Ask HN: Anyone else find Bluetooth to be frustrating?
I find Bluetooth to be a frustrating experience. Almost every day I encounter issues when I'm trying to pair say, my headphones, with my MacBook. I hold the power button the headphones to turn them on or they're already on standby. I do a few clicks to pair them on my MacBook. macOS says it's paired but I didn't hear the pairing sound. So I try clicking again to unpair. No unpair sound. I toggle Bluetooth off and on and try pairing again. No dice. I power cycle the headphones and they pair with my phone instead. I hold the up and down volume buttons to force them into pairing mode again...
Not to mention that Spotify randomly decides to switch devices sometimes and refuses to switch back unless I kill the app. Or it says my headphones are paired even though Android does not.
On the London Underground, my music often goes crackly/distorted presumably because of interference from the trains and other devices around me. Frankly I never even considered that could be an issue. And it's not a faulty product or anything like that.
This isn't just a complaint about my AT headphones. My Anker earbuds are just as frustrating.
It would be so nice if you could just like, I don't know, bump two devices together and they use NFC to pair or something.
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[ 4.3 ms ] story [ 122 ms ] threadI honestly don't thin there is any use case yet for streaming large payload of data (or music ) via NFC.
So bluetooth might be better compared to NFC for use case where NFC haven't been designed for. but in that case I could say that microwave communication is better than bluetooth
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Windows 11 "system settings" constantly crashes, which is how I need to access the BT panel....
But in all, with BT headsets galore (I have a literal bag full of different BT headset types) -- they all SUCK.
And dont even get me started on "buds" <-- $150 USD+++ for a fucking earbud set.
Fuck all of this.
They are LITERALLY just microplastics++heavyMetals in the oceans in <5 years.
Completely non-recyclable.
Absolute consumer fucking garbage.
It's really first-world-problem territory, but it's a little frustrating that all phone manufacturers are going all-in on dropping headphone jacks without a rock-solid replacement technology. This is prime territory for one of the big tech companies to come up with something better than BT, force it into the industry, and earn some significant loyalty points from me at least. Looking at you Apple.
I’m am frustrated almost DAILY by Bluetooth and various connection issues. If I drop an earbud while running or cycling it’s basically an immediate $100+ loss.
I couldn’t imagine being a teenager in current year trying to watch romance films in my moms basement and accidentally connecting to the living room surround sound
I've got a couple devices with bad jacks, and I've ruined the cables on a couple of sets of headphones, but overall, wired headphones continue to just work and don't have batteries, so any device intended to use headphones that doesn't have a 3.5mm jack is defective.
Bluetooth seems to work ok enough in my cars, most of the time.
With one exception, a "JBL Go" portable speaker I bought years ago. Rock solid, I take it on every holiday.
But otherwise, yeah. BT sucks, although slightly less than "casting", jeeeeez.
I do live in a very small city that doesn't have a congested 2.4GHz band, that definitely helps, but I never have issues traveling either.
I'm not sure if it's just the "aura" or what, but it just seems to work all the time.
I’ve got a Bluetooth helmet. It cost a crap-ton. It’s infuriating. I basically never use it because it’s not worth the trouble.
Who the hell decided hold for three seconds to turn on? (It’s so common it must be in the spec) Why not a hard power switch? Why can’t pairing just work? Here’s an idea. Two switches. Power and pair. How hard would that have been?
We suck. Bluetooth is an example of why humanity will never deserve the stars.
FWIW my work MacBook has occasional issues with audio cutting out while my personal MacBook almost never has issues.
I remember it used to be pretty terrible and would break if you looked at it funny. Those days have gone, for me at least.
They are all based on same chip. So if you buy 5€ BT-headphones and plug them into 1000€ dumb headphones, they very much sound the same as 1000€ BT-headphones.
Also your box can have much bigger battery, does not matter as it is in your pocketsies and not in your ears.
That is not strictly true. While the vast majority of microcontrollers used in BT headphones come from a handful of companies (usually Qualcomm, Realtek or JieLi), the DAC and amplification stage is going to be different. Cheap headphones use the microcontroller's built-in DAC while higher end models can have a discrete chip, or sometimes a custom ASIC that also handles noise cancelling.
The protocol itself and the SBC codec are still a bottleneck of course, but in my experience an ESP32 paired to a decent quality I2S DAC module sounds much better than a random cheap BT receiver module (and has no annoying voice prompts).
I find BT headphones to never be loud enough. Battery life tends to become ridiculously short after 3-6 months of use.
I think that BT suffers from sharing the same 2.4GHz ISM band as microwave ovens, WiFi and all manner of unlicensed RF devices. The band is unlicensed because it is so noisy and microwaves at the frequency are massive attenuated by rain, fog, etc. Which is actually the reason they work well in the microwave oven.
I have two sets of BT headphones, and I avoid using them b/c of the unpredictable pairing behaviors.
It needs to be replaced with something dedicated to audio-- because I think the attempt at generality (object data transfers, mice, keyboards, etc.) and backward compatibility has made for a standard that isn't capable in a multi-device world. When buying hardware, I look at Bluetooth as a feature, but at best, just for input devices. Audio is a lost cause.
I think most of the times I've been flustered by it recently, my headphones had already connected to another device and then silently failed on the device I wanted to connect to. Possibly some geekier UI to expose that would help.
Though, I was slightly confused by your terminology. I thought 'pairing' was a one time thing, and I don't need to press any button to connect, except maybe turn them on for the ones that don't do that automatically when removed from their case.
That's a thing on higher end kit. Has been for years. Obviously only works if both devices support it though - you won't pair your macbook for example.
Other than that, I find Bluetooth and wired set-ups both have their advantages and disadvantages: - Bluetooth gets difficult when there's interference, wired gets weird ground loops and interference. - Bluetooth can be tricky to connect, wired gear gets yanked out of my ear when it catches on my door handle, or an airplane seat armrest, or my dog. - I can walk around listening to something on my laptop with Bluetooth, but with wired I don't have to worry about battery life.
Bluetooth is an essential part of my life and has been for probably 6-8 years now, so I've worked out most of the tricks and kinks of the gear that I use.