4 ms·

People seem to complain a lot about Bluetooth, yet I owned dozens of devices of all vintages and they all played nicely with each other, except for a cheapo pai

People seem to complain a lot about Bluetooth, yet I owned dozens of devices of all vintages and they all played nicely with each other, except for a cheapo pair of MPow earbuds off Amazon. I even managed to transfer old school photos off my ancient 2003 NEC flip phone to my current Android phone even though the former uses Bluetooth 1.1 and the latter 5.1. I also fondly remember using Bluetooth in school to transfer ringtones and wallpapers to that phone from my Windows XP PC, or to and from other kids' phones and it always worked. Maybe I was really lucky, but for all its apparent faults Bluetooth has always served me well and I personally can't really fault it for its intended purpose. As former SDR developer who dived into Bluetooth firmware at some point, I can only attribute the connectivity issues some Bluetooth devices have to just poor firmware design with insuficient testing, or most commonly, bad antenna design with insufficient real world testing from the device manufacturer (experienced RF graybeard engineers are expensive $$$, and most HW companies are sweatshops who pay their engineers peanuts, so there's the main problem that leads to the infamous Bluetooth connectivity issues IMHO), and not to issues with Bluetooth tech itself, fact confirmed after lengthy discussions with our HW guru in the lab. From my experience Sony, Bose and Panasonic put great thought into antenna design while Samsung and LG can be pretty hit or miss. I have not looked into Apple's though, so I can't say, but from the rest of their HW design and the talent they usually have in the HW department, I can assume it's top notch as well. The 2.4GHz spectrum is way more crowded today than it was in 1999 when the first Bluetooth version came out, so getting uninterrupted real-time audio streams reliably on it is hard, but not impossible. One thing I can fault the Bluetooth SIG is that the spec is very complex and full of optional bits which could lead to many pitfalls for the uninitiated engineers and worse, gives developers too much freedom in implementation, meaning your widget might not play well with another widget because each took their allowed freedom in different directions, though Bluetooth chips from reputable manufacturers who know what they're doing, like CSR, TI, SiLabs and Nordic are nearly bulletproof in this regard, provided you also do a good job on your antenna design.

