7 ms·

Let me pass on to you some ancient Chinese... er, German engineering wisdom: He who understands wireless communication uses cables.

by Paul_S 4y ago

qikInNdOutReply 4y ago
Just turn on the emotors and watch all those connections scramble.
badthingfactory 4y ago
Any time a relative asks me which printer they should buy, I tell them to get the cheapest Brother laser printer they can find without wifi. I mostly do this to save myself support calls, but it's also the printer I use in my own house.
- infinityplus1 4y ago
  Brother printers have regressed as well. See this post: Brother printers now locking out non-OEM paraphernalia https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31860131 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31860131
- oblio 4y ago
  I bought a wireless HP printer. Besides the fact that I never printed anything from my phone. It literally required reinstallation (not restart!) to print again, every time, on Windows. It needed an HP account to be able to scan. Locally. I just chucked it out and got a USB Brother.
  - Koshkin 4y ago
    > It needed an HP account to be able to scan. You can use Windows apps to do the scanning without creating an HP account.
    - dmix 4y ago
      Yeah my mom has HP wireless printers and I always uninstalled the HP software and it works every time without having to install anything else. Maybe because I’m used to the MacOS world but that should be the default first thing you try is do nothing and let the OS handle it.
    - jonathantf2 4y ago
      Some new HP printers lock scanning on the printer side unless you sign in with an account, any printer with an e at the end of the model number won't even let you print to 9100 without an account.
  - specialist 4y ago
    A (very) recent HP inkjet firmware update just broke all inkjet cartridges older than about 18 months. Including cartridges from HP. Neither the on-device or OS mediated error messages explained this. I only figured it out from other angry users on reddit. How was my mom supposed to have figured this out? She didn't know that her printer had updated itself a few days earlier. She doesn't even know what a firmware update is. In a world of class action suites over batteries, chargers, keyboards, etc., why isn't HP being sued?
- noisy_boy 4y ago
  I have the wifi laser printer from Brother - works fine wirelessly with Ubuntu.
- wingworks 4y ago
  A few years ago this is what I did. Got the cheapest Brother laser printer. Happened to have wifi, but managed to disable it. It's been working solid via cables for years.
- wikfwikf 4y ago
  I bought the cheapest Brother laser printer in the early 2010s because someone on a forum gave me this same advice. It has worked without issue ever since. A few years ago I plugged it into a Raspberry Pi so that I could share it via CUPS to all the family's PCs. This has also worked almost without problems (the exception being it had to be reconfigured a few times on my wife's Apple laptop). A year or so later I realised that while connected to wifi I can print from my Android phone. The phone found the CUPS server and the printer without me doing anything at all and it has never gone wrong.
- rootusrootus 4y ago
  I kinda did this. Cheapest Brother printer, but with WiFi. Which is exclusively how we use it. Been flawless, printing from windows laptops, macbooks, iphones...
- m463 4y ago
  I have one and connected via USB. Works well.
- bergenty 4y ago
  That’s too much trouble. I like being able to print from any laptop, my phones or iPad.
NikolaNovak 4y ago
Sadly, apple started a 3.5mm free future and others were happy to jump on that horrible wagon (as well as soapbar sexy designs which you cannot hold without a case, but that's another lovable rant :). But yeah. My computers have Ethernet whenever they can. That alone saves what little hair I have left.
- askvictor 4y ago
  Maybe Apple had a sinister plan here... First, they make all of their own Apple gear's bluetooth work really well with other Apple gear (which they generally do). Then get rid of the cables, and everyone else will copy Apple because that seems to be what other companies do. But everyone else's bluetooth implementations suck (which they generally do), so people think that Android/Samsung/etc aren't as good as Apple which Just Works(TM), thus slowly exacting their revenge on the copycats and/or steering more sales towards Apple.
  - ajdude 4y ago
    > which they generally do Every delayed zoom meeting I’ve been in due to AirPods not pairing correctly would disagree with that sentiment.
  - stkdump 4y ago
    I dunno, people here report having problems with iPhones pairing to their cars. I never had a problem with Android phones pairing with my car. Or with my soundcores. As matter of fact, it works so much better, that even though my phone still has a 3.5mm, never thought I would have to use it and would be quite ok if my next phone came without. Back before I had my first soundcores I would always be annoyed with the cord rubbing against my cloths whenever I move, creating noise. And not having to deal with the cord when I put them on/off, etc. It is such a quality of live improvement, easily one of the biggest improvements in recent years.
    - NikolaNovak 4y ago
      I think Bluetooth is a different experience for different people. Couple of questions that may help bridge the gap: Do you have other people with cell phones who regularly pair to your car? (this is my pain point - I am getting ready to take kids to school, but minivan pairs to my wife's phone at home; or conversely, my wife is going out for groceries, but instead of pairing to her phone that's in the car, minivan pairs up with my phone 30ft and one floor up, and TAKES OVER my own bluetooth headset, so now she's hearing my work call in the car as she drives away, and everybody on the call is hearing my screaming kids, while I'm wondering why everybody has turned silent :P ). Do other people pair with your soundcores; do you have multitude of headphones you pair with? (I have multiple content devices - work iPhone, personal galaxy note, and couple of tablets; conversely, I have a work boom headset as well as entertainment headphones; and then we throw my wife into the mix. Neither Android nor iPhone make us feel easily in control of what's happening). What's your experience pairing with friends' cars, and home entertainment devices via bluetooth, or a net-new device? (it's a whole other fun party drinking game trying to join to another person's home devices! Devices may have meaningless names that are not indicative of what they are, or they may need to be in some special mode to be discoverable, some may require pins some don't, it's hard to confirm which side should initiate, some will show as an address until you click them at which point they'll become a name but you realize you took over neighbour's movie, etc etc etc! :) If there's a way to create a priority list, a automatic connect or manual connect list, or create any kind of sophisticated rules for Bluetooth, I'm not aware of it.
fennecfoxen 4y ago
I worked on a wireless network management product for ~5 years, integrating with multiple vendors, and I'm putting fiber in my walls later this year
- xen2xen1 4y ago
  "If you can get a wired, use a wire.." Tech support advice I've given for at least a decade. It's amazing how often people end up being concerts to my way of thinking after a little bit. Wires don't have interference, they don't randomly not work (or much less, I have seen that). They have way more individual bandwidth. They are better in every way.
unethical_ban 4y ago
I thought android auto was going to be cool. I've gotten to use it with my flagship phones and several late model rentals. Every single time, it will disconnect upon occasion while driving (and using nav) forcing me to unplug replug. I haven't waited long enough to see if it could recover ina minute or so. When I enable it by plugging my phone into the car, it tells me it is going to enable Bluetooth. That is like getting high speed internet only to have the modem do dialup. Does anyone know why a forced wired protocol requires substandard wireless connectivity?

