Some of these issues like polling can be fixed, I think, by using a router as your wireless card. I got really tired long ago of trying to figure out which wireless AC dongle I could just use with...
Some of these issues like polling can be fixed, I think, by using a router as your wireless card. I got really tired long ago of trying to figure out which wireless AC dongle I could just use with any Linux computer without first having to somehow get on the internet to pull some repo and compile a working driver and then figuring out at random inopportune times why the DKMS setup didn't work and an update wiped the driver out again. I can't run wires to my office because rental property, so I just got a router that would work with DD-WRT firmware, flashed that on, and set the router to client mode so that it worries about the wireless connection and just provides the computers, printer, etc. with physical ports. No drivers ever again, no screwing around with wifi in network-manager.
Almost all of these problems can be solved by throwing money at it. Buying a router and NICs that support MIMO will help with the polling problem, and using a new WiFi 6 network will get you 5GHz...
Almost all of these problems can be solved by throwing money at it. Buying a router and NICs that support MIMO will help with the polling problem, and using a new WiFi 6 network will get you 5GHz with less interference and better latency. Dead zones can be fixed with more APs.
Likewise, Bluetooth can be fixed by buying Airpods and an iPhone and only consuming media through Apple (or just sticking to things originally encoded in MP4 audio)
That being said, Bluetooth in particular is complete garbage. It's designed to be "easy" in the worst way - it simply hides the things you need to know about. No manufacturer actually lists what codecs their device supports. Sure, they might say "AptX" or "MP4", but those don't actually mean anything - they each represent a family of about half a dozen codecs which can be very different from each other.
Bluetooth sucks even in terms of its general engineering. The signal is always bad. In my car, my cell phone holdster holds about three inches away from the stereo, but I still get occasional cutoffs. And beyond that, it is so slow for anything other than basic audio that it is essentially useless. Have you ever tried to send a photo over Bluetooth? Prepare to wait 5 minutes for just one picture.
I would so love for WiFi Direct to replace Bluetooth. Not that I see it happening any time soon, but the thought of wireless headphones connected over a 60GHz signal is quite enticing from the...
I would so love for WiFi Direct to replace Bluetooth. Not that I see it happening any time soon, but the thought of wireless headphones connected over a 60GHz signal is quite enticing from the standpoint of reducing signal interference from other wireless devices.
I don't know why it hasn't already happened. I thought it would have back when Android Beam/NFC was blowing up. A classmate once tried to use it to send me a recorded video of my presentation, but...
I don't know why it hasn't already happened. I thought it would have back when Android Beam/NFC was blowing up. A classmate once tried to use it to send me a recorded video of my presentation, but even after we managed to find the sweet spots on our phones, in 10 minutes it was still less than 10% transferred. We just gave up and she sent me a link to it on Dropbox later. Bluetooth was not up for the task that the NFC hype put it to.
Gotta be inertia. As bad as bluetooth is, it's just good enough for most of what it's used for that there isn't enough market interest in upending standards.
Gotta be inertia. As bad as bluetooth is, it's just good enough for most of what it's used for that there isn't enough market interest in upending standards.
I am definitely in this camp. Wireless is a coveinience for low-bandwidth uses. For 2.4 GHz, only channels 1, 6, and 11 are usable with no interference. And using other channels will actually be a...
I am definitely in this camp. Wireless is a coveinience for low-bandwidth uses. For 2.4 GHz, only channels 1, 6, and 11 are usable with no interference. And using other channels will actually be a worse experience than if everyone stuck to those three. 5 GHz a bit better, but in dense areas can still get congested.
Everyone talks about these protocol's peak capacities, but fail to see that is split over every connected device. I get good experience on wifi because all my low-bandwidth devices are on 2.4, my phones and laptops are on 5 GHz, everything else is wired. And even then wireless will sometimes have problems that wired connections do not.
Even a good 5GHz AC network with a single device can't match a 1GB wire. And 10 GB switches are starting to hit consumer space.
Also solidly in the "wire it unless you can't, then use wireless" camp. When we moved into our current house we discovered the cable connection comes into the house in an odd place (on the second...
Also solidly in the "wire it unless you can't, then use wireless" camp. When we moved into our current house we discovered the cable connection comes into the house in an odd place (on the second floor). The house is to old to have been wired for ethernet, but you bet your ass I punched holes in walls and ran CAT6 to the other side of the house to make sure my PC was direct wired into the router.
I'll take the one-time pain in the ass of running cable to any level of periodic disconnect/packet loss issue during games/video conference/whatever.
Hell, I still use a set of wired headphones for my phone when walking around.
I'll take the hit. The biggest problem I've had is right before a meeting, when I realize my headset paired with a couple other devices instead. Then I go madly dashing about turning off things...
I'll take the hit. The biggest problem I've had is right before a meeting, when I realize my headset paired with a couple other devices instead. Then I go madly dashing about turning off things until it can connect.
This bugs me so much. Like why can't I just have my computer say, "These headphones are connecting to me now. Ignore all others." I realize that could be an attack vector (by someone standing no...
This bugs me so much. Like why can't I just have my computer say, "These headphones are connecting to me now. Ignore all others." I realize that could be an attack vector (by someone standing no more than 3 feet away), but if you've done the pairing at least once already, it should be allowed. Instead of just not connecting, it connects and drops repeatedly. It's worse than just not working.
What I'd like is a standardized and commonplace NFC interface for switching bluetooth connections. Just tap the headphones to whatever you want to connect them with, and they'll swap to it.
What I'd like is a standardized and commonplace NFC interface for switching bluetooth connections. Just tap the headphones to whatever you want to connect them with, and they'll swap to it.
