
Wireless Is a Trap - finolex1
https://www.benkuhn.net/wireless/
======
gioscarab
I totally agree with the writer, I have dedicated the last ten years to
specify and implement a new single wire communication protocol for IOT and
home automation applications called PJDL (Padded Jittering Data Link):
[https://github.com/gioblu/PJON/blob/master/src/strategies/So...](https://github.com/gioblu/PJON/blob/master/src/strategies/SoftwareBitBang/specification/PJDL-
specification-v4.1.md)

It performs much better than wireless alternatives.

~~~
gorgoiler
16kbps over 2km, wow! How sensitive is the system to the quality of
connection?

If I hide enamel coated filament just beneath my lawn is that going to be good
for a one wire bus to work? Does it even need to be insulated?

~~~
gioscarab
It works even if you use the human body or water as a conductor, as I showcase
in this demonstration (sorry for my strong italian accent):
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWlhKD5lz5w](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWlhKD5lz5w)

This is the implementation:
[https://github.com/gioblu/PJON/tree/master/src/strategies/So...](https://github.com/gioblu/PJON/tree/master/src/strategies/SoftwareBitBang)

This is the source code:
[https://github.com/gioblu/PJON/blob/master/src/strategies/So...](https://github.com/gioblu/PJON/blob/master/src/strategies/SoftwareBitBang/SoftwareBitBang.h)

It is extremely rugged, it works much better than any alternative I have ever
tried. Ah, it is free and open-source ;)

~~~
Aloha
The Italian accent made me think of Marconi, also your accent isnt heavy at
all, just adds a little bit of color.

~~~
gioscarab
That is really a good compliment :)

------
mortenjorck
_> Dongles. Even though all computers now have built-in Bluetooth, many
Bluetooth accessories today still ship with proprietary dongles. I assume this
is because the manufacturer was worried about inconsistencies or
incompatibilities between their own Bluetooth implementation and your
computer’s built-in Bluetooth hardware/drivers._

I've never seen this before. Is the author mistaking proprietary 2.4 GHz
receivers (that do not use Bluetooth) for OEMs' "own Bluetooth
implementation"?

They refer to swapping between built-in Bluetooth and the dongle, which sounds
like Logitech's line of dual-mode keyboards that can use either Bluetooth or
Logitech's proprietary "unifying receiver," which is based on Nordic
Semiconductor's nRF24L, not Bluetooth.

~~~
c2h5oh
Bluetooth implementations are so stupidly quirky I can totally see proprietary
dongles as being required to guarantee connectivity.

Fitbit won't pair with my phone, but works OK with my wife's and my tablet.
Garmin fitness tracker syncs with all 3 devices, but will stop syncing with my
wife's phone within 2-3 days and will need to be paired again.. My bluetooth
headphones work with my phone and my wife's phone, but not my tablet. Every 6
months or so I still have to use a paperclip to reset the headphones to be
able to re-pair them with my phone after they stop working for no reason.

I've seen similar problems with phones I've owned before.

~~~
taneq
Another example of this is with 'Windows Mixed Reality' VR headsets. The
controllers connect with the computer via Bluetooth and will often be
noticeably laggy or unreliable when using onboard Bluetooth due to
interference from other devices on the motherboard. Switching to an external
Bluetooth dongle on a USB extension cable results in _significantly_ improved
controller tracking, and this issue is partly to blame for the poor reputation
of WMR controller tracking.

~~~
bathtub365
I suspect that's one of the reasons Valve put a Bluetooth receiver inside the
original Vive headset.

~~~
m-ee
They also didn't use it to connect to the controllers. They used two nRF24L01
transceivers which use Nordic's proprietary shockburst protocol. Easier to set
up and better latency.

------
grandinj
Somewhere on HN in a similar discussion a bluetooth stack engineer showed up
and explained that the entire bluetooth comms stack is a Rube Goldberg house
of horrors, so this really no surprise.

And then there are the bufferbloat people who finally tracked down the fact
that in various common situations, the normal Wi-Fi protocol has a nasty
interaction where it self-degrades to ridiculously slow speeds, and will take
2-5 MINUTES to recover.

We just don't have enough people doing serious whole-stack hardware+software
analysis on our wireless stuff. At least outside of cellular telephony -
probably because the money is more concentrated there.

~~~
rkangel
I maintained a commercial Bluetooth stack for several years. My opinion is
that the stack is actually not _too_ bad (although Low Energy complicated it).
The problem is that it has to be all things to all people.

There's discussions about codecs elsewhere on here - quality, latency etc.
There is a lowest common denominator so that everything works for everyone but
the information as to whether you're getting something else is hidden, both at
purchase time and run time.

Two things that would help:

Manufacturers actually putting supported codecs somewhere in the purchase
information. Why does tech specs on my Bose QuietComfort not have that
information anywhere? If you Google you can eventually find a support question
and answer.

Exposing runtime negotiation results to the user. In Windows when I'm
connected to Wifi it shows signal strength and other basic info via the icon
in the taskbar. When I'm connected to Bluetooth why is there not a display
listing the profiles and codecs in use ("High Quality Audio mode via Aptx Low
Latency", "Headset mode" etc.).

We actually need something similar for USB now as it has the same problem as
Bluetooth - one transmission medium for a whole lot of different things all of
which have to be able to negotiate to a common denominator. It happens a
little bit with just the charging component (phone lets you know it's charging
slowly if the charger can't negotiate up enough) - why isn't similar
information provided somewhere for the rest of the USB features ("Connected to
device X, can't enable feature Y as cable doesn't do Z").

~~~
grandinj
That's great for techies like us, but terrible for the 1000x more people who
want stuff to "just work".

As an example, Windows partially exposes that with my current setup and it's a
right pain, when some apps (e.g. Zoom) decide they preferentially want to use
some other bluetooth codec than the one I actually chose.

Most people really just want one thing which says "headphones" and for the
software/hardware to Just Work.

~~~
camehere2saydis
Maybe most people are _wrong_ after all.

There's all this talk of ethics and of logical fallacies that's making the
rounds, and then you have this failure to realize that non-techies are
_conditioned_ to see technology as some sort of black magic that you have to
be a special kind of not-quite-person in order to be able to make sense of.

No matter what spin you put on it, life in our society is _not_ simple. Any
kind of tool tends to work better if you're using it with some degree of
understanding how it works.

If only our industry would somehow magically stop enabling entitlement and
complacency (and _make it easier_ for users to "do their homework")... then
maybe things would actually "just work" much more often.

~~~
kyralis
You're missing the actual logical result of life in our society not being
simple: people do not have enough time or available energy given the rest of
the demands on their life. Civilization has evolved toward specialization, and
the basic expectation of specialization is that the output of specialists is
useful to individuals in other specialties. It is foolish to expect or require
everyone to become an expert on bluetooth configuration options to have some
headphones that don't work or a mouse without latency spikes. This isn't
entitlement; this is _efficiency_ and the way society is expected to function.
It is a very long time since we have expected everyone in our society to be an
expert at everything.

~~~
xg15
Good point - however, then at least have an option for specialists to get
access to the info.

I also believe we haven't yet explored all options to make certain
"specialist" topics more accessible to the general public. E.g., I'm
continually surprised how much the actual network traffic between apps/devices
and their corresponding servers is hidden. I believe a simple visualisation
about what apps/devices are talking with who would do a lot to at least get
some basic understanding of what's going on.

People seems to be very capable of learning concepts if they see personal
relevance - e.g. teens know very well what the battery, wifi and signal
strength indicators on their phones mean.

~~~
29083011397778
> e.g. teens know very well what the battery, wifi and signal strength
> indicators on their phones mean.

I will disagree with this whole-heartedly. Full bars are meaningless, and dBm
is hidden (on Android at least). What we see is whatever the OEM chooses, with
actual signal strength hidden away.

~~~
fest
Also, RSSI is typically calculated from the successfully received frames. So
you can receive a comfortable -60dBm signal.. for the most of the time.

------
laurentdc
What's with the hate against wires? Wires always work. My wireless printer
never worked. Well it prints once, then I have to power cycle it to print
again. Thanks Samsung.

The minimalism point doesn't really cut it: you still need a wire to charge
batteries inside things, so it's one more item. And batteries go bad in a
matter of years, so you need to buy a soldering iron and a LiPo cell from
shady sources unless you're into replacing >$100 devices every three years or
so. Or buy external AAA batteries and a wall charger like 90s toy cars.

I don't mind the aesthetics of wires. I love the mess behind my desk and the
thought that electrons are being pushed at 40 Gb/s to form an image. Mix and
match different colors and braid types for a free steampunk look.

