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by tossandthrow 407 days ago
Yep!

It would be a marginal. Improvement at a huge increase in complexity

Adjacent intention on the same action that leads to a connected computer, eg. I put my laptop on my friend table for storage, and it connects against my intention.
1 comments
palata 407 days ago
Totally. Many accessories nowadays require bluetooth/wifi where actually they could be connected with a cable: they don't move and they need to be charged.

Connecting over a cable is trivial: you detect the connection and that's it, and the user physically sees the connection between the devices.

Connecting over radio requires pairing, that is very frustrating when it doesn't work. Pairing is annoying so devices try to automatically reconnect, but then if you pair with multiple devices, it brings frustration because it never automatically connects to what the user wants.

Whenever cables are a possible solution, they are superior.

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znpy 407 days ago
> Connecting over radio requires pairing, that is very frustrating when it doesn't work.

Everything's frustrating when it doesn't work.

> Connecting over radio requires pairing

This is a solved problem, plagued by technology fragmentation. You could very well save the necessary information for discovery and pairing onto an NFC tag and use that to access the network (further authentication might happen, if configured).

This is basically never done on WiFi because you cannot assume a client host has a NFC reader (let alone proper code handling the tag and the information).

But it's done in the world of bluetooth: some big-name headsets (Sony IIRC) can do bluetooth connection negotiation via NFC. You activate the feature (dedicated button), tap your phone and off you go. No pin, no pairing annoyances.

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palata 407 days ago
> Everything's frustrating when it doesn't work.

My point being that it cannot be frustrating if it doesn't exist.

> This is a solved problem

Tell that to my airpods that connect to the wrong device (so I need to manually go connect to them most of the time) and to my phone that doesn't automatically connect to my airpods when it is already connected to my watch.

Granted, I want wireless between my phone, watch and headset. But I wouldn't call it a solved problem.

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