I will die on the hill that Bluetooth always has and always will suck ass. Pairing sucks. Latency sucks. Random-ass disconnects suck. Fuck Bluetooth in the neck sideways with a rusty screwdriver.
Don’t forget that thr data bandwidth is so low it can’t play higher quality mp3s.
Depends on the particular device. LDAC has been around for years and supports higher bitrates than mp3s (assuming we’re putting 320kbps mp3s in the “higher quality” category)
LDAC is a very inefficient codec, and isn’t lossless even at its highest bitrate. But they are all close to perceptually lossless even at relatively low bitrates so it’s a much of muchness.
I mean my AirPods are fantastic. I think they’re great at playing my podcasts and I’ve not had any problems with random disconnects. Granted I’ve only ever used them with my phone but still.
Apple uses a modified version of Bluetooth
No one uses standard bluetooth. I’m pretty sure it can only transfer files in its base form
That’s absolutely not true. Bluetooth has many “profiles” which define different capabilities. Here’s a list of them. These are all defined in the official bluetooth standards.
Maybe you were thinking of the “core specification” which defines the underlying protocol but doesn’t define the profiles? But that’s just the way they broke up the spec documents. The profiles are still official parts of bluetooth.
Apple’s proprietary extensions for audio are not part of any official specification though.
Exactly. I just click a button on my laptop and it pairs. Start playing a video on my phone? It instantly jumps to my phone. No lag, no pairing waiting. Didn’t want that? Click the “connect” button on the laptop bc it just noticed that it jumped to my phone. My Apple TV notices when the AirPods are around. Did I ever have to pair them to the Apple TV? No! They’re connected to my account and can see the other devices easily.
This shit right here is why people buy Apple. You sell your soul to the devil and get convenience in return.
Don’t get me wrong - both my work laptop and my gaming PC run Linux. But my phone is still an iPhone and if I ever have need for a personal laptop again, it’s gonna be a Macbook Air again.
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Anyone know what kind location accuracy Bluetooth 5 currently has?
According to the below two articles. It’s 1-5 meters in optimal conditions. And some of it may require additional hardware for tracking.
https://www.u-blox.com/en/technologies/bluetooth-indoor-positioning
https://www.inpixon.com/technology/standards/bluetooth-low-energy
In my case it’s about a football field lol
I thought we were still in 4…
No phone aux jack conspiracy has re-entered the conversation
audio latency when
When you read the article:
We also get latency improvements through Isochronous Adaptation Layer (ISOAL) Enhancement. This allows the Bluetooth device to cut larger data frames into smaller chunks while ensuring its timing information remains accurate. This would help reduce latency and potentially make Bluetooth audio devices a viable solution for wireless audio, especially in gaming.
That was unnecessarily snarky, but I couldn’t help myself. I don’t even know what any of that means or if it will actually actually reduce audio latency.
The “especially in gaming” bit is encouraging. That might mean they are finally, after 26 years, addressing the demand for good quality, low latency, multichannel, full duplex audio…
…but I won’t hold my breath. They seem to think gaming means playing on hardware like this.
My layman’s understanding (so please correct me if I’m wrong) is that BT audio works by taking the audio stream from your playing device, and breaks up pieces of that stream into small packets. These packets get sent individually to your speaker, which then plays them all seamlessly in order as they flow in. But because these packets have to be cut out from the main stream in the first place before they can be sent, you’re always hearing something from just a few moments ago, as you can’t start playing a packet until it’s finished playing and transferring from the main device, first.
So by breaking these packets up into smaller pieces, you’re reducing how far back your speaker is, chronologically-speaking. So let’s just say that the current version of BT breaks up audio into 0.5-second increments (it doesn’t, this is just an example). This means that every 0.5 seconds, your device snips a half-second of audio into a packet and sends it to your speaker, which then plays that packet. But the transfer takes time, too, so let’s say 0.25 seconds to send (again, just made-up numbers for the sake of explaining the concept). So everything your speaker would be playing in this situation would be, at minimum, 0.75 seconds behind. Not a huge deal for listening to music, but it quickly gets out of sync with video content.
So pretend the new BT version instead breaks up the original audio into 0.1-second increments. So instead of generating 2 packets every second, it’s generating 10. Even if we keep the same transfer rate of 0.25 seconds in mind, this reduces the delay from 0.75 seconds to 0.35, which puts the audio much closer into sync with video content.
Not bad, but you’re missing that the Bluetooth device can report audio latency back to the source so it can delay anything that needs to synchronize. In practice there’s half a dozen more buffers in between and a serious tradeoff between latency, noise sensitivity, and bandwidth.
A major improvement already happened in 5.2+ but few devices support it yet (LE Audio with LC3 codec).
Will the isochronous mode improvements help?
All my bose devices pair like a charm. One of the uphills of choosing that brand.
Why would you need centimeter-level accuracy?
So you know which sofa cushion the EarPod is under
Ask JD Vance?
Very nice for home automation- have your music and lights follow you around the house for example. Check out Room Assistant
yes yes yes but… will I finally be able to boot my wife off the bathroom speaker so I can play my music without running around the house naked yelling at her to disconnect?!
Does it improve the bandwidth so higher quality codecs can be used without having to switch between good quality sound and shitty mics to shitty sound and good mics? I mean seriously, we’re in 2024 and we still can’t have quality parity with a wired headset when using Bluetooth because the bandwidth sucks so much ass that better codecs just can’t be used. Bluetooth can die in a fucking fire.
For desktop you can get headphones with a wireless dongle that doesn’t have to adhere to Bluetooth limitations and in fact most of them also have Bluetooth for phone use
My 300$ earbuds can play two sources at once. But an uncompressed signal? Fuck yourself.
improves device pairing
V6 seems a little soon for this unnecessary feature. Maybe push it back a few versions.
I just want a headset that doesn’t descend into hissing at me in mono over a crackly 1940s phoneline whenever I dare to use the microphone.
Both of my Galaxy Buds sporadically losing signal when I have my phone in a pocket.
The phone has to go in the hat. It says so in the manual.
Check what BT profile your OS is switching the headset to (and what your headset can actually support). I use HSP/HFP with mSBC codec and it keeps pretty OK sound while in “headset mode”
