5 ms·

The standard of "wireless USB" was there, but probably as in any standards war, moved too slowly and had less to offer than competing standards. Are we not bett

by kensai 1y ago

The standard of "wireless USB" was there, but probably as in any standards war, moved too slowly and had less to offer than competing standards. Are we not better off with Wifi and Bluetooth now? Btw, is there a direct comparison anywhere regarding energy consumption of the competing standards in real situations?

gizmo686 1y ago
Neither Wifi nor Bluetooth are a 1:1 replacement for wireless USB, in that neither allow you to use a standard USB device without a wired path between the device and host. In theory, Bluetooth ought to be the replacement for most use cases, and would simply require replacing your USB devices with Bluetooth devices. In practice, Bluetooth is still kind of terrible, so I'm tempted to say any alternative timeline where something else won the personal area network war would probably be better. We still kind of do wireless USB, in that the standard for wireless mouse and keyboards is still not Bluetooth, but a dedicated USB dongle that ships with the device. Such options are available for wireless headsets as well, although Bluetooth seems to winning in that niche.
- kensai 1y ago
  It used to be the case that BT was terrible, but in the last few years I have increasingly stable device connections. Could it be they simply ironed out the bugs over the years, the standard matured, and also the manufacturers are more compliant? It just works for me, no horror stories. And BT LE is indeed low energy. Btw, do you have any other suspected reason (politics aside) that wireless USB did not catch on?
  - usrusr 1y ago
    The real change is that BT LE isn't just about low energy. That might have actually been the original intention, but in practice it is so good beyond that core area of competence that it has also displaced classic Bluetooth in fields like audio streaming, connections beyond strictly PAN distance and so on. And it will only get better as more remnants of Old Bluetooth are disappearing from devices, that have been retained for backwards compatibility.
sholladay 1y ago
Better off with Bluetooth is something I never thought anyone would say.
frollogaston 1y ago
Bluetooth is bad enough that wireless mice/keyboards usually have a USB dongle receiving what I guess is a proprietary RF protocol. Some wireless headphones have that too. And wifi requires too much power.
- numpad0 1y ago
  Bluetooth isn't too bad, Logitech Bolt is based on BLE and it's just fine. Bigger problem is integration into x86/x86_64 platform.
  - Findecanor 1y ago
    Bluetooth mice use the HID protocol borrowed from USB, except with Bluetooth as carrier. But HID had not been designed for the possibility that packets could get lost: it sends movements as a relative vector since the previous packet. I don't know how Logi Bolt works, but Logitech has claimed that it should work better than BLE when the 2.4 GHz band is congested. Also that it would have better security than BLE.
    - numpad0 1y ago
      I mean, you can't type in BitLocker password wirelessly without a dongle. Optical mice sensors aren't so repeatable anyway, so missing a packet or two probably aren't so critical.
    - freehorse 1y ago
      > But HID had not been designed for the possibility that packets could get lost Doesn't the same problem exist for USB dongles with proprietary RF protocols? Logi Bolt is a good solution. But ime most other USB dongles are terrible. I have had a lot of bad connection issues with such USB dongles, and never with similar bluetooth devices. USB dongles also use the same 2.4GHz band, and even more they are prone to interference from nearby active USB ports [0]. If you have ever had a "jumping" mouse while transfering big amounts of data through a port neighbouring your mouse's USB dongle, this is likely the reason. [0] https://www.usb.org/sites/default/files/327216.pdf https://www.usb.org/sites/default/files/327216.pdf
troupo 1y ago
> Are we not better off with Wifi and Bluetooth now? Bluetooth is a nightmare of a standard. Up until very recently even pairing two devices was a non-deterministic operation. Apple went as far as creating their own chip with their own protocol for their headphones just not to have to deal with bluetooth.
7373737373 1y ago
Bluetooth is so terrible that you can't even use headphones with high quality audio while also using their microphone. In 2025. It's pathetic.

by kensai 1y ago

gizmo686 1y ago

Neither Wifi nor Bluetooth are a 1:1 replacement for wireless USB, in that neither allow you to use a standard USB device without a wired path between the device and host. In theory, Bluetooth ought to be the replacement for most use cases, and would simply require replacing your USB devices with Bluetooth devices. In practice, Bluetooth is still kind of terrible, so I'm tempted to say any alternative timeline where something else won the personal area network war would probably be better. We still kind of do wireless USB, in that the standard for wireless mouse and keyboards is still not Bluetooth, but a dedicated USB dongle that ships with the device. Such options are available for wireless headsets as well, although Bluetooth seems to winning in that niche.

kensai 1y ago
It used to be the case that BT was terrible, but in the last few years I have increasingly stable device connections. Could it be they simply ironed out the bugs over the years, the standard matured, and also the manufacturers are more compliant? It just works for me, no horror stories. And BT LE is indeed low energy. Btw, do you have any other suspected reason (politics aside) that wireless USB did not catch on?
- usrusr 1y ago
  The real change is that BT LE isn't just about low energy. That might have actually been the original intention, but in practice it is so good beyond that core area of competence that it has also displaced classic Bluetooth in fields like audio streaming, connections beyond strictly PAN distance and so on. And it will only get better as more remnants of Old Bluetooth are disappearing from devices, that have been retained for backwards compatibility.

sholladay 1y ago

Better off with Bluetooth is something I never thought anyone would say.

frollogaston 1y ago

Bluetooth is bad enough that wireless mice/keyboards usually have a USB dongle receiving what I guess is a proprietary RF protocol. Some wireless headphones have that too. And wifi requires too much power.

numpad0 1y ago
Bluetooth isn't too bad, Logitech Bolt is based on BLE and it's just fine. Bigger problem is integration into x86/x86_64 platform.
- Findecanor 1y ago
  Bluetooth mice use the HID protocol borrowed from USB, except with Bluetooth as carrier. But HID had not been designed for the possibility that packets could get lost: it sends movements as a relative vector since the previous packet. I don't know how Logi Bolt works, but Logitech has claimed that it should work better than BLE when the 2.4 GHz band is congested. Also that it would have better security than BLE.
  - numpad0 1y ago
    I mean, you can't type in BitLocker password wirelessly without a dongle. Optical mice sensors aren't so repeatable anyway, so missing a packet or two probably aren't so critical.
  - freehorse 1y ago
    > But HID had not been designed for the possibility that packets could get lost Doesn't the same problem exist for USB dongles with proprietary RF protocols? Logi Bolt is a good solution. But ime most other USB dongles are terrible. I have had a lot of bad connection issues with such USB dongles, and never with similar bluetooth devices. USB dongles also use the same 2.4GHz band, and even more they are prone to interference from nearby active USB ports [0]. If you have ever had a "jumping" mouse while transfering big amounts of data through a port neighbouring your mouse's USB dongle, this is likely the reason. [0] https://www.usb.org/sites/default/files/327216.pdf https://www.usb.org/sites/default/files/327216.pdf

troupo 1y ago

> Are we not better off with Wifi and Bluetooth now? Bluetooth is a nightmare of a standard. Up until very recently even pairing two devices was a non-deterministic operation. Apple went as far as creating their own chip with their own protocol for their headphones just not to have to deal with bluetooth.

7373737373 1y ago

Bluetooth is so terrible that you can't even use headphones with high quality audio while also using their microphone. In 2025. It's pathetic.