~~~
Tade0
My only argument against wires is the inevitable wear and tear. I don't know
if this is just me or my poor choices regarding equipment, but I regularly
have to replace USB, RJ-45 and 1/4 jack(guitar) cables because they simply die
on me.

Same goes for sockets - recently I bought a certain laptop because, among
other things, it can be charged also via USB-C (albeit slowly), giving me a
fallback socket should the primary fail - had this happen to my previous
device.

~~~
ashtonkem
What are you doing to your wires?

Aside from Apple brand cables, which lack strain relief, I don’t think I’ve
ever killed a single USB or Ethernet cable. If it weren’t for the transition
from USB 2 to 3, I’d probably keep the same cables for my entire life at this
rate.

~~~
Tade0
I ask myself the same question every day.

Anyway the USB-C I got with my phone lasted two years, but I've used it
everywhere, my 1/4s broke because I've made the mistake of buying "by Klotz"
cables, RJ-45 are mostly Chinese crap so no surprise here.

~~~
ashtonkem
Maybe you’re pulling by the cable and not the connector? Some of the USB C
connectors have very small connectors, making this an easy problem.

The more I think about it, I’d probably destroy lighting cables regularly if
it weren’t for the fact that I only use wireless charging. You have to unplug
that cable a lot, which is pretty hard on the cable and connector.

------
mangecoeur
The Bluetooth headset latency kills me, especially now so many devices are
losing the headphone jack. As a hobbyist musician its unusable, same issue for
games.

It’s just worse in every respect and the headsets cost three times as much for
the equivalent sound quality.

~~~
m0xte
I’m waiting for some airpods to be delivered today so this is painful to read.
I don’t mind a few ms of latency but are we talking noticeably bad latency?
The only experience I have is with BT pairing with my car for music. I don’t
even use voice in the car.

~~~
spongeb00b
For playing music or even calls you won’t notice any difference.

The problem is trying to use and app like GarageBand where you need instant
response to instrument control. In fact, first time you open GarageBand and it
detects you’re using Bluetooth it’ll give you that warning.

~~~
enriquto
> For playing music

What do you mean by "playing"? I play the digital piano with wired headphones,
and with bluetooth sound it is absolutely unplayable due to the latency.

~~~
cma
Playing as in pressing play and listening. He was separately talking about
interactive playing with the GarageBand example.

------
mzakharo1
Many people dont realize, but WiFi chipset is very important. Get cheap/free
stuff from your ISP, and it will give you trouble (especially under
load/multiple clients). Buy expensive gear with Broadcomm/Qualcomm hardware in
it, and you will be better off. ASUS with rt-merlin firmware is a solid
choice.

Also, placement of router is very important. Most people have their wifi in
the basement, where their cable/phone line comes in, spending some time, and
running a physical wire somewhere to the center of the living space, setting
up router on a shelf or a table will go a long way in propagation. I have mine
setup in the center of my bungalow, and I have 5Ghz WiFI reaching from my
driveway to the backyard, no issues, and never any hickups.

Also, if you pick a high end router (Like ASUS 86U with merlin) -> you get
some proper Wifi diagnostic tools built in, like number of packet retransmits,
bad FCS, etc, which will help you diagnose your issues.

Multiple people on the same band is not as big of an issue as many claim it
is. 5Ghz (no B/G legacy frames), and 80MHz bandwidth ensures that most traffic
is very short in actual airtime. Not perfect, but, it is orders of magnitude
better than 2.4Ghz, despite there being really only 2 80MHz channels
available. There is also, channel 165, which is 20Mhz only, but rarely
occupied.

~~~
hamandcheese
FWIW, Xfinity provided me an "xFi" modem/router combo that performed great. I
replaced it with a standalone modem + a Unifi Dream Machine from Ubiquiti, and
my wifi speeds are significantly slower now. Still worth it to regain control
of my network, though.

~~~
post_break
That makes no sense. That device is almost bleeding edge and should be just as
fast if not faster than your router. Only thing I can think of is the ethernet
port out of the modem isn't gigabit and that's why it's slower.

~~~
hamandcheese
I get full gigabit when wired in, it’s definitely the WiFi that is the
bottleneck.

With the Dream Machine built-in AP I get 400-500mbps down, compared to the xFi
which got nearly full gigabit speeds. This is with direct line of sight to the
access point, maybe 8 feet away.

------
sandstrom
I agree, wireless is overrated in “desktop” situations.

One solution that I hope more monitor manufacturers would follow is the recent
Dell “hub” monitors with built-in Ethernet (RJ-45), USB-C, downstream power,
USB-A, etc.

[https://www.dell.com/lt/business/p/dell-u2421he-
monitor/pd](https://www.dell.com/lt/business/p/dell-u2421he-monitor/pd)

Only one cable to connect.

~~~
transfire
I wish something like HDBaseT would catch on.

~~~
moreati
For anyone else wondering
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HDBaseT](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HDBaseT)

> HDBaseT, promoted and advanced by the HDBaseT Alliance, is a consumer
> electronic (CE) and commercial connectivity standard for transmission of
> uncompressed high-definition video (HD), audio, power, home networking,
> Ethernet, USB, and some control signals, over a common category cable (Cat5e
> or above) using the same 8P8C modular connectors used by Ethernet.

~~~
encom
Sure it sounds neat, but it also sounds a lot like that xkcd about standards.

Also, the 8P8C connector is just godawful. I mean, it's fine for the first 3
days until the clip breaks off.

[https://xkcd.com/927/](https://xkcd.com/927/)

~~~
crgwbr
8P8C has the huge advantage of being pretty easy to terminate with some basic,
cheap hand tools. I’d hate to try that with a USB-C connector.

~~~
encom
That's true, with the caveat that cheap crimptools are often terrible, and
good ones are surprisingly expensive.

~~~
snuxoll
Eh, my “cheap” TRENDNet stip+crimp tool does the job just fine. I’m not a
heavy user, but I’ve done well over 50 terminations with it and every time
I’ve had an issue it’s due to myself doing a shitty job inserting the wires
into the connector.

------
paol
I've advocated for this for years to anyone who will listen, but it's like
preaching in the desert.

It doesn't help that many people are on laptops, and the war on ports (in
general, and ethernet ports in particular) has made wired options
exceptionally inconvenient. Not only you have to go out of your way to buy
extra hubs and adapters that are not included with the laptop, you then have
to carry a bag full of dongles everywhere.

~~~
ProZsolt
I only miss is 8P8C port, but only when I'm traveling and want wired
connection.

USB C made my life easier. Now I only have to plug one cable into my laptop
from my monitor and have everything(wired network, external display, speaker,
webcam, microphone, keyboard and mouse).

I don't see a reason to carry a dock with me. A lot of people carrying a Micro
USB A to USB A cable and a dock instead buying a Micro USB A to USB C cable
which makes no sense

~~~
mmm_grayons
Honestly, I hate USB-C. It's flimsy as all get-out. All the USB-C stuff I have
seems to maintain a poor connection when moved, and it doesn't feel anywhere
near as sturdy as a plain-old USB A. When I'm using a laptop, I want something
I can leave plugged in when I pick up and move the computer and not lose
connection when jiggled. They should have made something that valued a sturdy,
stable connection over slimness.

~~~
ProZsolt
You should feel a distinct click when you plug in your connector. I never had
any problem with my laptop.

What you described can be caused by lint inside your USB-C port. I had this
problem only with my phone. Try to get it out with a toothpick.

~~~
mmm_grayons
I appreciate the help, though I've looked inside my ports before and found
neither dust nor lint. The problem seems to be mostly with cheaper stuff. I've
mentioned this to USB-C enthusiasts before and gotten back, "Well, just by
better-quality stuff." The difference is, I never had any problem with the
connection on cheap USB-A devices. If the connector seemingly can't be made
both cheaply and well, that is a huge flaw with the standard and means it
ought to be abandoned wholesale.