Let me pass on to you some ancient Chinese... er, German engineering wisdom: He who understands wireless communication uses cables.

by Paul_S 4y ago

Let me pass on to you some ancient Chinese... er, German engineering wisdom: He who understands wireless communication uses cables.

qikInNdOutReply 4y ago

Just turn on the emotors and watch all those connections scramble.

badthingfactory 4y ago

Any time a relative asks me which printer they should buy, I tell them to get the cheapest Brother laser printer they can find without wifi. I mostly do this to save myself support calls, but it's also the printer I use in my own house.

infinityplus1 4y ago
Brother printers have regressed as well. See this post: Brother printers now locking out non-OEM paraphernalia https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31860131 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31860131
oblio 4y ago
I bought a wireless HP printer. Besides the fact that I never printed anything from my phone. It literally required reinstallation (not restart!) to print again, every time, on Windows. It needed an HP account to be able to scan. Locally. I just chucked it out and got a USB Brother.
- Koshkin 4y ago
  > It needed an HP account to be able to scan. You can use Windows apps to do the scanning without creating an HP account.
  - dmix 4y ago
    Yeah my mom has HP wireless printers and I always uninstalled the HP software and it works every time without having to install anything else. Maybe because I’m used to the MacOS world but that should be the default first thing you try is do nothing and let the OS handle it.
  - jonathantf2 4y ago
    Some new HP printers lock scanning on the printer side unless you sign in with an account, any printer with an e at the end of the model number won't even let you print to 9100 without an account.
- specialist 4y ago
  A (very) recent HP inkjet firmware update just broke all inkjet cartridges older than about 18 months. Including cartridges from HP. Neither the on-device or OS mediated error messages explained this. I only figured it out from other angry users on reddit. How was my mom supposed to have figured this out? She didn't know that her printer had updated itself a few days earlier. She doesn't even know what a firmware update is. In a world of class action suites over batteries, chargers, keyboards, etc., why isn't HP being sued?
noisy_boy 4y ago
I have the wifi laser printer from Brother - works fine wirelessly with Ubuntu.
wingworks 4y ago
A few years ago this is what I did. Got the cheapest Brother laser printer. Happened to have wifi, but managed to disable it. It's been working solid via cables for years.
wikfwikf 4y ago
I bought the cheapest Brother laser printer in the early 2010s because someone on a forum gave me this same advice. It has worked without issue ever since. A few years ago I plugged it into a Raspberry Pi so that I could share it via CUPS to all the family's PCs. This has also worked almost without problems (the exception being it had to be reconfigured a few times on my wife's Apple laptop). A year or so later I realised that while connected to wifi I can print from my Android phone. The phone found the CUPS server and the printer without me doing anything at all and it has never gone wrong.
rootusrootus 4y ago
I kinda did this. Cheapest Brother printer, but with WiFi. Which is exclusively how we use it. Been flawless, printing from windows laptops, macbooks, iphones...
m463 4y ago
I have one and connected via USB. Works well.
bergenty 4y ago
That’s too much trouble. I like being able to print from any laptop, my phones or iPad.