Groxx 4y ago
I've had pretty good luck with phones and most things (audio has various codec mismatches if you're going for high quality, but that's all at least visible on boxes), but not computers and [nearly anything except HID]. HID works great everywhere, and battery life is amazing, I love bluetooth for HID. Bluetooth headsets and computers seems like a special kind of flaky-hell. I tried ~8 modern high-end headsets on 4 laptops (2 windows and 2 macs, both pairs ~3-4 years apart age wise) while trying to pick one, and NONE of the headsets connected to every laptop without issues. EVERY headset had periodic audio drops at least after a couple minutes with at least 2 machines, if not all 4, and many had much more severe issues (disconnects, disconnects that wouldn't reconnect, not connecting at all, etc). ^ All of those headsets connected fine to two different phones, and used the codecs I'd expect... usually anyway. Good enough for the most part, and only 2 had periodic audio drops. Since you seem to know the field somewhat, what the heck is going on with computer bluetooth audio stacks? Are phones just buying all the good chips and bluetooth-OS-integrating-engineers?
- vladvasiliu 4y ago
  That's weird. I've had pretty much the reverse experience. My Sony and Shure headphones have always worked perfectly (even on Linux!), but I've had issues with a keyboard and mouse not reconnecting after they went to sleep (computer stayed fully on), or at least taking forever. However, I was surprised by how little lag the mouse had compared to its regular wireless (Logitech unifying).
  - Groxx 4y ago
    I wonder if it's due to trying to use the newer Bluetooth profiles? Which of course OSX and Windows don't let you select, nor do the vast majority of headsets. Every headset I've used with SBC selected has worked perfectly, including some ancient cheap ones, and I'm pretty sure that's how things are connecting to my car (which always works). --- For mice, I dunno. I've had consistently good results, and I primarily use logitechs. My wife recently swapped out an ancient one that worked perfectly with a AA that lasted 3+ months for a modern one that... also works perfectly with an AA that lasts for 1-3 months. Similar results for keyboards, I primarily use a chonky wired one and I can't feel any difference when I use bluetooth ones. If I did feel lag, it'd be an weird and I'd probably immediately return it. So I do tend to stick with one for a long time, and haven't tried many. I've never done objective latency tests, but they feel fine to me. No noticeable lag compared to wired, which is plenty good for me. RF dongles do at least make pairing a non-issue though, just plug and go (which I LOVE about Apple laptops + keyboard/trackpad, plugging it in sets up the bluetooth pairing).
    - vladvasiliu 4y ago
      I very rarely use Windows, but on Linux my headphones use either LDAC (Sony) or aptX HD (or something like that) for the Shure. On my mac and iPhone they use AAC. Never had any issue with any combination. Regarding the keyboard, I do feel a slight lag compared to wired, but not enough to bother me. The mouse also seems to have a tiny bit more lag compared to its own dongle; however sometimes it seems very laggy for a moment. This never happens with the dongle. I mostly use these in the countryside, in a detached house with not many wireless or microwave devices around, so I don't think it's interference related. The headphones don't skip a beat, either in the same environment or in my apartment building or office in the city, with plenty of wifis, microwaves, wireless mice, phones, etc around.
shakna 4y ago
> One thing I can fault the Bluetooth SIG is that the spec is very complex and full of optional bits which could lead to many pitfalls for the uninitiated engineers, though Bluetooth chips from reputable manufacturers who know what they're doing, like CSR, TI, SiLabs and Nordic are nearly bulletproof in this regard. Earlier spec versions aren't just incredibly complex - they're contradictory. That's what led to so many manufacturers doing their own thing in very slightly incompatible ways. You can pick up two certified bluetooth devices and find them to have different behaviour in the exact same circumstances. In fact, some of the best devices are ones that aren't certified, because they ignore the spec and act more reasonable than it demands. Apple famously skips several of the mandatory verification handshakes to reduce latency in their AirPods. Not optional, mandatory. Because the spec doesn't work that well in the real world.
dhsysusbsjsi 4y ago
Yet every month my Apple AirPods stop connecting with my Apple iPhone, until I hard reboot the iPhone. And a $70 Bluetooth headset that wouldn’t connect to a brand new Apple laptop until I restarted it 4 times, rebooted the Mac twice, and toggled the pairing mode about 8 times. And Bose headsets that don’t connect to iPhone for 2-3 attempts.
- ChuckNorris89 4y ago
  That sounds more like an Apple Bluetooth stack issue at their OS level rather than something wrong with the Bluetooth chip/tech itself. It's where you should complain to Apple or ask for refunds/replacements. Granted, Apple is not alone here since both Google and Microsoft really botched their Bluetooth stacks on their OSs. Especially Google who hasn't learned you can't treat your C driver/embedded SW like front-end JS code.
  - worthless-trash 4y ago
    Apple have really, really weird BT stack issues.
    - joecool1029 4y ago
      Legit everyone does. I one time had to convince a VW dealership to read a TSB issued for my 2012 Golf Cheater Edition, bluetooth only played the left channel of audio, but it played on both sides, so you needed music that was different enough on each channel to really notice. Dealership didn't want to believe me until I showed them left/right channel tests on youtube on both android and iphones and told them to use their own phones to test. It took about an hour to flash the repaired firmware on. Android is on its like 3rd bluetooth stack now? Gabeldorsche, since the meme is rewriting in rust. Every device can support a different number of codecs, everything works on the fallback (or should) but the high definition codecs are a crapshoot. I remember getting the first gen iphone SE and having a radar open with Apple as all bluetooth audio sounded like it was playing through tin foil speakers, they did fix it but here was the original thread on it: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7521352 https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7521352