------
aeturnum
I genuinely don't understand what the author is trying to say. It seems like
their thesis is this:

> Wifi (and bluetooth, etc.) sucker you in by making it seem like they “just
> work.” But if you investigate, you’ll often find that the wireless link is
> operating in a degraded state that performs much worse than a wired
> equivalent.

Wireless technologies are founded on exchanging the convenience of
wirelessness for reduced performance and reliability. There's no "gotcha."
That's the whole idea. Maybe that trade isn't for you, but it's not a secret.
If you take any course on physical networks, they go over the advantages of
not sharing the medium.

As for the hellishly complicated tech stack that is bluetooth...sure. I don't
think it's _because_ bluetooth is wireless. We've had regular articles here on
the total mess that is UBC-C[1]. Wired standards are not free from complex
protocols and error-filled implementations. All things being equal I imagine
that wireless protocols will tend to be worse - but all things are frequently
not equal.

There are no free lunches and wireless technology trades performance for
convenience. I myself have some wired devices and some wireless devices and am
quite happy with the result.

Edit: This feels like saying "Phones sucker into making you think they're a
computer. But if you investigate, you'll often find that they have less
processing power than many other computers!"

[1] From 15 days ago:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23435805](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23435805)

~~~
intopieces
>Wired standards are not free from complex protocols and error-filled
implementations.

Sure, but once you figure it out for the set of devices you are using, that's
it! It just works until it breaks for good. Wireless stuff... not so much. One
day it works, the next it doesn't.

~~~
InfiniteRand
For certain devices like headsets, even the wired ones I find randomly stop
working, I am sure it is not purely random but typically due to opening up X,
Y, and Z programs In a certain order. Issue resolved with restarting but that
can be pretty disruptive in the middle of a work day.

------
samMouret
Wireless is OK, you just need to use it correctly.

The trick is to treat it as a cellular system, and use the same methodology
used to build cellular networks:

(1) Use only 5GHz for Wi-Fi. Turn off 2.4GHz WiFi - it's an overloaded, noisy
spectrum band.

(2) One router per room, alternating channels between rooms.

(3) Use MU-MIMO (802.11ac gen2) or 802.11ax. The efficient MTU for Wi-Fi is
much much larger than the MTU used for real time communication. MU-MIMO lets
you send multiple small packets destined for multiple users inside one big
wifi frame.

(4) Don't use mesh devices. They multiply the "airtime" of each packet by
x2-x4 depending on number of hops and number of packet retries.

(5) Leave 2.4GHz for Bluetooth, and "junk" ISM devices (microwave oven, very-
low bandwidth devices, etc).

People push wireless to the breaking point, then complain it's broken...

~~~
swiley
>(1) Use only 5GHz for Wi-Fi. Turn off 2.4GHz WiFi - it's an overloaded, noisy
spectrum band.

This is an extremely bad idea in some countries, or if you’re not careful
which channel you select. In nearly all countries some of the 5ghz channels
are shared with RADAR and require DFS. In some countries (eg Germany) all of
the channels do.

The idea behind DFS is to detect radar pulses and then shut down the network
for a period of time, this can be triggered by radar or interference.

~~~
samMouret
Radar/DFS is a whole other can of worms.

My rules of thumb for DFS:

(1) If you can use a DFS channel - use it. it's usually less congested than
the regular channels

(2) If you're unlucky and DFS is triggered once per month or more, try
repositioning the AP or changing the AP model to one less sensitive to radar
pulses

(3) If no luck - use one of the non-DFS channels. Every country has those. In
Germany, that would be channels 32-48 or 149+

Note that DFS (5.4GHz) is for _weather_ radar. In some countries it's operated
only in winter season. You may want to use different channels in summer and in
winter :)

------
bhauer
Many people complacently or willingly use wireless technology for fixed-
location devices. While I can appreciate that running Ethernet cable can be a
bit frustrating, seeing a desktop computer using wifi makes my head hurt.

Especially in the current work from home era, I've seen a resurgent enthusiasm
for desktop computing. The simple rationale is: if you're going to be stuck at
home and have a decent home work environment, why suffer the downsides of
portable devices? Why not leverage the upsides that come from fixed-location
workstations (large displays, faster higher-wattage CPUs and GPUs, wired full-
size input devices, wired networking, and so on).

It's been amusing to see how many people have had their eyes re-opened to the
advantages of high-end desktop computing thanks to environmental
circumstances.

~~~
sukilot
WiFi is faster than most people's WAN connection so it's fine.

High wattage machines make rooms uncomfortably hot and expensive to cool.

~~~
floatboth
Fast WAN connections are becoming more common. Also while WiFi has decent
bandwidth, the latency/jitter/loss are still ass.

------
graton
I enjoy the convenience of wireless. But I do make a conscious effort to put
devices that are going to stay in one location on Ethernet if possible. I even
specifically bought a certain Roku model mainly because it had Ethernet.

So basically the only things on WiFi are laptops, phones, and devices which
don't support Ethernet. For the most part I don't notice issues with my WiFi.
I do use the Ubiquiti Unifi access points for providing WiFi in the house.

~~~
diablo1
I know people who have to have everything wireless. Little do they realize
that all that extra radiation is probably slowly killing them. On top of that
is the security risk of having personal data leaking out of your room to
whomever decides to eavesdrop on the signal (A threat model which becomes
clearer when you see how easy it is to collect signal leak)

~~~
the_pwner224
The sun beams down 1 KILOwatt of light (50% infrared, 40% visible, 10% other)
to every square meter on the ground. Most of the infrared and much of the
visible light is absorbed by your skin. Your WiFi router on the other hand has
a power of 50-150 MILLIwatts, and won't let you set it higher because that's
illegal. And your phone etc. run at around 15 milliwatts.

I guess if you built a ridiculously high powered WiFi antenna (which would be
illegal) and stood next to it for a while, you would cook yourself. But
BT/WiFi ain't gonna do shit to you.

[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=i4pxw4tYeCU](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=i4pxw4tYeCU)

~~~
wavepruner
Standing outside in the sun all day everyday is absolutely deadly.

~~~
ScottFree
If that were the case, there would be no African tribes left alive.

~~~
Wowfunhappy
Well, things that are deadly don't necessarily kill everyone.

~~~
ScottFree
By that rationale, walking is deadly. Breathing is deadly. Sleeping is deadly.
This is not a valid argument supporting the stance that wifi is deadly.

~~~
Wowfunhappy
Sorry, I didn't mean to argue that wifi is deadly (because power is so much
lower), I'm merely agreeing with the parent that the _sun_ is deadly. I think
the links to cancer are strong enough to warrant the term.

------
strstr
The wireless mouse has been the exception to this rule for me so far: the G
Pro wireless (and some other mice) don’t have the latency issues, and have
egregious battery life (and the charging cable fails over so it’s basically
just a wired mouse).

The lack of a cable saves a bunch of space and avoids the floppy cable.
Probably irrelevant if you don’t game, but definitely quite convenient for
FPSes.

~~~
jankotek
I just switched from wireless mouse. With high dpi and illumination, battery
lasted single day. Wired mouse is much lighter.

~~~
floatboth
I run my G603 on a single AAA battery with an AAA to AA adapter. So far I've
been exclusively using "dead" batteries from other devices – each lasts a
couple weeks! (In low Hz mode at least.. I don't feel any benefit from 1000Hz
mode, even in Counter-Strike.)

------
alister
Hotels have universally switched to wifi, but I miss having an Ethernet jack.
I think that at least some hotel Internet problems are actually wifi problems
and not due to the crappy service provider they use.

~~~
glandium
A lot of hotels still have ethernet, but while the wifi might be free, most
often than not, ethernet is not. In many cases some form of tunnelling allows
to connect anyway (e.g. IP over DNS)

------
gorgoiler
My Magic Trackpad 2 has input lag the first time you touch it after more than,
say, a second. Apple support said it might be interference and to turn off any
other nearby Bluetooth devices. Oof. Ok, thanks.

