this post was submitted on 05 Sep 2024
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I will die on the hill that Bluetooth always has and always will suck ass. Pairing sucks. Latency sucks. Random-ass disconnects suck. Fuck Bluetooth in the neck sideways with a rusty screwdriver.
The bluetooth antennas on your devices have sucked. I have no problems with my pixel 7 pro. Pairs quickly, play music from across the house, through walls and floors even. Previous phones of mine would lose connection to my bluetooth headphones if my.phone was on the wrong hip, obviously an antenna issue.
Until we can finally kill HSP/HFP, I'm never gonna be happy with Bluetooth. Using a headset mic shouldn't blast you back to the telephone era.
What’s hsp/hfp?
It's the Handset Protocol/Handsfree Protocol that was developed for simultaneous sending and receiving of voice data. They're the only protocols that support sending and receiving voice at the same time, and they do that by sending mono telephone quality audio and receiving mono telephone quality audio.
It's why most gaming headsets, even ones with Bluetooth, include a small RF dongle separately. Bluetooth is technically incapable of high-quality audio when recording.
I'm talking phones to cars (for hands-free and music), mice to desk and laptop, earbuds and headphones to both, keyboards to anything from computers to fire TVs, BT speakers, adapters for older receivers... They all suck. Multiple phones, devices and cars. (although the 2012 Chrysler was the worst so far, and the 2021 Subaru is better)
BT on my 2016 Subaru has been solid. Actually there’s some sort of bad connection in the data path so the BT is more reliable than the wired connection
3.5mm gang
Don't forget that the data bandwidth is so low it can't play higher quality mp3s.
Depends on the particular device. LDAC has been around for years and supports higher bitrates than mp3s (assuming we're putting 320kbps mp3s in the "higher quality" category)
LDAC is a very inefficient codec, and isn't lossless even at its highest bitrate. But they are all close to perceptually lossless even at relatively low bitrates so it's a much of muchness.
I have had no pairing issues with anything since 5.0. Also, a good set of buds 5.2 or more doesn't have much lag. I wouldn't pc game with it, but beyond that it's good. Vlc let's you easily offset audio and whatever netflix does stays synced real nice for me.
Bought a Bluetooth headset 5 years ago, never had a problem with it 🤷 fuck cables
Buy cheap shit, get shit results.
Wouldn't say I buy cheap shit, not Apple (I'm not Musk or Bezos rich), but flagship Samsung and pro earbuds, Logitech trackball, jbl speakers, and headsets from Bose and Jabra. Now the BT receiver for the stereo, that was cheap Amazon garbage. I'll give you that one.
I mean my AirPods are fantastic. I think they’re great at playing my podcasts and I’ve not had any problems with random disconnects. Granted I’ve only ever used them with my phone but still.
Shiny new AirPods + shiny new iPhone = minimal issues. Certainly preferable to cords for many, even if no dongle were required for many corded headphones.
In fact AirPods + iPhones have been all but rock solid for years, at least since first gen kinks were worked out… so five years worth of high reliability.
My AirPod Pros have also worked perfectly on my Linux PCs - just as solid as connecting to an Apple device.
That is great to hear. Do you still have to pay the Apple tax if you want the full experience of say using your computer with the AirPods, getting a phone call which pauses your music and having them automatically switch over to the phone until you end the call?
Apple uses a modified version of Bluetooth
Edit: for Apple-only version
Every version of Bluetooth since 1.0 has been a modified version of Bluetooth.
No one uses standard bluetooth. I'm pretty sure it can only transfer files in its base form
That's absolutely not true. Bluetooth has many "profiles" which define different capabilities. Here's a list of them. These are all defined in the official bluetooth standards.
Maybe you were thinking of the "core specification" which defines the underlying protocol but doesn't define the profiles? But that's just the way they broke up the spec documents. The profiles are still official parts of bluetooth.
Apple's proprietary extensions for audio are not part of any official specification though.
Thank you for the correction. I was indeed thinking of the profiles and misremembered how it all works.
Exactly. I just click a button on my laptop and it pairs. Start playing a video on my phone? It instantly jumps to my phone. No lag, no pairing waiting. Didn’t want that? Click the “connect” button on the laptop bc it just noticed that it jumped to my phone. My Apple TV notices when the AirPods are around. Did I ever have to pair them to the Apple TV? No! They’re connected to my account and can see the other devices easily.
This shit right here is why people buy Apple. You sell your soul to the devil and get convenience in return.
Don't get me wrong - both my work laptop and my gaming PC run Linux. But my phone is still an iPhone and if I ever have need for a personal laptop again, it's gonna be a Macbook Air again.
I get the same seamless switching on my cheap soundcore headphone, so it's not just Apple devices that can do this. What Apple is good at is consistency in its reliability. On other ecosystem, it can be a hit and a miss.
Exactly. I fuck with software and device issues all day at work. I don’t want my free time to always be fucking with my phone. I was jailbroken for so long back in the day but it’s just a hassle now when I just want to go home and relax.
Not sure what your use case is (or what devices you bought) but I only ever experienced some disconnects from a crappy AliExpress speaker. For the rest, in my 14 years or so of using BT regularly, I have never had any of those issues you mentioned
I agree with the rest but it absolutely does not just randomly disconnect
I haven't had it randomly disconnect, but I certainly have had my headphones randomly connect to my phone in the middle of a video call on my laptop. The crappy multi-device support for Bluetooth is the bane of my existence.
I have all kinds of cable extensions specifically to reduce my reliance on BT. Wired bedside headphones and keyboard are the best
Im using cheap chinese thing, rarely have problems