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Comment by Jerry2 | Hacker News Reader

AirPods completely changed my view of BT devices. Before, I avoided BT completely because I could never get them working well with an Android phone I was using at that time. Headphones I was using would always disconnect after some time and the quality would drop intermittently and there was no way to fix it. The "fix" was to wait for the battery to drain and then the headphones would restart. I tried few different headphones over the years and always went back to wired ones because of that.

After trying AirPods, I haven't had a single issue. Everything works fine. I'm even content with a BT keyboard and trackpad now.

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Have I won the lottery? I've never had a single Bluetooth issue with any device I've ever had, except my current vehicle:

"All New" 2019 Ram 1500 (If anyone works for Uconnect, please email me.)

iPhone, iPhone 4, Nexus 5, Nexus 5X, Nexus 7, Razer Phone, Thinkpad Yoga, Thinkpad Book, self-assembled desktop, Toyota Corolla - all have worked perfectly with various, cheap, Bluetooth devices - keyboards, mice, speakers, earbuds, and each other for BT file transfers.

(It's really sad that a Corolla has a better Bluetooth experience than a Ram which is 3x in cost.)

> Have I won the lottery?

Yes.

My experience with Bluetooth and kids while driving:

1. Dad, my headphones aren't working.

2. Ok, did you try turning them off an on again?

3. Yes

4. Did you turn BT on your iPhone on/off?

5. Yes

6. Did you "forget" the BT connection and re-establish.

7. Yes child rages

8. Are they ... charged?

9. Child now fully enraged: YEEEESS DAD! I'm not an idiot!

9. Ok ummmm, did you try steps 2, 4 and 6 a couple of times each?

10. child continues to rage, stops asking for help and proceeds to frantically toggle everything on/off/on/off while "tapping" their phone aggressively.

11. 10 minutes later ... Dad they're working now!

11. Awesome, so glad we got you those BT headphones.

There’s a step you forgot — turn your phone on and off. It’s annoying but it can fix problems with headphones when it’s not actually the headphones’ fault.

> Ram 1500

Do you work in agriculture?

No, I'm an Air Traffic Controller who uses a truck to move and tow stuff to help out friends, family, and Scouts.

Why?

"Why?"

I believe your parent is trying to level a "all hat, no cattle" claim upon you.

I am sympathetic to this line of reasoning - it's difficult to to look upon American truck culture in 2019 and not have that come to mind.

I have no comments on your specific situation. Thanks for helping kids with scouts.

I for one do think US truck culture is absurd. Pickups are best selling vehicles by far, yet their beds and towing capabilities are generally used about 1% of the time. The other 99% is commuting in the most wasteful of ways

http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/09/04/its-never-too-late....

I am in complete agreement with you, but you know what? Let's not rag on the guy about his truck when he was trying to contribute to a conversation about the annoyances of Bluetooth. Someone daring to type the word "truck" is not our excuse to pile on no matter how far out of context.

I think it's absurd when the very small fraction of truck owners lift them, trick them out, "roll coal", etc.

I think the vast majority of truck owners are reasonable.

Who doesn't own or pay for something "just in case"? We have insurance just in case we need it. People pay a little more for a truck instead of a sedan just in case they need it.

I didn't mean for this chain of comments to be about trucks, it was just the name of one item where Bluetooth doesn't work that well for me.

Some people seem to think that the only acceptable reason to own a pickup truck is if you're plowing fields with it on a regular basis.

It's socially acceptable here to low-key look down on certain luxuries or lifestyles over others.

It wasn't so low-key, if you ask me.

No it was incredibly rude and offtopic

AirPods completely changed my view of BT devices.

AirPods are the reason I bought Beats Studio headphones. Oh, no, my good sirs and madams, I am the last person on this planet who is going to buy something because some guy who likes big butts put his name on them. No, I am well aware of the denigration of the sound quality from those who supposedly know better. Yeah, they're probably over-priced for what they are.

But I wanted wireless over-ear headphones with noise-cancellation, and Beats has the W1 chip that give AirPods their magical lack of annoyance. Tried them in the store, they didn't suck (they are bass-heavy), take my money.

That's because AirPods aren't plain Bluetooth and include some proprietary Apple magic. I have several Bluetooth audio devices and the only one that's reliable my Jawbone (remember them?) Jambox. Everything else has weird failure modes where it fails to connect or connects partially and allows me to control playback but the sound still comes out my phone.

Headphone jacks were fucking awesome. I want them back.

As a fellow AirPods user on Android, you might like the app AirBattery which allows you to see AirPods and from my friend's experience even some of the Beats's battery status.

I'm not affiliated with the app in any way, it's genuinely helped me become untethered from wife's iPhone. (The app is free and there's $1 in-app to remove ads and enable advanced features.)

Yeah, same here. I can't use any other Bluetooth headphones now, after trying AirPods. It's at the point where I've been thinking of buying very fancy wireless NC headphones, but haven't done so because I can't bear the absence of a W1 chip in either the Bose or the Sony (and obviously am not spending $350 for suboptimal Beats NC), so I'm just not buying anything.

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