Perhaps the next product I buy from them in an Apple Store I’ll pay for by
wafting my card around the contactless terminal a little before walking out
the store saying “if it didn’t go through, try turning off any nearby
devices!”

~~~
legulere
You can use the Magic trackpad and Keyboard also with the cable. It won’t use
Bluetooth then.

------
zelienople
I use my Bose QC35 Bluetooth headphones with my MacBook to watch movies. The
system has a comfort meter: when my head is in exactly the most comfortable
spot on the couch, the Bluetooth signal drops out completely.

It also drops out when I touch my head or my face.

I have tried reorienting the laptop to no avail. No matter where the laptop is
(or, in fact, any components of the system, including the couch between 1m and
2.5m distance from the laptop) it always finds the same comfort spot to drop
out completely.

If I move my neck about 15 degrees to an uncomfortable angle, the signal is
perfect.

An anecdote, yes, but a relevant one.

~~~
rv-de
your body absorbs the EM radiation and shields the receiver from the
transmitter.

~~~
zelienople
Sure, but that does not strictly explain the phenomenon.

The headphones have clear line-of-sight to the laptop in both the "off"
(comfortable) position and the "on" (infinite set of uncomfortable) positions.

The absorption of the radio signals by my large capacitance, I would think,
doesn't change much with position. Also, it turns off when I scratch the back
of my head.

------
halotrope
There is two changes that had a surprisingly large impact on the perceived
flow and effectiveness of my daily work:

1\. Ditching notebooks for fast desktops

2\. Replacing wireless connectivity (esp. networking) wherever possible.

~~~
tokamak-teapot
I’ve been doing the same. I’ve recently replaced the following:

* Macbook wifi -> wired Ethernet

* Apple Bluetooth trackpad -> wired mouse

* Apple Bluetooth keyboard -> wired

* Bluetooth / Logitech 2.4Ghz mouse -> wired

The one problem this hasn’t fixed is keyboard connection to the MacBook. I
still have to unplug the USB cable from the (Anker) hub and plug it back in
again whenever the MacBook has been asleep. It’s better than forcing a re-
pairing of Apple’s own keyboards (yes I’ve had two) with their laptop every
day or two though.

~~~
floatboth
Why would you get rid of the Logitech 2.4ghz mouse? These are great (well, the
gaming mice), absolutely no difference in performance vs wired, no pairing
required..

~~~
tokamak-teapot
I'd sometimes have to remove the dongle and re-insert it for it to be
recognised (again) by the OS. When I used it via bluetooth it would keep
failing to connect and need manual deletion from the list of paired devices
and re-adding.

Also its dongle seemed to interfere with my wireless Apple keyboard. Not sure
but it seemed to correlate a few times.

It's much better with its own dongle, yes, but ... I got sick of the
occasional issues. No issues with a wired mouse.

------
nobrains
Can anyone recommend a bluetooth headset (i.e. speakers and mic) which does
not have this issue, as mentioned in the article:

"Low quality. Related to the codec issue, many bluetooth devices will play
high-quality audio when the microphone is turned off, but degrade to much
lower-quality audio when it’s turned on. You can test this for yourself if you
have a bluetooth headset: play music on it, then open your microphone settings
to the page where it shows the mic input volume. You’ll probably hear the
audio cut out for a second, then return at lower quality. (This happens even
with devices you might expect to be high-end, like my Airpods Pro + 2018
Macbook Air.)"

I have need trying to find any, but have failed till now, and do not have
unlimited budget to buy and try many options.

~~~
maufl
You need to look out for headsets that support the Hands Free Profile version
1.6 [0]. This version adds optional support for much better audio quality when
using the microphone. I'm currently using the Sony WH-1000XM3. Unfortunately
HFP 1.6 seems not yet to be supported on Linux (i.e. Bluez/Pulseaudio)

[0][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Bluetooth_profiles#Han...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Bluetooth_profiles#Hands-
Free_Profile_\(HFP\))

~~~
sjy
HFP 1.6 does not solve the problem. Surprisingly, there is no solution [1].
HFP 1.6 supports "wide band speech with the mSBC codec," but this sounds
terrible compared to the CD quality sound you get from the unidirectional A2DP
profile. Some OSes automatically toggle from A2DP to HSP during a phone call
(eg. the "auto_switch" option of PulseAudio's module-bluetooth-policy), but
you can't use both profiles at the same time.

[1] [https://www.ipetitions.com/petition/duplex-high-quality-
audi...](https://www.ipetitions.com/petition/duplex-high-quality-audio-for-
bluetooth)

This is why the wireless ModMic [2] talks about Bluetooth codecs but actually
requires a custom USB wireless receiver.

[2] [https://antlionaudio.com/blogs/news/introducing-modmic-
wirel...](https://antlionaudio.com/blogs/news/introducing-modmic-wireless)

~~~
makomk
Yeah. It's possible that Bluetooth LE Audio could improve this, we'll see once
they finally get around to releasing the specs. It certainly sounds like it's
designed to support bidirectional audio links without the stupid HSP/HFP
divide of classic Bluetooth. (There's more mainstream demand for this feature
now due to things like voice assistants.)

~~~
nobrains
What about dedicated Bluetooth headsets for phones, like plantronics? Aren't
they supposed to work bidirectional with high quality audio? Or do they also
use the standard Bluetooth profiles/protocols?

~~~
makomk
Bluetooth headsets like the ones Plantronics make are designed for making
phone calls, and the limitations of the standard Bluetooth headset protocol
weren't a problem for that because standard phone lines were monoaural with
the exact same frequency response and bit depth limits so you weren't losing
anything extra. The trouble is that people want to use Bluetooth audio for
things like gaming, video conferencing, using voice assistants whilst playing
music etc which have much higher quality audio. Also, phone calls themselves
are slowly improving too with things like HD Voice.

------
Pxtl
I've vastly improved the quality of my wifi by upgrading my routers and my
devices. The important thing to remember is that wifi always performs as the
worst device on your network. A dead-zone device hurts every device on your
network. A G-only device hurts every device on your network.

So, 2 routers in my sms house, hooked together wired. All my priority devices
have new dual-band hardware and are on the 5ghz network. Old devices are
relegated to the 2.4ghz network, which is quite spotty owing to that.

Unexpected things can do real damage too. I had an older PC that had its wifi
dongle plugged into a USB 2 port and it would frequently get multi-second ping
spikes. The same wifi dongle worked fine on a USB3 port. I ended up wiring
that one in.

Personally I've abandoned all wifi hardware companies other than Asus - every
other one has let me down at least once, if not repeatedly.

In every other respect, Asus seems to be incapable of making devices that rate
higher than a B plus, but in the lowered expectations of the world of wifi
hardware companies where "occasionally functional" seems to be considered good
enough, Asus' spotty quality is a huge step up.

~~~
cma
> A G-only device hurts every device on your network.

Doesn't need to be on your network, just in your vicinity like from a
neighbor.

~~~
sizzle
What is the G only device doing that degrades performance on a dual band
wireless network?

------
kgjhgkhkjh
Buy a router that supports flashing
[https://openwrt.org/](https://openwrt.org/) . It saves a lot of time. After
about 2 years of trial and error i figured why the network becomes bad and
stops working when i run torrent, i never suspected the router would be the
culprit and thought ISP had an issue, turns out ISP is very reliable most of
the time and its the router that is having problems. The problem with router
is the debug logs are a joke and does not tell anything. OpenWrt made
significant change to my life. Thanks OpenWrt deveoplers.

------
Evan__
His point about wifi network polling is spot on. I noticed this exact issue
once all of my meetings moved to Zoom. It turns out that location services on
my Mac frequently poll all of the nearby networks, causing tons of dropped
packets which broke up the audio and video in Zoom. Once I figured this out,
which took a while, I had to completely disable location services to resolve
it.

Switching to a Unifi router and picking an empty DFS channel also improved my
wifi experience significantly since I live in a NYC high rise. For those that
don't know, many routers allow you to use a set of 5GHz "DFS" channels that
are normally reserved for aircraft radar. By regulation, any router
broadcasting on a DFS channel must be able to detect radar interference and
switch to a non DFS channel immediately for a period of 30 minutes or so. If
you live in an area that aircraft regularly hit with radar this be very
disruptive, but if not, these channels often perform better than the dedicated
5GHz channels since most routers don't use DFS channels by default.

------
foobiekr
as a wireless hater (and especially a hater of designed-to-fail
rechargeables), I would love it if the trend reversed. I don't want to have to
manage charging devices. I want a keyboard that works, always, if it is
plugged in.

