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Bluetooth continues to be one of the most critically under-delivered standards, in my view. LC3, that this update discusses at the end, was announced January 20

Bluetooth continues to be one of the most critically under-delivered standards, in my view. LC3, that this update discusses at the end, was announced January 2020. Over two years ago. There's still, to my knowledge, no devices that support it. None, not a one. In general I feel like we only just got Bluetooth 5.0 devices available on computers. Bluetooth 4.0 or 4.2 has been frighteningly prevalent, until very very recently. Bluetooth 5 harkens back to mid 2016, Bluetooth 5.1 was announced January 2019, 5.2 in January 2020, 5.3 (you guessed it) 2021, but I'd wager you'd need to drop numerous significant figures below 1% to account for how many laptops (much less desktops) are sold today whose bluetooth is >5.0. Truly one of the slowest, laggiest, least adoptable technologies on the planet. Really weird to me. I can definitely accept some lag. LC3 is really using bluetooth-le, a very different scheme. At the same time, I see folks like zephyr-project already kind of making inroads into this future[1], in the open. A not small part of me thinks the way we do consumer devices is totally jank. That folks like PineBuds are living in the future, where we can compile our own OS'es for our peripherals. PineBuds[2] could, with a little zeal & push, become the first LC3 device on the planet. And they could, perhaps, unlike most other devices that'll be made in the next couple years, possibly support whatever comes next. Shifting areas of interest a bit, but: another data-point in opening the future, the software Intel uses for their new PSE management engine just got open sourced[3]. It too is built on Zephyr. On the positive-side, for PipeWire, incredibly sweet to see Hands-Free Profile get better. This is essentially the idea of a computer acting like a headset. This enables such vast additional degree of system flexibility, creates so many interesting situations. Phones, cars, other things are very limited in what they can do. But if we can wirelessly plug in a general purpose computer, make it act like audio system: we can do so much more. The old Nohands[4] stack is wildly out of date & unsupported. PipeWire just doing the thing is 100% super sweet as the world needs to be. In general, a more amorphous world where computers can act as hosts or devices is one I thing would be vastly empowering: software is soft, and so too should be hardware, when it can. [1] https://github.com/zephyrproject-rtos/liblc3codec https://github.com/zephyrproject-rtos/liblc3codec [2] https://www.pine64.org/2022/04/01/introducing-the-pinebuds-and-pinepod-seriously/ https://www.pine64.org/2022/04/01/introducing-the-pinebuds-a... [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31121264 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31121264 (2 points, 7 days ago, 0 comments) [4] http://nohands.sourceforge.net/ http://nohands.sourceforge.net/

lxgr 5y ago
> Over two years ago. There's still, to my knowledge, no devices that support it. None, not a one. To be honest, that timeline strikes me as pretty comparable with other hardware protocols like 802.11, USB, 5G etc. These are complex protocols, parts of them implemented in fixed-function logic, and that just takes some time to market.
shaicoleman 5y ago
> Bluetooth continues to be one of the most critically under-delivered standards, in my view. LC3, that this update discusses at the end, was announced January 2020. Over two years ago. There's still, to my knowledge, no devices that support it. None, not a one. Bluetooth >= 5.2 and LC3 are some of the prerequisites of LE Audio, but LE Audio is a separate standard that builds upon them. The Bluetooth has only finalised the core parts of the LE Audio standard 22/Mar/2022 [1]. Some optional parts of the standard, e.g. "TMAP: Telephony and Media Audio Profile" are still not finalised. [2] Many of the phones that support Bluetooth 5.2 should be able to support LE Audio. On the software side, Android 13 (expected Q3 2022) will be the first OS to fully support LE Audio, and that's a few months away. It was indeed very poorly communicated, and there was poor expectation management, but within a few months all the pieces should come together and the first devices should appear. 1. List of recently adopted standards: https://www.bluetooth.com/specifications/specs/ https://www.bluetooth.com/specifications/specs/ 2. Diagram of all the different pieces of the specs: https://www.bluetooth.com/learn-about-bluetooth/recent-enhancements/le-audio/le-audio-specifications/ https://www.bluetooth.com/learn-about-bluetooth/recent-enhan...
- rektide 5y ago
  Taking a year to deliver on your promise is ok. But it's well over 2 years and there is jack fucking shit, squada, naught, nothing, zilch. This is a super super super embarassing shit show, a disaster. If things were only just starting to show up, maybe, if adoption was slow, maybe, but literally no one adopting this? Yeahh no, this is a train-wreck technology. This particular organization is incompetent, is bound by their own bad system that has obviously clearly inarguably failed. LC3's non-delivery is just one drastic vast highly-observable fuck up. The failure of 5.0 to arrive in consumer devices for basiclly half a decade rings so profoundly scarily true. There still being noting post 5.0 available so widely confirms these horrible beliefs. Bluetooth miserably fails to make it's way into the world. It's a constant wreck, constantly vastly behind. Specs that are so under-performant dont deserve this endless chance to deliver more. We're well past the point where there need to be other possibilities. Bluetooth has held the world hostage, has perpetually been lopsided in what it does. In other threads I mentioned how pipewire, finally, is creating a more equitable situation by creating a Hands Free Profile bluetooth device, but only via minimal circumstances, short of all the good & better specs. Bluetooth just fails, can't do, is resistance in the world, giving more fixedness & constraint than benefit today. Bluetooth is sad.