NikolaNovak 4y ago

Sadly, apple started a 3.5mm free future and others were happy to jump on that horrible wagon (as well as soapbar sexy designs which you cannot hold without a case, but that's another lovable rant :). But yeah. My computers have Ethernet whenever they can. That alone saves what little hair I have left.

askvictor 4y ago
Maybe Apple had a sinister plan here... First, they make all of their own Apple gear's bluetooth work really well with other Apple gear (which they generally do). Then get rid of the cables, and everyone else will copy Apple because that seems to be what other companies do. But everyone else's bluetooth implementations suck (which they generally do), so people think that Android/Samsung/etc aren't as good as Apple which Just Works(TM), thus slowly exacting their revenge on the copycats and/or steering more sales towards Apple.
- ajdude 4y ago
  > which they generally do Every delayed zoom meeting I’ve been in due to AirPods not pairing correctly would disagree with that sentiment.
- stkdump 4y ago
  I dunno, people here report having problems with iPhones pairing to their cars. I never had a problem with Android phones pairing with my car. Or with my soundcores. As matter of fact, it works so much better, that even though my phone still has a 3.5mm, never thought I would have to use it and would be quite ok if my next phone came without. Back before I had my first soundcores I would always be annoyed with the cord rubbing against my cloths whenever I move, creating noise. And not having to deal with the cord when I put them on/off, etc. It is such a quality of live improvement, easily one of the biggest improvements in recent years.
  - NikolaNovak 4y ago
    I think Bluetooth is a different experience for different people. Couple of questions that may help bridge the gap: Do you have other people with cell phones who regularly pair to your car? (this is my pain point - I am getting ready to take kids to school, but minivan pairs to my wife's phone at home; or conversely, my wife is going out for groceries, but instead of pairing to her phone that's in the car, minivan pairs up with my phone 30ft and one floor up, and TAKES OVER my own bluetooth headset, so now she's hearing my work call in the car as she drives away, and everybody on the call is hearing my screaming kids, while I'm wondering why everybody has turned silent :P ). Do other people pair with your soundcores; do you have multitude of headphones you pair with? (I have multiple content devices - work iPhone, personal galaxy note, and couple of tablets; conversely, I have a work boom headset as well as entertainment headphones; and then we throw my wife into the mix. Neither Android nor iPhone make us feel easily in control of what's happening). What's your experience pairing with friends' cars, and home entertainment devices via bluetooth, or a net-new device? (it's a whole other fun party drinking game trying to join to another person's home devices! Devices may have meaningless names that are not indicative of what they are, or they may need to be in some special mode to be discoverable, some may require pins some don't, it's hard to confirm which side should initiate, some will show as an address until you click them at which point they'll become a name but you realize you took over neighbour's movie, etc etc etc! :) If there's a way to create a priority list, a automatic connect or manual connect list, or create any kind of sophisticated rules for Bluetooth, I'm not aware of it.

fennecfoxen 4y ago

I worked on a wireless network management product for ~5 years, integrating with multiple vendors, and I'm putting fiber in my walls later this year

xen2xen1 4y ago
"If you can get a wired, use a wire.." Tech support advice I've given for at least a decade. It's amazing how often people end up being concerts to my way of thinking after a little bit. Wires don't have interference, they don't randomly not work (or much less, I have seen that). They have way more individual bandwidth. They are better in every way.

unethical_ban 4y ago

I thought android auto was going to be cool. I've gotten to use it with my flagship phones and several late model rentals. Every single time, it will disconnect upon occasion while driving (and using nav) forcing me to unplug replug. I haven't waited long enough to see if it could recover ina minute or so. When I enable it by plugging my phone into the car, it tells me it is going to enable Bluetooth. That is like getting high speed internet only to have the modem do dialup. Does anyone know why a forced wired protocol requires substandard wireless connectivity?