~~~
maccard
I've got a couple of wireless devices, and all of them charge using either
micro USB or USB C, and my Logitech G mouse is the only one with a custom
receiver, all the rest are Bluetooth. It's great. I no longer snag cables to
the point of breaking with my chair, and if I do, they're just USB cables and
are replaceable.

------
sizzle
Going from 2.4Ghz to 5Ghz was great for stability and speed... until spectrum
started pushing 5Ghz as default and crowding the 5Ghz spectrum here. Then I
hooked up cat5e and upgraded to gigabit service and it's been bulletproof on
my desktop. I can't go back to wireless after wired.

I wonder if 5G is going to feel like Ethernet gigabit instantaneous levels of
speed?

~~~
FridgeSeal
I love ethernet connections - you plug it in, it goes. Doesn't care what your
neighbor is doing, and it's my understanding that there's less overhead in
sending-receiving data over it.

------
mehrdadn
Related: anybody have experience with powerline ethernet? Are there good
adapters that can make high-quality/high-speed ethernet connections over power
wiring inside a home? I know these are a thing but I have no idea how good
their quality is or how strongly they depend on the wire itself.

~~~
izacus
PowerLine uses very similar technology as WiFi does, except that power cables
are significantly more noisy than air. As such, they usually perform
significantly worse than wifi. With exception of certain cases like buildings
with 19th century 2m thick walls.

In most other cases, quality WiFi equipment performed better and was more
stable.

~~~
magicalhippo
This has been my experience. I bought some Devolo powerline adapters a few
years ago to try in my apartment, and got quite poor speed (<100Mbps) and
network was rather unstable. Switched to WiFi and got better speed and
stability.

Last year I moved to a new place and faced the same issue of wanting internet
in a different room and tried the Devolos again. Same experience except worse
speed. Again I had to fall back to WiFi, which at least gets me ~150Mbps here.

------
rcarmo
I have a wired headset and everything on my home office desk is wired except
for my mouse (now mice, since I'm trying out a 3-device logitech M720) and
keyboard.

(Incidentally, the "lightspeed" dongles Logitech uses do work at 2.4GHz, but
with a proprietary protocol -- which I think someone has already gone to the
trouble of documenting, since IIRC it uses only the frame sizes and types it
really needs to.)

Headsets, mics, laptops, are all wired (you can get pretty decent USB-to-
Ethernet adapters for cheap these days), and give me zero trouble, but I could
never go back to wired keyboards and mice because of the freedom and
flexibility you get (I'm trying to wean myself off the Apple keyboard/trackpad
combo into a Logitech K380/M720 combo to be able to switch devices more
easily).

Unless you're a gamer (and really need a wired mouse to shave off those
milliseconds), there's really no contest in terms of input devices. Audio,
that's another matter entirely (I only use Bluetooth on the go).

OTOH, I have an Airport Extreme base station (set to 5GHz) underneath my desk
for those times when I do need wireless (like bringing in a laptop for
checking things, or my iOS devices).

------
namelosw
I kept jumping between wireless and wire because I'm annoyed by wires, and
keep getting burned by wireless pitfalls through these years. But each round
wireless seems to be slightly getting better over time.

Here are some tips I collected along the way:

1\. 2.4GHz sucks, use Bluetooth when possible. But Bluetooth sucks, too.

2\. You want to have fewer Bluetooth devices when possible, reduce the number
of simultaneous connections. For example, I only use my Bluetooth mouse for
gaming, and trackpad for the rest, so I would disconnect mouse when I'm not
playing video games.

3\. You want to use some categories of Bluetooth devices first. For example,
Bluetooth keyboards usually have great experiences so you may want to make
your keyboard wireless first. Bluetooth mice and trackpads are Okayish, but
not as great. Bluetooth headphones and speakers are usually bad. If you really
want to use Bluetooth for Audio, sometimes devices from the same company may
have better connections: Beats Studio seems to have a much better connection
than Sennheiser and B&O on Mac.

After all, I still love the idea of wireless because it is nice on paper. It
is mostly the de facto protocols and implementations that are terrible.

~~~
dTal
>2.4GHz sucks, use Bluetooth when possible.

Huh? Bluetooth _is_ 2.4GHz.

~~~
namelosw
I'm sorry for not being clear on this but I'm not sure how to name it in
English. I was referring to those wireless devices with a small USB receiver.

~~~
rkangel
In the professional wireless development space, we call those "generic ISM
band crap".

------
mrkeen
I recently played doom 1 with my girlfriend on our home wifi (chocolate doom
for those interested). Just 2-player LAN coop.

The lag made it unplayable. We plugged in some ethernet cables and it ran fine
after that.

------
0x38B
I'm happier and happier with my wired Shure SE215s. I realize that wireless is
super convenient, but for someone who doesn't use their headphones a whole lot
- mostly for long conversations and videos, cables don't bother me so much.
And another plus is I can just change my cables when they wear out (MMCX
standard): less waste, less to throw away.

What does bother me is having to use a dongle with my Pixel 3; the Apple USB-C
to 3.5mm adapter is thankfully better (and smaller!) than what Google shipped
with the Pixel 2, which suffered from really annoying echo problems.

------
mcv
About the network polling addressed in the article, why does any app even need
to poll for networks? On every computer, there's only ever one single app that
needs to poll for networks, and that's the app that maintains your network
connection. For every single other app, network should simply be considered a
transparent service that they simply use and don't control. They have no
business looking at other wifi networks. They don't even need to know whether
they're on wifi or ethernet. Maybe they can ask the network app how crowded
the network is, or whether whether they're free to use as much as they want or
if they should tone it down a bit (which could be either because it's too
busy, there's not enough bandwith, or because it's a metered connection), but
other than that, they don't need to know.

Lately I keep running into these sort of weird, stupid problems in OS design,
and it's making me want to write my own OS (which I won't do, because I lack
the skill and knowledge).

I agree with much of the rest of the article too. I've always been annoyed
that Apple doesn't sell a wired touch mouse. I love the touch mouse, I just
don't love running out of battery while working. And I certainly don't like
the way their more recent mice need to be charged with a wire inserted at the
bottom! Who ever thought that was a good idea?!

In some situations, wireless can be very convenient, but when you're not
walking around, wired is usually better in many ways.

------
gauchojs
I bought a wired Jabra headset for this pandemic times, but nobody actually
cares - and we chat without video. Went back to the cheap BT headset - there
are too many advantadges of this freedom: can make a coffee, get the baby...
while "in the meeting".

But the real most important point: I want to bet on the wireless future
because I hate wires. I love seeing my table clean when I had a wireless Mac
keyboard. And if Apple can make a keyboard that works reliably over BT for
several months, then that should be our target...

------
chrismorgan
> _However, every time I can remember helping someone track down the source of
> their connection problems, the culprit has turned out to be their wifi._

This is not my experience. I’d estimate wifi to have been the problem only
20–40% of the time. I’ve found a poor ISP to be the problem much more
commonly. And then the last few percent of cases is other miscellaneous
network topology problems typically from failing wired hardware, buggy router
or dying dumb switch.

(I’m excluding “too far away from the router” from my reckoning, because in
such cases that’s been known to be the problem, and it feels unfair to
criticise wifi for that unless you’re going to criticise ethernet cables for
not being where you want them. Notwithstanding this exclusion, I have found
that being near the edge of a wireless network’s reach is great at messing
with both the router and computers; where I am at present, if I go a few
metres further away from the router, my Surface Book’s wifi connectivity
stands a decent chance of kinda breaking after a while, so that it starts
losing 5–30% of packets and getting average round-trip times to the router of
150ms—which together make it very close to completely unusable—until I next
_restart the computer_ (restarting the wifi adapter isn’t enough). I haven’t
determined who’s at fault, the router, the adapter, or Windows 10.)

------
jhokanson
That was a great story about actually managing to debug a wireless problem. I
wish there were better diagnostic tools commonly available that would clearly
explain these things. I'm not sure if in the author's case there is some
software that would listen for extensive polling and flag that as an issue -
even better if it could log running programs at the time and try and guess
which one is causing the issue.

I'm constantly having problems with my mac laptops and after many hours (10+)
of internet searching I still have no idea why the wifi doesn't always work
reliably. Some days or weeks (months?) it is great. Other days every hour it
is disconnecting. Sometimes resetting the router helps, sometimes it doesn't.
The whole situation is extremely frustrating.