lxgr 5y ago

> Over two years ago. There's still, to my knowledge, no devices that support it. None, not a one. To be honest, that timeline strikes me as pretty comparable with other hardware protocols like 802.11, USB, 5G etc. These are complex protocols, parts of them implemented in fixed-function logic, and that just takes some time to market.

shaicoleman 5y ago

> Bluetooth continues to be one of the most critically under-delivered standards, in my view. LC3, that this update discusses at the end, was announced January 2020. Over two years ago. There's still, to my knowledge, no devices that support it. None, not a one. Bluetooth >= 5.2 and LC3 are some of the prerequisites of LE Audio, but LE Audio is a separate standard that builds upon them. The Bluetooth has only finalised the core parts of the LE Audio standard 22/Mar/2022 [1]. Some optional parts of the standard, e.g. "TMAP: Telephony and Media Audio Profile" are still not finalised. [2] Many of the phones that support Bluetooth 5.2 should be able to support LE Audio. On the software side, Android 13 (expected Q3 2022) will be the first OS to fully support LE Audio, and that's a few months away. It was indeed very poorly communicated, and there was poor expectation management, but within a few months all the pieces should come together and the first devices should appear. 1. List of recently adopted standards: https://www.bluetooth.com/specifications/specs/ https://www.bluetooth.com/specifications/specs/ 2. Diagram of all the different pieces of the specs: https://www.bluetooth.com/learn-about-bluetooth/recent-enhancements/le-audio/le-audio-specifications/ https://www.bluetooth.com/learn-about-bluetooth/recent-enhan...

rektide 5y ago
Taking a year to deliver on your promise is ok. But it's well over 2 years and there is jack fucking shit, squada, naught, nothing, zilch. This is a super super super embarassing shit show, a disaster. If things were only just starting to show up, maybe, if adoption was slow, maybe, but literally no one adopting this? Yeahh no, this is a train-wreck technology. This particular organization is incompetent, is bound by their own bad system that has obviously clearly inarguably failed. LC3's non-delivery is just one drastic vast highly-observable fuck up. The failure of 5.0 to arrive in consumer devices for basiclly half a decade rings so profoundly scarily true. There still being noting post 5.0 available so widely confirms these horrible beliefs. Bluetooth miserably fails to make it's way into the world. It's a constant wreck, constantly vastly behind. Specs that are so under-performant dont deserve this endless chance to deliver more. We're well past the point where there need to be other possibilities. Bluetooth has held the world hostage, has perpetually been lopsided in what it does. In other threads I mentioned how pipewire, finally, is creating a more equitable situation by creating a Hands Free Profile bluetooth device, but only via minimal circumstances, short of all the good & better specs. Bluetooth just fails, can't do, is resistance in the world, giving more fixedness & constraint than benefit today. Bluetooth is sad.