Bluetooth 6.0 adds centimeter-level accuracy for device tracking — upgraded version also improves device pairing

Until we can finally kill HSP/HFP, I'm never gonna be happy with Bluetooth. Using a headset mic shouldn't blast you back to the telephone era.

I'm talking phones to cars (for hands-free and music), mice to desk and laptop, earbuds and headphones to both, keyboards to anything from computers to fire TVs, BT speakers, adapters for older receivers... They all suck. Multiple phones, devices and cars. (although the 2012 Chrysler was the worst so far, and the 2021 Subaru is better)

Depends on the particular device. LDAC has been around for years and supports higher bitrates than mp3s (assuming we're putting 320kbps mp3s in the "higher quality" category)

Wouldn't say I buy cheap shit, not Apple (I'm not Musk or Bezos rich), but flagship Samsung and pro earbuds, Logitech trackball, jbl speakers, and headsets from Bose and Jabra. Now the BT receiver for the stereo, that was cheap Amazon garbage. I'll give you that one.

Shiny new AirPods + shiny new iPhone = minimal issues. Certainly preferable to cords for many, even if no dongle were required for many corded headphones.

In fact AirPods + iPhones have been all but rock solid for years, at least since first gen kinks were worked out… so five years worth of high reliability.

Apple uses a modified version of Bluetooth

Edit: for Apple-only version

Exactly. I just click a button on my laptop and it pairs. Start playing a video on my phone? It instantly jumps to my phone. No lag, no pairing waiting. Didn’t want that? Click the “connect” button on the laptop bc it just noticed that it jumped to my phone. My Apple TV notices when the AirPods are around. Did I ever have to pair them to the Apple TV? No! They’re connected to my account and can see the other devices easily.

I haven't had it randomly disconnect, but I certainly have had my headphones randomly connect to my phone in the middle of a video call on my laptop. The crappy multi-device support for Bluetooth is the bane of my existence.

The phone has to go in the hat. It says so in the manual.

Jup, same here. But when I change it to the other pocket it's all fine. Strange stuff. (The right front pocket works so much better than the left front pocket of the pants)

Sorry for linking to the alien, but see this discussion: https://www.reddit.com/r/techsupport/comments/44sxms/bluetooth_headset_goes_to_low_audio_quality_when/?rdt=57825

As I understand it, standard Bluetooth cannot support quality audio and microphone.

That said, lots of phones and headsets secretly support non standard profiles if you use the right hardware together, but at that point you can’t know if you’re going to get quality with your setup unless someone’s tested it thoroughly and half the time reviewers are either deaf or lying

In my case it’s about a football field lol

Thanks for digging those up! I figured it was somewhere around that range. I’ve had it be fairly accurate within a couple feet, but I’ve also had Bluetooth proximity show much further.

Sounds kind of like room-level accuracy

Ask JD Vance?

No tinfoil hat needed. Retail stores are equipped with bluetooth beacons that tracks and monitors customer behavior. This in turn can be sold for targeted advertising. Another scary thought is that the tracking is so precise, it measures the distance your phone is from a product, including height. How high is the phone from the ground? The data points can be extrapolated to influence product placement: what products and prices influenced a customer to bend down and look at/interact with the product? How long were they in close proximity with the product? Based on the phone’s orientation, were they bent down to look at or passing by the product (indicating that they stopped for a separate reason and not necessarily for the product)? Did they buy it? Were they looking for coupons in my “retail store app” while next to the product, or somewhere else in the store? Where do customers often stop or gather in order to browse through coupons? Could we place Y products there? Where should we put the product in stores to maximize sales? What ads can we send to them as they arrive at the store? Based on aggregated data with the rich profile we built for this customer, are they likely to sign up for our rewards credit card? What is this customer’s income level? Have they purchased X product recently? What part of town do they live in? What products are popular there? Et cetera ad nauseum.

Tracking is so predatory. Makes me look at my smart phone with disgust as the years go by, and I periodically grapple with the decision if a smart phone is even right for me or if it’s time to stick to a computer and a truly dumb phone going forward.

Some public info about Bluetooth beacons: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/06/14/opinion/bluetooth-wireless-tracking-privacy.html

Want to find Bluetooth beacons? Simply install a Bluetooth scanner app from your phone and head to a store to see them.

Here’s how Shopify engages businesses on how to utilize Bluetooth beacons with their software package. Bought anything online? That site was most likely powered by Shopify: https://www.shopify.com/retail/the-ultimate-guide-to-using-beacon-technology-for-retail-stores

Well, lucky for you, it’s all camera based now.

Or you could just get a Moto tag, which already supports Google FindMy and has centimeter accuracy thanks to UWB

As with many (all?) speakers I have had, the pairing button is the same power button. I am supposed to start with the speaker off, press and hold until it turns on and then starts pairing.

The problem is that it usually connects (to the last phone it connected to, my wife's in this scenario) before it even gets to the pairing stage. Even if I get to the pairing stage, it still prefers the previously connected phone :-(

The "especially in gaming" bit is encouraging. That might mean they are finally, after 26 years, addressing the demand for good quality, low latency, multichannel, full duplex audio...

...but I won't hold my breath. They seem to think gaming means playing on hardware like this.

My layman's understanding (so please correct me if I'm wrong) is that BT audio works by taking the audio stream from your playing device, and breaks up pieces of that stream into small packets. These packets get sent individually to your speaker, which then plays them all seamlessly in order as they flow in. But because these packets have to be cut out from the main stream in the first place before they can be sent, you're always hearing something from just a few moments ago, as you can't start playing a packet until it's finished playing and transferring from the main device, first.

So by breaking these packets up into smaller pieces, you're reducing how far back your speaker is, chronologically-speaking. So let's just say that the current version of BT breaks up audio into 0.5-second increments (it doesn't, this is just an example). This means that every 0.5 seconds, your device snips a half-second of audio into a packet and sends it to your speaker, which then plays that packet. But the transfer takes time, too, so let's say 0.25 seconds to send (again, just made-up numbers for the sake of explaining the concept). So everything your speaker would be playing in this situation would be, at minimum, 0.75 seconds behind. Not a huge deal for listening to music, but it quickly gets out of sync with video content.

So pretend the new BT version instead breaks up the original audio into 0.1-second increments. So instead of generating 2 packets every second, it's generating 10. Even if we keep the same transfer rate of 0.25 seconds in mind, this reduces the delay from 0.75 seconds to 0.35, which puts the audio much closer into sync with video content.

I see what you did there.

Who are you, mr Bluetooth??

Just kidding I hear ya, it just sucks from a UX standpoint but the world ain't magic. I just wish we kept aux jacks at the very least smh

you need cm level accuracy?

This is going to be tracking customers location in supermarkets.

Til snake oil meaning. Thanks !