eli5: Why do most airlines still use 2-pin audio jacks for the in-flight entertainment systems on their planes?
In: 600
Because that is what they installed when the plane was built. Newer built planes use single 3.5mm jacks.
I’ve been on almost 20 flights the last 5 years and they have all had the standard single 3.5mm jack that’s compatible with most headphones.
They work, they’re simple to set up and use, they’re cheap, and if something goes wrong you can quickly replace the headset.
Let’s say an airline switched to Bluetooth. First, they’d have to upgrade every entertainment console on every plane in their fleet and buy new headsets. That’s expensive. Worse, you’re guaranteed to have problems with the new setup. Bluetooth isn’t as reliable as a wire. There will be incidences where a passenger’s headset doesn’t connect to the console, or does but there’s no audio. The only people to turn to are the flight attendants and they aren’t tech support. 2-pin headsets are easy to use. If something goes wrong they’re either not plugged in or need to be replaced. Both can be easily done by the flight attendants.
So you dont steal the two-pin headphones. If they have two pins, you’re not even going to think about stealing then because they dont work except for these planes.
I would think that in this day and age of cell phones/personal media players why bother go through the cost of updating stuff?
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