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Comment by legacynl | Hacker News Reader

> Does this even exist?

What has your experience been with bt? I have the cheapest bt-dongle I could find (4 euros) and it never failed me and is super solid.

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Connection breaks regularly (less often with more expensive headphones). Even when using an expensive Creative Bluetooth audio dongle. Samsung Android phone built-in breaks less often but in many cases the whole BlueTooth stack crashes.

Untolerable sound distortions start occuring every now and then. Even under Windows on a new EliteBook with reasonably expensive earphones. Often also with the smartphone when I jog in the woods (tried with different headphones and earphones).

With a cheap full-featured dongle I use on the office PC the sound quality is often untolerable (I mean distortions, not the bitrate, some days it would work Ok whole day, some days it just doesn't).

Built in BlueTooth in my old Dell Latitude only worked with Windows and occasionally with Ubuntu, other distros thought the device was a trackpad (could be fixed with some hacling but was not worth it because still worked unreliably so I used the Creative dongle instead).

Even with Apple (but non-apple headphones of the middle price segment) the connection breaks occasionally although not very often.

Are you in a crowded office with lots of Bluetooth devices? At my house, Bluetooth is rock solid up to 10 meters. But there are only a handful of devices in the house, and the neighbors are far away.

No, I'm not. I'm mostly alone in the rather big office (although there are neighbor offices above and below obviously) and I've specifically mentioned the woods. I probably just have a too intense aura and may need a new-age guru to get me a magic pyramid to harmonize it :-]

Is there a BlueTooth channel scanner by the way? Like the "WiFi analyzer" app but for BlueTooth?

The thing with the woods is actually because of the woods, surprisingly enough. BT often counts on signals bouncing off solid objects of which there aren't really enough in the woods (at least for signal bouncing purposes). You'll encounter the same thing crossing a wide street in the city where your signal might cut out in the middle of the street.

> Is there a BlueTooth channel scanner by the way? Like the "WiFi analyzer" app but for BlueTooth?

I'd love that, but alas.

Besides, there is 0 things you can configure about BT, and that's intentional. I mean, if you could just upturn the signal x10 you'd get 50 good reception meters out of just that. But you can't.

Well, let's say that if connecting my audio system and a keyboard and mouse at the same time causes problems with either, it's not good. And 95% of what I've used and seen is not good. Even in the world of Apple, it's about 60% pure frustration, depending on the model.

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