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Comment by joelthelion | Hacker News Reader

How about introducing reliable bluetooth instead?

It's reliable, you just need to use an rf cable.

> It's reliable, you just need to use an rf cable.

This reminds me of a German engineering wise saying: "Wer Funk verstanden hat, nimmt Kabel" ("Those who have understood wireless use a cable.").

Don't get me wrong, I think this is a great idea, but I have to agree with you. I regularly have problems with devices that pair fine one day and then refuse to pair the next.

Agreed. Thank god Wifi has never been as bad as Bluetooth.

It was. You just don't know/remember.

I remember using Wifi in the late 90s on one of those jelly bean iMacs. It was never Bluetooth bad, in fact it was rather magical at the time.

Bluetooth is like plate spinning. If you can do it, it's impressive.

I still remember using an ASCII table to convert characters of a password to hex-codes in order to get my 3COM USB WiFI adapter to connect.

And in order to get the USB adapter to work I had to install a new operating system (Windows 98SE).

Networking was difficult. I remember having to install TCP/IP and doing magical voodoo with specialised printer cables to get two computers to share files with each other.

Nowadays you just plug stuff in and it works.

It's interesting that you (and a number of sibling comments) have this feeling. I've always found the pairing process to be a faff, but once that's done it works very consistently.

Random question: Are most people's complaints because of cheap BT devices? Additionally, is it a factor if they are trying to use the BT accessories with multiple devices frequently?

I've often wondered about people's big complaints with Bluetooth in regards to headphones/speakers, because I don't seem to share them, except with our '14 Ford Explorer. That whole system gets wonky.

As I think about it though, my usage is pretty simple: Earbuds for commuting, different buds for the gym, A/V at home. My receiver at home is an upper level brand, my headphones I use every day aren't horrifically expensive, but they're not cheap either. They're only ever used with MY phone, so I don't have to keep re-pairing them. When I'm on my bike and the phone is in my bag, never have issues. On the motorcycle I get the very occasionally stutter when it's in the saddlebag. Like once a month.

I've used really cheap bluetooth audio devices before that had horrific range. I just don't buy them anymore. I even had a set of LG neck band style headphones that were supposed to be a 'better' model than the ones I still use and those were bad from the get go. I returned them on day two, four years in my lower model ones are still working flawlessly.

Now, if I was using my headphones with my laptop and my phone and had to re-pair frequently, I'd be a bit more put off, but OS X and iOS have done it okay for me. I gave up with Bluetooth audio on my Linux laptop though.

Now that I think about it, maybe it's because I've literally given up trying to do anything other than get my devices working and then leaving them alone...

I don't think it correlates much with cost. I interned at one of the major BT companies for 6 months. I did a bunch of testing and characterization of the connection process to troubleshoot issues for our customers. What I found was that small changes to settings that consumers don't even realize exist would cause connection times to vary tremendously.

There are dozens of parameters that control the interaction between two bluetooth devices. Virtually none of them are configurable, and they all have to line up just right on both ends of the connection for things to work efficiently. It's somewhat amazing to me that the protocol works at all.

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