fixed by the next standard!". There are also codecs that mitigate the issue by solving the underlying bandwidth problem, but nobody implements those because there's licensing and thus it's not universal. All of this is made worse by the fact that there's really only a few vendors out there. Almost everyone buys the same stuff, which makes the same tradeoffs and the result is that everything sucks in basically the same ways.

symlinkk 5y ago
Which is why people pay extra for Apple products, because they don’t make excuses like “this sucks because of the Bluetooth standard”, they build something that works even if it’s incompatible with non-Apple systems.
- AlotOfReading 5y ago
  Funny you should say that because one of the issues with Catalina was MacOS forcing all headsets, airpods included, to use the terrible default codec I was explaining. Moreover, this then forces all other audio data on the system down to the same terrible quality [1]. The official response was that this was "expected behavior". This is probably also the explanation for annoyance #3 in the article. [1] https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/282705/airpods-extremely-poor-mic-quality-on-mac https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/282705/airpods-ext...
- spopejoy 5y ago
  #1 was explicitly mentioned in TFA, so not sure why this is an oppy to say airpods fixes common bluetooth problems, instead it seems Apple is equally burdened by them??

dnadler 5y ago

So, I just switched from Android to iOS, and I've noticed that the bluetooth reliability is significantly worse than what I've become used to. I switch from a Pixel 4a to an iPhone 11, and both my Bose QC 35 headphones and Sony wireless earbuds are having lots of issue that I never head on the pixel. So, my takeaway is that iOS is behind here, though I don't know enough about the underlying tech to say anything for sure. Just my anecdotal experience...

nemothekid 5y ago
FWIW, Android is now on it's 3rd (4th?) Bluetooth stack rewrite (latest being Gabeldorsh?). I haven't done Android dev in a long time, but bluetooth reliability was a real pain to get sorted even for Google.

ChickeNES 5y ago

> 6) Endless issues with Spotify "Failing to play song" when the audio output switches. Are you on Windows? I have the same issue with iTunes on Win11

guntars 5y ago
I'm a on Mac, but it's interesting that you have the same issue on an entirely different system. Clearly we haven't figured out how to reliably have audio devices popping in and out of existence, all while playing music.