This can vary a lot depending on usage. Some people have been noticing WiFi issues more now that they are doing a lot of videoconferencing, but it's not really noticeable with web browsing. Also,...
This can vary a lot depending on usage. Some people have been noticing WiFi issues more now that they are doing a lot of videoconferencing, but it's not really noticeable with web browsing.
Also, if your neighbors are doing more video chat, that's going to increase congestion too.
It's all about bandwidth and latency. Most web browsing or video streaming isn't sensitive to either. But remote work (esp via RDP or SSH) is sensitive to latency. Video conferencing is sensitive...
It's all about bandwidth and latency.
Most web browsing or video streaming isn't sensitive to either. But remote work (esp via RDP or SSH) is sensitive to latency. Video conferencing is sensitive to both. So that, plus any usual traffic is gonna drive down quality for all.
It's not even that big a problem until you get more than 3-5 high-bandwidth devices on simultaneously. Then trouble starts, esp if you're in a congested area like an apartment building.
Some of these issues like polling can be fixed, I think, by using a router as your wireless card. I got really tired long ago of trying to figure out which wireless AC dongle I could just use with any Linux computer without first having to somehow get on the internet to pull some repo and compile a working driver and then figuring out at random inopportune times why the DKMS setup didn't work and an update wiped the driver out again. I can't run wires to my office because rental property, so I just got a router that would work with DD-WRT firmware, flashed that on, and set the router to client mode so that it worries about the wireless connection and just provides the computers, printer, etc. with physical ports. No drivers ever again, no screwing around with wifi in network-manager.
There are also WiFi-Ethernet adapters, that are somewhat cheaper than full-on router (but they only have one port)
Almost all of these problems can be solved by throwing money at it. Buying a router and NICs that support MIMO will help with the polling problem, and using a new WiFi 6 network will get you 5GHz with less interference and better latency. Dead zones can be fixed with more APs.
Likewise, Bluetooth can be fixed by buying Airpods and an iPhone and only consuming media through Apple (or just sticking to things originally encoded in MP4 audio)
That being said, Bluetooth in particular is complete garbage. It's designed to be "easy" in the worst way - it simply hides the things you need to know about. No manufacturer actually lists what codecs their device supports. Sure, they might say "AptX" or "MP4", but those don't actually mean anything - they each represent a family of about half a dozen codecs which can be very different from each other.
Bluetooth sucks even in terms of its general engineering. The signal is always bad. In my car, my cell phone holdster holds about three inches away from the stereo, but I still get occasional cutoffs. And beyond that, it is so slow for anything other than basic audio that it is essentially useless. Have you ever tried to send a photo over Bluetooth? Prepare to wait 5 minutes for just one picture.
I would so love for WiFi Direct to replace Bluetooth. Not that I see it happening any time soon, but the thought of wireless headphones connected over a 60GHz signal is quite enticing from the standpoint of reducing signal interference from other wireless devices.
I don't know why it hasn't already happened. I thought it would have back when Android Beam/NFC was blowing up. A classmate once tried to use it to send me a recorded video of my presentation, but even after we managed to find the sweet spots on our phones, in 10 minutes it was still less than 10% transferred. We just gave up and she sent me a link to it on Dropbox later. Bluetooth was not up for the task that the NFC hype put it to.
Gotta be inertia. As bad as bluetooth is, it's just good enough for most of what it's used for that there isn't enough market interest in upending standards.
I am definitely in this camp. Wireless is a coveinience for low-bandwidth uses. For 2.4 GHz, only channels 1, 6, and 11 are usable with no interference. And using other channels will actually be a worse experience than if everyone stuck to those three. 5 GHz a bit better, but in dense areas can still get congested.
Everyone talks about these protocol's peak capacities, but fail to see that is split over every connected device. I get good experience on wifi because all my low-bandwidth devices are on 2.4, my phones and laptops are on 5 GHz, everything else is wired. And even then wireless will sometimes have problems that wired connections do not.
Even a good 5GHz AC network with a single device can't match a 1GB wire. And 10 GB switches are starting to hit consumer space.
Also solidly in the "wire it unless you can't, then use wireless" camp. When we moved into our current house we discovered the cable connection comes into the house in an odd place (on the second floor). The house is to old to have been wired for ethernet, but you bet your ass I punched holes in walls and ran CAT6 to the other side of the house to make sure my PC was direct wired into the router.
I'll take the one-time pain in the ass of running cable to any level of periodic disconnect/packet loss issue during games/video conference/whatever.
Hell, I still use a set of wired headphones for my phone when walking around.
I'll take the hit. The biggest problem I've had is right before a meeting, when I realize my headset paired with a couple other devices instead. Then I go madly dashing about turning off things until it can connect.
This bugs me so much. Like why can't I just have my computer say, "These headphones are connecting to me now. Ignore all others." I realize that could be an attack vector (by someone standing no more than 3 feet away), but if you've done the pairing at least once already, it should be allowed. Instead of just not connecting, it connects and drops repeatedly. It's worse than just not working.
What I'd like is a standardized and commonplace NFC interface for switching bluetooth connections. Just tap the headphones to whatever you want to connect them with, and they'll swap to it.
This can vary a lot depending on usage. Some people have been noticing WiFi issues more now that they are doing a lot of videoconferencing, but it's not really noticeable with web browsing.
Also, if your neighbors are doing more video chat, that's going to increase congestion too.
It's all about bandwidth and latency.
Most web browsing or video streaming isn't sensitive to either. But remote work (esp via RDP or SSH) is sensitive to latency. Video conferencing is sensitive to both. So that, plus any usual traffic is gonna drive down quality for all.
It's not even that big a problem until you get more than 3-5 high-bandwidth devices on simultaneously. Then trouble starts, esp if you're in a congested area like an apartment building.