rektide 4y ago
I have over a dozen Bluetooth audio devices & near no complaints. across my various personal & work laptops & phones, everything works reliably & great. some of my oldest headsets have some dropouts while exercising and that's about it. it's very confusing reading anti-bluetooth articles & posts. i don't feel like we're using the same technologies.
gfrff 4y ago
My $400 Bose headphones have worse range than my cheap MPow headphones. Perhaps whatever great thought Bose puts in doesn't result in great products....
- Aeolun 4y ago
  Or the improved sound quality comes at a cost?
  - numpad0 4y ago
    Better connection through research would also be expected, since wireless headphones without connection can't sound great /s
  - emrvb 4y ago
    Bose and improved sound quality in one sentence?
    - prmoustache 4y ago
      Like it or not, we aren't talking hifi and you may not love their specific coloration but the audio quality per form factor and price of bose bluetooth speakers is quite great compared to alternatives. I mean there are certainly better ones obviously but my soundlink revolve and my soundlink micro are much better than the models from other brands they replaced. Reliability however may be a different thing but I have not treated them very kindly to say the least. I also bought a Bose noise cancelling headset 2y ago and I would say it is quite good, I think the only great alternatives in the same price range are from Sony, the Yamaha, Apple ones are much more expensive. Maybe other decent alternatives would be from technics or sennheiser?
      - emrvb 4y ago
        In my opinion Bose performs only slightly better than the cheapest crap and only has a moderately better build quality, yet at a (near) premium price range. I think their products are barely worth half the money they ask for it. But this is my opinion on Bose in general and not this specific product range. Personally I cant stand Bluetooth audio for anything else but background noise. I'm still amazed how a 192kbs mp3 can sound better with 5 euro earplugs compared to a 200+ euro Bluetooth headset with aptX support. Eventually it doesn't matter at all, if you are happy with their product(s) and consider it money well spend, then who am I to judge. Edit: amiga-workbench 51 minutes ago The most grating "feature" of Bluetooth is having headphones that support fancy AAC/AptX codecs, but as soon as you want to make use of its microphone it dumps the connection right back to A2DP. I'm no longer amazed.
ranger_danger 4y ago
Your experience is NOT typical. I have had random connectivity issues with every single Bluetooth device I have ever used. My biggest complaint is bluetooth gamepads. They simply never work right for me... always registering phantom presses or just none at all. I always have to hold it above my head for it to work right which is unusable.
- Fire-Dragon-DoL 4y ago
  Xbox one wireless gamepad and ps4/5 gamepads are the most used out there and they seem to work fine, but I suspect these might not be using Bluetooth when connected to a console
  - ranger_danger 4y ago
    I only use the xbone pad with a PC using Bluetooth.
    - Fire-Dragon-DoL 4y ago
      I use the xbone on PC but it's connected using the microsoft official USB wifi adapter, I don't think that's bluetooth
ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago
> the spec is very complex I once printed out the BT5 spec (just the core), for Ss and Gs (on my employer's dime). I had a stack of 3-inch (large) 3-ring binders on my desk, reaching 2ft high (0.6m). It was well over 2,000 pages. It would have been five times that, if I had printed out the various profiles, and whatnot. BT is crazy. The difference between "Classic" and BLE is frustrating. I suspect that soon, all BT devices will be cribbing from the BLE playbook. It is a lot more usable than BR/EDR, but the data rate sucks. I think that changes to that, are on the horizon.
- DavidPeiffer 4y ago
  > I once printed out the BT5 spec (just the core), for Ss and Gs (on my employer's dime). I've never dealt with Bluetooth myself, but once heard/read that a company could follow that spec perfectly and their device wouldn't work with large swaths of devices. The claim was that companies implement something that's Bluetooth adjacent but there are some non-conformances that everybody "just does" to make it work the majority of the time. I'm curious if your (and others) experience align with this?
  - ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago
    Well, the equipment that my company made was really quite primitive, BT-wise. They also only supported Classic (BR/EDR), and only then, for control stuff (shutter release, aperture adjust, etc.). Image data was sent over WiFi, and BT was used to help set up said WiFi. Apple is probably the biggest offender, when it comes to custom implementations, but BT explicitly allows vendors to do custom implementations, so they aren't actually breaking any rules.
  - jjoonathan 4y ago
    The BT spec defines 5 overly complicated ways to do any given thing but most devices only support 1 or 2. Multiply by the number of things that need to be done. In practice the compatibility situation is "test all pairs" and just as bad as if there were no standard at all.
amelius 4y ago
The litmus test: can you and a friend listen to a single music stream with two BT headphones at the same time?
- sp332 4y ago
  Bluetooth barely has the bandwidth for stereo audio to begin with. Doubling it up means ok-ish mono audio for each of you, or really crummy stereo.
  - amelius 4y ago
    Why does it need to send the audio twice? Surely both phones can listen to the same broadcast signal?
    - sp332 4y ago
      Bluetooth connections frequency hop among 79 bands to avoid interference. That way, you don't have to pick one channel and hope it stays clear, you just switch frequencies constantly and deal with the occasional hiccup. That means that when you pair devices, they share a key that synchronizes the pseudo-random choices for what frequencies the connection will use over time. So each connected device needs its own broadcast, because other devices won't be listening on the same frequency at the same time.
      - amelius 4y ago
        That is a detail and they could easily change that if they didn't already.

