When you write over 9,000 articles, some of them are going to stick in your mind as favorites. Take for example, this article from 2016, entitled “I hate Bluetooth, because it hates me back.” In it, I tell the sad story of a technology that’s now been around a quarter of a century and still… sucks. But it’s been another six years, and does it still suck? Why yes, yes it does. And the sadder thing is that we’ve all just gotten used to it.
5.0, LE, and other nonsense
One big difference in Bluetooth since I wrote that article is that pretty much all Bluetooth gear is now up to the Bluetooth 5.0 standard. Bluetooth 5.0 and APX promise near-instantaneous sound transfer so that lip sync issues are supposedly a thing of the past. Bluetooth LE enables things like AirTags that last months or more on a battery. All of this stuff is supposed to make our lives better and enable us to manage our real world stuff the way that we manage our electronic stuff.
Still for all of that, Bluetooth is a surprising mess. The issue of range is definitely at the heart of it. I have some Bluetooth devices that stop working if they are more than 18″ away from the device they are paired to. Others work from too far away: it’s a little disconcerting that I can connect to some of my things from the other side of the house. That means someone who is in another house can probably get to my stuff, too.
Bluetooth has a nasty habit of dropping just when you need it. That hasn’t changed, either. Inevitably, the connection from your car to your phone will disappear just as you’re waiting to know when to turn right. You know this has happened to you.
You can do too much with Bluetooth, and not enough
Technically, you can do pretty much anything with Bluetooth that you can do with Wi-Fi. But who needs to transfer files over Bluetooth? I’m not sure I’ve ever even tried. And yet basic stuff like renaming a device or changing its pairing code can’t be done at all. There are some kinds of Bluetooth devices that let you use multiples at the same time. Other devices you can only use one at a time. And yet there’s no indication of which is which.
I was surprised to find out that I could have two Bluetooth mice working at the same time. I had some momentary fun putting a mouse in each hand and trying to make the pointer go two different directions at once. Sure, fun, but what’s the point? It would be better if one mouse or the other would just stay connected all the time.
As usual Apple makes it look easy
I bag on Apple as much as anyone. But the thing is, they tend to make things that just work. Take AirPods. If you have a phone, an AppleTV, a Mac, and an iPad, the thing just sort of miraculously works with the device you want it to. Not only do you not have to keep pairing the thing over and over, it’s like it’s psychic. It seems like it can sense which device you want the AirPods to work with. If if guesses wrong, which it rarely does, it’s insanely easy to switch devices. Why can’t all Bluetooth things work like that?
Here’s what you need to do
Manufacturers need to let you adjust Bluetooth power if it’s too strong or too weak. They need to let you rename devices. And more than anything, they just need to come up with devices that work. I don’t know why that’s so hard.
So yes, I still hate Bluetooth, and it still hates me. I’ll report back in another six years if it’s still so bad.