Some issues: Why am I getting a DNS issue when my wired desktop never has a
wireless issue?

Sometime I swear that the laptops becomes much less reliable at the opposite
end of my house as my router but the signal strength is generally still
excellent (4 bars).

Anyway, I'm not asking to have my particular issues solved (although that
would be much appreciated!!!!). The real issue just seems to be that debugging
these issues is extremely difficult and not based on principles but just
random things that people can try (e.g., delete your plist files).

------
jgeada
The other interference problem is that all devices talking to a particular
access point are all transmitting on the same frequency. As wireless is a
shared transmission medium they all have to take turns and if two or more
devices happen to try to transmit at the same time they'll corrupt each
other's message and have to go through the random exponential back off to try
to find clear air, leading to random changes in latency & throughput.

~~~
Havoc
>all devices talking to a particular access point are all transmitting on the
same frequency

Not necessarily. I just bought a Triband wifi6/ax router for like 150 quid.

5GHz band A -->> Main computer

5Ghz band B -->> iPhones & tablets & laptop

2.4ghz band -->> Everything else that is potentially noisy (ahem sketchy IoTs)

------
kdamica
I exclusively use a wireless mouse. No latency, never have to charge it or
change the batteries.

I like wireless but I hope there's a better interface than Bluetooth at some
point.

~~~
tuatoru
I use a wired mouse on my desktop with 1000 polls/sec and latency of about 5
ms.

On my laptop (which is 9 years newer and has similar benchmark results) I use
a wireless mouse which has 125 polls/sec and latency of 20 ms.

Yes, one can tell the difference. It is possible to buy low-latency wireless
mice. Next time, I will.

Bluetooth is a trash fire. I was hoping wireless USB would take off, but
that's dead now.

~~~
buzzkillington
The difference is the screen refresh rate.

On 60Hz my wired and wireless mouse feel exactly the same.

On 240Hz, yeah, there is a lot of difference.

------
Pxtl
I've vastly improved the quality of my wifi by upgrading my routers and my
devices.

The important thing to remember is that wifi always performs as the worst
device on your network. A dead-zone device hurts every device on your network.
A G-only device hurts every device on your network.

So, 2 routers in my sms house, hooked together wired. All my priority devices
have new dual-band hardware and are on the 5ghz network. Old devices are
relegated to the 2.4ghz network, which is quite spotty owing to that.

Unexpected things can do real damage too. I had an older PC that had its wifi
dongle plugged into a USB 2 port and it would frequently get multi-second ping
spikes. The same wifi dongle worked fine on a USB3 port. I ended up wiring
that one in.

Personally I've abandoned all wifi hardware companies other than Asus - every
other one has let me down at least once, if not repeatedly.

In every other respect, Asus seems to be incapable of making devices that rate
higher than a B plus, but in the lowered expectations of the world of wifi
hardware companies where "occasionally functional" seems to be considered good
enough, Asus' spotty quality is a huge step up.

------
Havoc
Bluetooth - yeah fully agree. Having endless troubles just getting the
headsets reliably connected. And my standing desk seems solid enough to
physically block bluetooth signals which is an issue if tower is below desk &
mouse above.

Wifi on the other hand I find pretty stable. As long as you're on 5ghz.
Haven't gotten the new ax/wifi6 to work yet though despite buying relevant
tech

------
etaioinshrdlu
On the topic of wired vs wireless... Has anyone had experience doing anything
ridiculous such as getting a 40Gbit Ethernet adapter for say, their macbook?
[https://eshop.macsales.com/item/ATTO/TLNQ3402D00/](https://eshop.macsales.com/item/ATTO/TLNQ3402D00/)

~~~
musicale
Kind of amazing that a macbook pro has four 40 Gb/s ports... and none of them
are ethernet. Compare to 1 Gb/s ethernet which was rapidly adopted by Apple
laptops as well as desktops. (Though you can currently get a Mac mini (!) with
10 Gb/s ethernet built in - if you can find something to connect it to.)

I've used thunderbolt cables to connect laptops together for fast data
transfer. I think in order to get decent performance I had to get disable the
software ethernet bridge.

~~~
Hamuko
> _and none of them are ethernet._

Might have something to do with the fact that 8P8C is as thick as the entire
laptop.

~~~
andrewshadura
That can be easily worked around with flat retractable sockets PCMCIA Ethernet
cards had in the past.

~~~
Hamuko
You mean this?
[https://twitter.com/Infoseepage/status/938837890494169088](https://twitter.com/Infoseepage/status/938837890494169088)

Looks really bad for longetivity.

------
vmception
Wow you would think that article was written in 2008!

I have had a very good experience with 802.11ac for all applications, and
Bluetooth 5.0 (iphone 11 pro), and Bluetooth 4.2 with apple keyboard and
mouse. Wireless headset to a macbook is pretty bad, pretty awesome to the
iphone. I do not have dongles.

Knowledge of interference and the wireless devices you use is important.

I spend a non-negligible amount of time when choosing a wireless router, and
will immediate benchmark it. The routers from the ISPs are still pretty bad in
comparison to the ones you can buy for $70 - $120.

If I am using a desktop I will also benchmark the dongle.

You also have to acknowledge proximity to power cords and transformers, which
will degrade your experience.

It always requires a holistic solution to optimize and I don't know if the
writer's problems can be fixed. Even two years ago I kept one or two devices
on Ethernet if they were close to the router. But I have since removed them.

~~~
eveningcoffee
Any recommendations?

------
scarface74
After going from a house to an apartment, when we moved back into a house - it
was a new build - we made sure that every room was wired for gig-e. We didn’t
want to take any chances on wireless. My wife uses an iPad with a 6 foot stand
to teach online fitness classes. She even got an Ethernet adapter for the
iPad.

------
kevindong
My opinion on WiFi is that as long as the end user(s) have a decent
router/access points (AP), it's great. If the end user has a crappy $25 router
or are trying to cover a ridiculously large area with a single AP with a very
sub-optimally placed AP (e.g. think bottom of a closet), then yeah they're
gonna suffer. Almost no one needs a $200 prosumer router nor a Ubiquiti setup,
but everyone needs something better than a $25 router. My experience is that
the sweet spot is around $70.

Bluetooth is definitely a disaster though. Apple has made great strides with
their AirPods and the (It Just Works)™ philosophy behind their products, but
even the AirPods aren't perfect. Once every month or so, my AirPods just
refuse to connect for whatever reason and I have to restart the device
outputting sound to get the connection working again.

------
crazygringo
Yes, latency and quality degradation suck.

But in most cases, for most people, _wires suck even more_.

Seriously. I can't walk around my apartment to tidy it up while on an audio
call on my computer if I'm wired. When I walked around the city with wired
headphones to my phone, the wires would constantly snag or something or other.
Wires are constantly getting tangled, or I have to spend time carefully
rolling and clipping them and unclipping them and unrolling.

Wires _suuuck_. They suck _baaad_.

If I'm doing something professional with audio or AV where quality/latency are
paramount, then sure I'll use wires and dongles as necessary. They're a "pro"
thing.

But for everyday use? Wireless is still generally good enough, and the pros
_waaay_ outweight the cons. Which is why the world has been switching en
masse.

~~~
coffeefirst
It's a tradeoff. Like everything else, it depends.

I'm not wiring up my house for ethernet any time soon, I found a 5g band that
performs well and can call it good.

But I've all but given up on wireless headphones. If I had a dollar for every
time my airpods died or disconnected and refused to reconnect during a video
call, I'd have enough dollars to buy new airpods now that their batteries are
nearly shot. There's still a time and a place for them, but it mostly involves
walking the dog.

~~~
crazygringo
It _does_ frustrate me so much how wireless things can be finicky.

For example, my AirPods Pro worked flawlessly, except for about one month
where they'd have a hard time switching between devices. But then it fixed
itself.

Separately, AirDrop had always worked flawlessly between my Mac and iPhone and
iPad, for years. Except two weeks ago it stopped working entirely between any
of them. Tried rebooting everything, no help. Still won't work.

I've never gotten Sidecar to work, even though I meet all the requirements. On
the other hand, my Bluetooth keyboard and mouse have always worked flawlessly
every day I've ever used them.