Groxx 4y ago

I've had pretty good luck with phones and most things (audio has various codec mismatches if you're going for high quality, but that's all at least visible on boxes), but not computers and [nearly anything except HID]. HID works great everywhere, and battery life is amazing, I love bluetooth for HID. Bluetooth headsets and computers seems like a special kind of flaky-hell. I tried ~8 modern high-end headsets on 4 laptops (2 windows and 2 macs, both pairs ~3-4 years apart age wise) while trying to pick one, and NONE of the headsets connected to every laptop without issues. EVERY headset had periodic audio drops at least after a couple minutes with at least 2 machines, if not all 4, and many had much more severe issues (disconnects, disconnects that wouldn't reconnect, not connecting at all, etc). ^ All of those headsets connected fine to two different phones, and used the codecs I'd expect... usually anyway. Good enough for the most part, and only 2 had periodic audio drops. Since you seem to know the field somewhat, what the heck is going on with computer bluetooth audio stacks? Are phones just buying all the good chips and bluetooth-OS-integrating-engineers?

vladvasiliu 4y ago
That's weird. I've had pretty much the reverse experience. My Sony and Shure headphones have always worked perfectly (even on Linux!), but I've had issues with a keyboard and mouse not reconnecting after they went to sleep (computer stayed fully on), or at least taking forever. However, I was surprised by how little lag the mouse had compared to its regular wireless (Logitech unifying).
- Groxx 4y ago
  I wonder if it's due to trying to use the newer Bluetooth profiles? Which of course OSX and Windows don't let you select, nor do the vast majority of headsets. Every headset I've used with SBC selected has worked perfectly, including some ancient cheap ones, and I'm pretty sure that's how things are connecting to my car (which always works). --- For mice, I dunno. I've had consistently good results, and I primarily use logitechs. My wife recently swapped out an ancient one that worked perfectly with a AA that lasted 3+ months for a modern one that... also works perfectly with an AA that lasts for 1-3 months. Similar results for keyboards, I primarily use a chonky wired one and I can't feel any difference when I use bluetooth ones. If I did feel lag, it'd be an weird and I'd probably immediately return it. So I do tend to stick with one for a long time, and haven't tried many. I've never done objective latency tests, but they feel fine to me. No noticeable lag compared to wired, which is plenty good for me. RF dongles do at least make pairing a non-issue though, just plug and go (which I LOVE about Apple laptops + keyboard/trackpad, plugging it in sets up the bluetooth pairing).
  - vladvasiliu 4y ago
    I very rarely use Windows, but on Linux my headphones use either LDAC (Sony) or aptX HD (or something like that) for the Shure. On my mac and iPhone they use AAC. Never had any issue with any combination. Regarding the keyboard, I do feel a slight lag compared to wired, but not enough to bother me. The mouse also seems to have a tiny bit more lag compared to its own dongle; however sometimes it seems very laggy for a moment. This never happens with the dongle. I mostly use these in the countryside, in a detached house with not many wireless or microwave devices around, so I don't think it's interference related. The headphones don't skip a beat, either in the same environment or in my apartment building or office in the city, with plenty of wifis, microwaves, wireless mice, phones, etc around.

