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by mntmoss 2251 days ago
IME it's all down to the implementation these days, which is a low-bidder-gets-what-they-pay-for kind of affair. My phone is cheap and the Bluetooth is nearly unusable on it(it can only really support one device at a time and that device will periodically drop out), but on my laptops, which have more of an emphasis on build quality, it's pretty solid, with few to occasional instances of audio tearing.

Regardless I still find grief from things like the volume resetting on one or both ends after pairing. There is a lot of attention to detail needed to get this stuff right, and most companies can barely manage to ship - that's not on the standard of the spec but the standard of the marketplace.

3 comments

From my experience, I'd agree with this. I got an Apple bluetooth keyboard from goodwill for $7 (retail ~$95) and used it with my hackintosh. Because it dropped out constantly, I figured I had installed antennas incorrectly, or that the ufl connectors were internally damaged, or… something. After upgrading to the newer (stupidly expensive) Magic Keyboard it works from anywhere in my house, as do my Power Beats Pro.

I don't know if the old (around 11 years old) keyboard had an implementation issue, or slight hardware damage, or what, but the new stuff seems rock solid.

No, it's still terrible on my [Macbook Pro, Mac Pro] <*> [Airpod Pro, Sennheiser Momentum 3].

Every single device in the combinations is having crazy connection issues everyday.

> IME it's all down to the implementation these days, which is a low-bidder-gets-what-they-pay-for kind of affair.

Then why does wireless not have these exact same issues?

what do you mean by wireless?
Wi-Fi.

It works ok on most devices.

If Bluetooth being crap was about cheapest solutions, I'd expect to see this problem on Wi-fi, which in practice generally works.

WiFi isn't much better in my experience. When I take my phone out of Flight Mode, the 4G LTE data connection is established in a fraction of a second whereas the WiFi can take 10 seconds or more. To a known router that is five metrea away.