It's all so random and luck of the draw... and you can never tell if the
problem is because of Wi-Fi, or Bluetooth, or device software settings, or
device hardware configuration, or settings on your Apple ID, or _what_.

------
kgjhgkhkjh
Is it possible to use the perf
tools([http://www.brendangregg.com/perf.html](http://www.brendangregg.com/perf.html))
and debug top down to find the program that causes the issue rather than
guessing the programs and debugging bottom up ?

------
pR0Ps
Ugh. I had the exact same issue with Qt and it took me forever to track it
down[0].

Even though it's been fixed since 2017 I can confirm that there's still lots
of network-using software out there that isn't using the most recent Qt
library. Installing any of it will destroy your ability to have lag-free video
chats or do any other real-time streaming.

I've always been in the "wires wherever possible" camp and it's things like
this that are keeping me there. Hopefully headphone jacks don't go totally
extinct anytime soon...

[0] [https://cmetcalfe.ca/blog/diagnosing-periodic-high-ping-
time...](https://cmetcalfe.ca/blog/diagnosing-periodic-high-ping-times-on-
macos.html)

------
alacer
I mostly agree but would say wired is a better technology than wireless in
terms of safety, reliability and cost. I only use wireless for an occasional
phone call usually on the road in case of car trouble, with my keyboards and
with my Visonic home security system sensors.

Timothy Schoechle of the National Institute for Science, Law & Public Policy
in Washington, DC recently wrote a paper called "Re-Inventing Wires: The
Future of Landlines and Networks" on this subject. It's available as a PDF
download from
[https://gettingsmarteraboutthesmartgrid.org/pdf/Wires.pdf](https://gettingsmarteraboutthesmartgrid.org/pdf/Wires.pdf)

------
ProZsolt
I still prefer a wired connection, but I don't think wireless is evil. The
main problem is people use crap equipment, most likely provided by the ISP.
Most of this equipment has chips that overheat a degrade the performance. Most
of the ISP only provides AIO router+modem combos. People use it instead of
buying a good router+wireless access point.

This reminded me to this article I read a few years ago:
[https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/10/review-ubiquiti-
unif...](https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/10/review-ubiquiti-unifi-made-
me-realize-how-terrible-consumer-wi-fi-gear-is/)

------
ksec
I wanted to point out it isn't really "Wireless" fault. It is the problem of
Consumer WiFi and Bluetooth.

I could get a faster Speedtest transfer from 4G on my iPhone 11 then standing
next to my WiFi 6 router. And my WiFi 5Ghz actually has more Spectrum ( but
slightly more noisy as I live in apartment ). And in terms of reliability 4G
works better than even the best "Enterprise" WiFi network. And these
Enterprise WiFI network gear ( Ruckus , Aruba etc ) are already zillions times
better than consumer grade WiFi.

You then have ISP wanting to sell you Wireless Router combined with their ONT
/ Modem. If they actually provide something better then I would be happier.
But they dont. The only good thing is that you now only have to restart one
devices rather than two to test or "reset" your network. I think I recently
learned in Germany the law mandate consumer to have the right to buy their own
ONT / Modem. So you dont have the crap that most ISP give you due to Cost
reason.

There is no reason why we cant have standalone 4G / 5G in the Unlicensed
Spectrum. Qualcomm actually made a case with MultiFire [1], unfortunately due
to politics and interest it may never actually take off.

WiFi 6 / 802.11ax was suppose to incorporate lots of learning from 4G/LTE/3GPP
Rel into it. But as is typical of design by committees and vendor's interest
we now have WiFI 6 that doesn't support most of the original promised
features. That is why you start seeing marketing push as WiFi 6+, which is
different to WiFi 6E. If all these mess sounds familiar, yes it was called
USB.

That is one reason why I really like Apple's MiFi programme and standards.
Stop giving options and choices to vendors. Stop giving them margins of error
in the name of cost reduction. If you are going to make 100 Million unit a
year, stop trying to cut the cost down by pennies, up the BOM by a dollar.
Make something better. I will paid. Lots of people will paid. And one billion
of iPhone user will paid.

I want quality, not crap.

( Ok I have gone off topic )

[1] [https://www.multefire.org](https://www.multefire.org)

------
ImaCake
I will always preference wired over wireless, but I am currently unable to run
an ethernet to my desktop (my partner is not keen on having a tripwire run
straight across the house). So I did the same ping test that OP did and noted
a few spikes, I had 10 pings over 250ms out of 600, all of these were
distributed unevenly over time. Guess I could be subject to such wireless
degradation. But I can't say for sure without trying an ethernet cable. t : ms
32: 1725.0, 33: 662.0, 68: 406.0, 100: 980.0, 101: 285.0, 312: 454.0, 342:
746.0, 464: 453.0, 480: 1852.0, 481: 841.0

------
jgeada
The other interference problem is that all devices talking to a particular
access point are all transmitting on the same frequency. As wireless is a
shared transmission medium they all have to take turns and if two or more
devices happen to try to transmit at the same time they'll corrupt each
other's message and have to go through the random exponential back off to try
to find clear air, leading to random changes in latency & throughput.

------
pdkl95
> That means in dense areas (e.g. apartment buildings), routers will often ...
> interfering with each other.

Obviously the radios wouldn't interfere with each other if we could prevent
the radio waves from leaking into other apartments. If only we had something
that could be added to the router that would _guide_ the radio _waves_
directly to the wireless devices instead of indiscriminately radiating in
every direction. Some sort of _wave guild_.

/lol

------
dandare
Regardless of the product advertisement Jabra 75 does NOT support native
Bluetooth connection to computers (although Jabra is not quick to admit it)
[https://medium.com/@daniel_36042/jabra-we-know-our-
bluetooth...](https://medium.com/@daniel_36042/jabra-we-know-our-bluetooth-
headsets-dont-work-with-laptops-sorry-no-refunds-80ed4cb2fc6f)

------
Markoff
what's wrong with wireless keyboard and mouse? battery life is like one year
and I don't have also any issues with response times (not gaming though)

but yeah, I don't see myself using wireless headphones which would not be
perfectly in sync with video and I am using wifi only because installing cable
through whole apartment would be too troublesome and not sure if network over
powerline would be faster and more reliable than wifi

~~~
kevincox
Personaly I don't understand the advantages. I've never had an issue with the
cable that runs from the keyboard over the side of my desk. Maybe for the
mouse as it moves around (although I usually use a wired trackpad) but I'm not
too convinced. Maybe if I tried using one for an extended period of time I
would change my mind. In general I'm not too worried about the reliability in
the wireless sense but I don't like the idea that these things can run out of
battery. I like as many of my devices to just work without any maintenance
required. (even if the maintenance is minimal)

Furthermore I generally don't have batteries on hand. (Right now the complete
list of things I own that use batteries is the TV remote and the thermostat)
So when I get the low battery warning I need to go and buy some.

On the other hand I completely get the case for Bluetooth headphones. I love
being able to run to the kitchen without losing my music or still being able
to hear someone else speaking. Also when using them with a phone the cable
running down to my pocket does actually get in the way. Synchronization
shouldn't be an issue because any not-terrible Bluetooth speakers will report
their delay to the computer so that everything remains syncronized. I do have
one set of cheep earbuds that don't report it to my phone correctly but this
is rare (and I probably should have sent them back).

~~~
ProZsolt
The main advantage for me is that I can pack it away when I need more desk
space. (eg.: planning something on paper)

------
taf2
When we first opened our office we had a small kitchen interestingly when we
turned it on the wifi access in the whole office went down for the duration of
the microwave running. Turns out if you have 2.5ghz WiFi it can be interfered
with some microwave ovens that maybe have poor insulation... also the signal
meter on the computer measures the signal as strong the whole time but packets
drop like crazy

------
ricardobeat
This depends a lot on your particular situation and equipment. I ran the ping
test exactly as shown, with wi-fi and wired, and there is negligible
difference in average latency or standard deviation.

Even when using ethernet, the PC connects through an Orbi mesh router, two
hops away from the base station. A round trip to local IP addresses is between
9-10ms. Switching to wi-fi adds 2-3ms to that.

------
Jonnax
They mention that the polling increases latency. But by how much?