shakna 4y ago

> One thing I can fault the Bluetooth SIG is that the spec is very complex and full of optional bits which could lead to many pitfalls for the uninitiated engineers, though Bluetooth chips from reputable manufacturers who know what they're doing, like CSR, TI, SiLabs and Nordic are nearly bulletproof in this regard. Earlier spec versions aren't just incredibly complex - they're contradictory. That's what led to so many manufacturers doing their own thing in very slightly incompatible ways. You can pick up two certified bluetooth devices and find them to have different behaviour in the exact same circumstances. In fact, some of the best devices are ones that aren't certified, because they ignore the spec and act more reasonable than it demands. Apple famously skips several of the mandatory verification handshakes to reduce latency in their AirPods. Not optional, mandatory. Because the spec doesn't work that well in the real world.

dhsysusbsjsi 4y ago

Yet every month my Apple AirPods stop connecting with my Apple iPhone, until I hard reboot the iPhone. And a $70 Bluetooth headset that wouldn’t connect to a brand new Apple laptop until I restarted it 4 times, rebooted the Mac twice, and toggled the pairing mode about 8 times. And Bose headsets that don’t connect to iPhone for 2-3 attempts.

ChuckNorris89 4y ago
That sounds more like an Apple Bluetooth stack issue at their OS level rather than something wrong with the Bluetooth chip/tech itself. It's where you should complain to Apple or ask for refunds/replacements. Granted, Apple is not alone here since both Google and Microsoft really botched their Bluetooth stacks on their OSs. Especially Google who hasn't learned you can't treat your C driver/embedded SW like front-end JS code.
- worthless-trash 4y ago
  Apple have really, really weird BT stack issues.
  - joecool1029 4y ago
    Legit everyone does. I one time had to convince a VW dealership to read a TSB issued for my 2012 Golf Cheater Edition, bluetooth only played the left channel of audio, but it played on both sides, so you needed music that was different enough on each channel to really notice. Dealership didn't want to believe me until I showed them left/right channel tests on youtube on both android and iphones and told them to use their own phones to test. It took about an hour to flash the repaired firmware on. Android is on its like 3rd bluetooth stack now? Gabeldorsche, since the meme is rewriting in rust. Every device can support a different number of codecs, everything works on the fallback (or should) but the high definition codecs are a crapshoot. I remember getting the first gen iphone SE and having a radar open with Apple as all bluetooth audio sounded like it was playing through tin foil speakers, they did fix it but here was the original thread on it: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7521352 https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7521352

rektide 4y ago

I have over a dozen Bluetooth audio devices & near no complaints. across my various personal & work laptops & phones, everything works reliably & great. some of my oldest headsets have some dropouts while exercising and that's about it. it's very confusing reading anti-bluetooth articles & posts. i don't feel like we're using the same technologies.

gfrff 4y ago

My $400 Bose headphones have worse range than my cheap MPow headphones. Perhaps whatever great thought Bose puts in doesn't result in great products....

Aeolun 4y ago
Or the improved sound quality comes at a cost?
- numpad0 4y ago
  Better connection through research would also be expected, since wireless headphones without connection can't sound great /s
- emrvb 4y ago
  Bose and improved sound quality in one sentence?
  - prmoustache 4y ago
    Like it or not, we aren't talking hifi and you may not love their specific coloration but the audio quality per form factor and price of bose bluetooth speakers is quite great compared to alternatives. I mean there are certainly better ones obviously but my soundlink revolve and my soundlink micro are much better than the models from other brands they replaced. Reliability however may be a different thing but I have not treated them very kindly to say the least. I also bought a Bose noise cancelling headset 2y ago and I would say it is quite good, I think the only great alternatives in the same price range are from Sony, the Yamaha, Apple ones are much more expensive. Maybe other decent alternatives would be from technics or sennheiser?
    - emrvb 4y ago
      In my opinion Bose performs only slightly better than the cheapest crap and only has a moderately better build quality, yet at a (near) premium price range. I think their products are barely worth half the money they ask for it. But this is my opinion on Bose in general and not this specific product range. Personally I cant stand Bluetooth audio for anything else but background noise. I'm still amazed how a 192kbs mp3 can sound better with 5 euro earplugs compared to a 200+ euro Bluetooth headset with aptX support. Eventually it doesn't matter at all, if you are happy with their product(s) and consider it money well spend, then who am I to judge. Edit: amiga-workbench 51 minutes ago The most grating "feature" of Bluetooth is having headphones that support fancy AAC/AptX codecs, but as soon as you want to make use of its microphone it dumps the connection right back to A2DP. I'm no longer amazed.

