dgrcode

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From what I've read in the last few days researching to write the post, it feels like Bluetooth was designed under some constraints 20 years ago, and it keeps using the same constraints today.

Also, the companies listed in the HFP specification don't make me think they're trying to optimize for the actual phone call scenario, not using a bluetooth headphone with your laptop.

Yep, I forgot to add it and I'll update the post providing that option.

The reason I didn't add it is because I tried it and didn't work for me, so I just forgot it was even an option.

Thanks for the heads up!

I didn't know about the AVCTP, but I completely agree on the possible alternatives Bluetooth could use.

From what I've read in the last few days researching to write the post, it feels like Bluetooth was designed under some constraints 20 years ago, and it keeps using the same constraints.

For example, it's unreal to me that the bandwidth for a Bluetooth connection is around 3 Mbps when we've had 4G with 100 Mbps for over 10 years, let alone 5G at 20Gbps.

And yes, the codecs in the firmware is really bad, although very convenient for the companies selling devices I guess. There aren't enough incentives there for the change.

I did a deep dive to understand why sound quality is really bad –or reduced, as Apple puts it– when using my bluetooth headphones.

I read through Apple's documentation, Bluetooth standards, and Wikipedia articles for different codecs, and I tried to summarize my findings in this post. The post talks about Mac, but it's probably relevant to other OSs as well.

As a disclaimer, I want to state that I've made this investigation for fun, learning, but also profit. I'm working on a Mac app that aims to help with the audio quality when using bluetooth headphones. I decided to work on this project out of frustration, probably shared with more people here, and that's why I'm submitting it.

I hope you find it interesting.

  Location: Spain
  Remote: Yes (preferred)
  Willing to relocate: Yes
  Technologies: TypeScript, React, React Native, NextJS, NodeJS, TailwindCSS, Three.js, React Three Fiber. Also some Python, Java, Kotlin, SwiftUI
  Résumé/CV: https://dgrcode.com/cv.pdf
  Email: see cv

I'm a software engineer with 7 years experience. Started my career working at a mid sized startup. The last few years I've worked as a freelancer, also bootstrapping some side projects. I'm full-stack but have slight preference towards frontend. I enjoy learning and solving problems. Outside of tech I also make music. cv link: https://dgrcode.com/cv.pdf

I lived in NY for 3 months and the amount of noise pollution there was insane. The one that I really couldn't believe was the J train on Brooklyn's Broadway. You could be yelling at someone 3ft/1m apart and they couldn't hear you because of the train noise.

I wonder if New Yorkers realise how absolutely crazy that is.

Well not everywhere in Spain, but definitely in some places. I lived in a small town where that was the case. Some people used to meet at a small shop just in front of my house and cars would honk all the time just to say hi.

They would then stop the car and actually talk with them, but honking was somehow mandatory

I lived in Dublin, Ireland, for a while and every. Single. Day. There was a fire alarm going off. It drove me insane. I had already forgotten how crazy that was and your message made me remember it. Now I can appreciate more not having that where I currently live :)

Looking forward to those electric blowers

I think this is just not a concern for the general population. There are solutions available if we wanted to address this issue.

There could be a restriction on the vehicle. Some European cities have zones with restricted access to vehicles based on their CO2 emissions. There are stickers that you have to put on your windshield to drive into those areas.

We could have some "noise emission" regulations that ban some vehicles from driving at certain times, like before 9am or after 7pm.

It would be similar to the CO2 emission regulations, there's no need to measure the emissions because you have a sticker that already say what your emission levels are.

I think this is a great project to refresh algebra and whatever language you choose to use.

I implemented a ray tracer with Kotlin just to learn the language, and got to use many features and learn them by practice.

Even finding and fixing bugs were fun, as I had to guess where the physics of the light had gone wrong.

Haha hilarious. I'm sorry about it, but this is a great example of what I'm talking about

The alarm is one of the reasons as Broken_Hippo mentions.

However my concern has more to do with the current state of things rather than the solution for this particular problem. I mean, how is it that I have to go and turn off the phone? shouldn't the phone –apps/devices/etc– try to be less disturbing?

> Are you saying that your device doesn't let you silence application notifications?

It does, but I assumed the DND mode was back to the scheduled mode. I also was _completely sure_ that I had set everything up so, under no circumstance, I was going to be awaken in the middle of the night –spoiler: I was wrong–.

> If you're getting woken up by app notifications in 2021, it's time to RTFM

Yes and no. - Yes, maybe I should have read the manual, that's right. It was also probably not worth the time spent reading it because: 1. It might not even mention the behaviour of the DND mode after the "DND for 1 hour" finishes. 2. Even if it did mention it, I'd rather be awaken once than spend hours reading mostly useless stuff. - No, in 2021 there shouldn't be an app/device waking me up unless I explicitly allowed it to happen. Especially if the device *knows I'm sleeping*.

> Phones are noisy, and phones are distracting: how often do you need to quickly check the weather and instead you read your notifications? Keeping it in airplane mode at night is a big life improvement.

Agreed. Phones are noise and distracting. But those are not intrinsic qualities of phones. We have made phones that way, and we can made them any other way we want.

Other people talk about airplane mode. I kind of like it but I'd rather not be disturbed by default, so that wouldn't be necessary.

> what's wrong with it turning off DND mode when your 1hr DND timer expires? What else is the point of the timer?

What I think is wrong is the default being "DND off". I mean, I wished it went back to the previous mode, which was the scheduled DND, but I understand if after the timer the device goes into "default" mode. The piece I don't get is "DND off" being the default mode, as if I was looking forward to be disturbed. Especially if this device in particular knows when I'm sleeping, and there's a mode that is pretty much "DND if I'm sleeping". Maybe I'm looking forward to getting notifications, but who thought I would also be looking forward to be awaken to get them?

> Does that smartwatch not let you toggle DND off until you decide to toggle it back on? Is there no silent mode?

Yes, the silent mode is just DND, it doesn't have sleep mode, or airplane mode, just the DND.

> But to answer your question, people generally want to be disturbed by notifications.

That might be true, and it also might be the reason for "disturb" being the default mode. It's beyond my comprehension, but it wouldn't be the first time when the general public has a different opinion than mine.

And this also brings something up. People generally want to be disturbed by notifications, and *potentially disturb anybody else in the process*. I mean, I wish I didn't have to endure all the buzzing/blinking/noise coming from devices nearby.

That's exactly what I think. I shouldn't have to be configuring stuff to not be disturbed. That should be the default. Then let me configure under what circumstances I want to waken up, like this person is calling, the server went down, etc.

Maybe that's what designers/developers should consider when working on notifications: this notification will potentially wake up someone, let's not do it unless they explicitly asked us to wake them up if this happened.