I don’t know if this is going to make any sense to anyone but hear me out. It feels like whenever you have an issue with Bluetooth it’s some kinda goofy ass problem that would only happen with Bluetooth devices.
To give some examples:
– Interactions between multiple Bluetooth devices being janky
– Devices connecting to each other when you don’t want them to, or refusing to connect when you do want them to.
– weird audio glitches in specific scenarios
– audio devices switching back and forth between two other devices they’ve been paired with recently
Obviously I understand at a base level that there’s radio waves carrying information and these can be interrupted by stuff like microwaves. But I’m more talking about issues regarding pairing, and other odd quirks that you don’t experience when using other wireless connections like WiFi.
Can someone explain in layman’s terms why Bluetooth is like this? Or am I just being crazy
In: Technology
The problems you’re describing are implementation failures. Bluetooth is just a wireless protocol, like USB is a wired protocol, however that’s only the delivery method, there’s other protocols that handle the actual data exchanges and processing. For examples, HSP or HeadSet Profile deals with bidirectional audio for phone calls, A2DP is the Advanced Audio Distribution Profile, and there’s plenty others for different tasks (serial port connections, vcard exchange etc). Then there are different versions of Bluetooth (latest is 5.0 more commonly labeled BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy)), and different versions of all the profiles. When you’re connecting a device there’s a minimum of 3 handshakes occurring just to connect (“are you there?” “I am here!”/”can I connect?” “yes you can, what’s the password?”/”what profiles do you support? I support x, y, and z.” “Oh, I support only w, x, and y”), and most Bluetooth is implemented on-chip, meaning there’s no software stack that can be patched and updated to handle error conditions gracefully. If anything in that chain isn’t done correctly or messed up along the way, it can result in so many weird issues, not to mention hardware Bluetooth controllers are so straightforward they can be considered “dumb” by comparison to other tech, allowing things like another connection while one is already setting up, or allowing another connection while one already is set up (if it’s a particularly cheap and egregious implementation).
TL:DR; Bluetooth is a protocol of protocols, many different versions with many different versions of the underlying protocols used in the actual data exchange, resulting in a mish-mash of implementations across everyone’s devices with different quirks that might not sit well with other connected devices.
Bluetooth can sometimes have technical issues such as pairing problems and interference because it operates on radio waves, which can be affected by various factors like signal interference and device compatibility issues.
Because Bluetooth is **horribly** designed.
There *is* a standard and *in theory* everything is supposed to happily work together, but in practice the standard is extremely vague and extremely complicated. There are dozens of layers you have to implement, and plenty of instances where there’s room for interpretation.
The end result is that everyone is doing something sliiiightly different, so if two devices aren’t made by the same manufacturer (and therefore actually tested together) you can run into weird behaviour. And fixing those issues is like pulling a block out of a Jenga stack: who knows what the fix is going to break?
Here is a crazy real-world example. My friend has a nice Sony bluetooth headset. It works great and he loves it. Except when he plays ONE game (DayZ) and anytime he enters a building in the game (how does it even know?!) he gets this loud buzz which overwhelms all other sound and this continues until he turns the headset off, then back on. It works great until he enters another building. SMH.
Bluetooth communication is like attending an English Commonwealth meeting
Everyone speaks English nominally but everyone has a dialect and an accent and some cultural associations with words that don’t quite fit across multiple English speaking cultures
When people at this convention speak the most basic version of English it makes more sense (basic Bluetooth on well established protocols)
When people try more advanced versions of English it becomes a bit more nuanced and easier to have errors in communication (beta version of Bluetooth or newly adopted versions of a Bluetooth standard)
Latest Answers