ranger_danger 4y ago

Your experience is NOT typical. I have had random connectivity issues with every single Bluetooth device I have ever used. My biggest complaint is bluetooth gamepads. They simply never work right for me... always registering phantom presses or just none at all. I always have to hold it above my head for it to work right which is unusable.

Fire-Dragon-DoL 4y ago
Xbox one wireless gamepad and ps4/5 gamepads are the most used out there and they seem to work fine, but I suspect these might not be using Bluetooth when connected to a console
- ranger_danger 4y ago
  I only use the xbone pad with a PC using Bluetooth.
  - Fire-Dragon-DoL 4y ago
    I use the xbone on PC but it's connected using the microsoft official USB wifi adapter, I don't think that's bluetooth

ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago

> the spec is very complex I once printed out the BT5 spec (just the core), for Ss and Gs (on my employer's dime). I had a stack of 3-inch (large) 3-ring binders on my desk, reaching 2ft high (0.6m). It was well over 2,000 pages. It would have been five times that, if I had printed out the various profiles, and whatnot. BT is crazy. The difference between "Classic" and BLE is frustrating. I suspect that soon, all BT devices will be cribbing from the BLE playbook. It is a lot more usable than BR/EDR, but the data rate sucks. I think that changes to that, are on the horizon.

DavidPeiffer 4y ago
> I once printed out the BT5 spec (just the core), for Ss and Gs (on my employer's dime). I've never dealt with Bluetooth myself, but once heard/read that a company could follow that spec perfectly and their device wouldn't work with large swaths of devices. The claim was that companies implement something that's Bluetooth adjacent but there are some non-conformances that everybody "just does" to make it work the majority of the time. I'm curious if your (and others) experience align with this?
- ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago
  Well, the equipment that my company made was really quite primitive, BT-wise. They also only supported Classic (BR/EDR), and only then, for control stuff (shutter release, aperture adjust, etc.). Image data was sent over WiFi, and BT was used to help set up said WiFi. Apple is probably the biggest offender, when it comes to custom implementations, but BT explicitly allows vendors to do custom implementations, so they aren't actually breaking any rules.
- jjoonathan 4y ago
  The BT spec defines 5 overly complicated ways to do any given thing but most devices only support 1 or 2. Multiply by the number of things that need to be done. In practice the compatibility situation is "test all pairs" and just as bad as if there were no standard at all.

amelius 4y ago

The litmus test: can you and a friend listen to a single music stream with two BT headphones at the same time?

sp332 4y ago
Bluetooth barely has the bandwidth for stereo audio to begin with. Doubling it up means ok-ish mono audio for each of you, or really crummy stereo.
- amelius 4y ago
  Why does it need to send the audio twice? Surely both phones can listen to the same broadcast signal?
  - sp332 4y ago
    Bluetooth connections frequency hop among 79 bands to avoid interference. That way, you don't have to pick one channel and hope it stays clear, you just switch frequencies constantly and deal with the occasional hiccup. That means that when you pair devices, they share a key that synchronizes the pseudo-random choices for what frequencies the connection will use over time. So each connected device needs its own broadcast, because other devices won't be listening on the same frequency at the same time.
    - amelius 4y ago
      That is a detail and they could easily change that if they didn't already.