Is windows affected by this? Because I've never noticed it have an impact on
video calls.

~~~
londons_explore
It mostly depends on the actual network hardware, drivers and the access
point, not the OS.

When a WiFi device does a 'scan' (which it needs to do to know if there might
be a better AP to connect to, amongst other things), it has to retune the
radio to another frequency. That means it can't listen on the original
frequency, and packets get lost. Depending on the network design, they might
be retransmitted from the access point (layer 2 retransmit, a few
milliseconds), or by TCP after a timeout (1 network round trip, hundreds of
milliseconds often).

A third option is your laptop tells the AP that it is going into a power
saving mode and won't be listening. Packets are then queued for it while it
retunes and does a scan.

Best would be to have multiple radios, one whose only job is scanning. Then
there would be no latency impact at all.

------
12bits
One of the worst parts of being a network-worker in a University, is managing
the wireless and the expectations of how wireless should perform at every
square inch of the campus. I understand the frusterations of the students, but
at the same time learn a bit about the pros and cons of the technology you're
so dependent on.

------
WrtCdEvrydy
Wireless transmission is pretty interesting. When doing the OSI work and
getting to the 'physical' layer for WiFi, I was surprised to see how
transmission worked and how often you'd have conflicts when broadcasting
packets on the same frequency range.

------
superjan
To windows 10 users with bad wifi experience: windows power management has
become more agressive, it caused dropped VPN connections continuously until I
put power management to High performance for all power profiles. It took me
aLmost a year to figure out the cause.

------
acjohnson55
I ran ethernet cable in hopes of eliminations video call dropouts, but I still
have plenty of issues.

~~~
softgrow
You may have local issues. I ran a series of iperf3 tests in a small but non-
trivial network and was surprised. There was a 100Mbps switch that had been
forgotten about. Also a wifi network running off a Power over Ethernet link
which was 3Mbps compared with 50Mbps over fairly poor Wifi it was supposed to
be superior to, which looks pretty darn good to the POE link. A cheap switch
and two LAN cables later things are so much better.

~~~
tuatoru
100 Mbps is enough for 15-20 HD video calls using modern codecs. Gigabit is
great for backups, but for ordinary use 100 Mbit is fine.

If you're getting lag and dropouts with a wired connection, the problem is
most likely bufferbloat.

------
anonu
The issue with WiFi is over-crowdedness. Suggestions to fix this are to
actually get everyone to lower the power on their wifi transmitters (hard to
control). Also, making sure youre on the right non-crowded channel (easier to
control).

------
sandos
Ive wanted an alternative for 1-wire since I really do not need very quick
updates, but I do want really long and questionable wiring! This looks like a
perfect fit!

------
bluedays
I agree, wireless Internet is pretty terrible.

However, I find that I prefer everything else wireless.

I wish there were more solutions for mechanical wireless keyboards, in fact.

------
ChrisMarshallNY
Agree. I have a lot of cables around my desk.

It’s not just video calls. My backup is done to a Synology NAS, upstairs.
That’s all wired.

------
derefr
> Dongles. Even though all computers now have built-in Bluetooth, many
> Bluetooth accessories today still ship with proprietary dongles. I assume
> this is because the manufacturer was worried about inconsistencies or
> incompatibilities between their own Bluetooth implementation and your
> computer’s built-in Bluetooth hardware/drivers.

No, in most cases where you see dongles (keyboards, mice, gamepads) it’s
because the dongle is not speaking Bluetooth to the device, but rather a “raw”
pre-paired fixed-frequency RF wire protocol. Devices connected by such dongles
(usually marketed as just being “wireless” rather than being “Bluetooth”
devices) are basically electrically connected to your computer—just with an
RF-modulated bridge stage for the electrical signal path. There’s no “wireless
controller” or “modem” in these peripherals; they’re just letting the signal
path flow out the antenna.

The disadvantage of these (besides the inconveniences of a dongle) is that
these “raw” RF protocols provide no consideration for interference with one-
another, besides maybe being e-fused to each operate on a different randomized
sub-channel of the commercial-use 2.4GHz band. This means that you can’t have
very many of these devices operating in the same “shared medium” (e.g. the
same open office); and in fact, a channel collision for these devices won’t
just _interfere_ with one-another; they’ll often—lacking any device-ID header
or per-device encryption key—just plain _interoperate_ with one-another, with
your “wireless” keyboard dongle picking up the typing of some coworker’s
“wireless” keyboard! (They’re a lot like RF TV remotes in this regard.)

Note that devices that market themselves as Bluetooth but _also_ come with a
dongle are either 1. lying, and don’t actually use Bluetooth; or 2. have
Bluetooth and “wireless” as separate modes. There are good reasons to offer
both as separate modes:

• Compatibility. “Wireless” devices just look like USB devices, so you can use
them to e.g. config your BIOS; or talk to any machine that can speak USB1.0,
e.g. some old Win98 beige box. And plugging the dongle into a KVM is just like
plugging a USB-connected device into a KVM; you can switch your keyboard’s
“focus” between hosts using the KVM, without the host itself needing to re-
pair with the peripheral. Switching Bluetooth peripherals around by having the
Bluetooth controller on the KVM is much more fraught process.

• Battery life. Bluetooth, at least before BTLE, burned energy to a far
greater extent than the “wireless” protocols—mainly because the “wireless”
protocols aren’t spending any energy on background activities like identity
announcement for re-pairing, or frequency-hopping for better SNR. (This is why
you see “wireless” peripherals that last months on AAAs, but all Bluetooth
devices shipping with Lithium cells: the Bluetooth peripherals need charging
frequently-enough that the number of AAAs they consume would be untenable.)

• Latency. No e-sport player would ever use a Bluetooth peripheral, since the
Bluetooth input path often adds one or more in-game frames of latency
(relative to the USB input path), before the input hits the game’s physics
engine. “Wireless” peripherals have no such problem.

~~~
benkuhn
Thanks so much, this is a really useful correction!

------
battery423
Switched on friday back to wire.

My VPN was acting up and my video calls as well.

------
zzo38computer
I don't like wireless either, for many reasons (the reasons they list there
are only some of them; there are more).

~~~
tuatoru
Yah, the main thing he doesn't mention--and in most households, it's the
primary thing--is retry hogging by devices that have a poor connection to the
access point.

High end access points use a time slicing algorithm (tdma-ish) and 802.11ax
(Wi-Fi 6) mandates something along those lines. So Wi-Fi will eventually
improve a little.

But for all the household all-in-one modem-router-switch-accesspoint boxes,
one device with a poor connection can hog most of the access point's time,
doing re-transmits of corrupted data.

If you're video calling over wi-fi, turn off _every other device_ that uses
the wi-fi.

~~~
ksec
>High end access points use a time slicing algorithm (tdma-ish) and 802.11ax
(Wi-Fi 6) mandates something along those lines.

You will be surprised to learn not every WiFi 6 has support of OFDMA turned
on.

------
transfire
And try getting a home builder to install Ethernet. They just look at you with
a blank stare.

~~~
samoa42
maybe try a different builder then.

those are cables and sockets, standardized to the point of beeing a commodity.
no magic involved at all.

~~~
ProZsolt
You shouldn't run it parallel to the electrical line, because it will generate
interference. Other than that it's pretty straightforward.

------
dang
Url changed from
[https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/8hxvfZiqH24oqyr6y/wireless-i...](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/8hxvfZiqH24oqyr6y/wireless-
is-a-trap) to the canonical source.

------
trabant00
You're just using the wong kind of wireless. I only use the best: copper.

~~~
iso1210
Not fibre?

------
triyambakam
I avoid wireless because of EMF sensitivity that my wife has. Just to be sure,
I've secretly switched on the wifi some days to see if she mentions any
symptoms and definitely she does. I personally haven't felt a difference, but
it is fun running a wired network - switches all throughout the house and gave
me the motivation to set up Pi Hole and a print server.

~~~
ZeljkoS
Here we go again:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_hypersensitivi...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_hypersensitivity)
"The majority of provocation trials to date have found that such claimants are
unable to distinguish between exposure and non-exposure to electromagnetic
fields. A systematic review of medical research in 2011 found no convincing
scientific evidence for symptoms being caused by electromagnetic fields. Since
then, several double-blind experiments have shown that people who report
electromagnetic hypersensitivity are unable to detect the presence of
electromagnetic fields and are as likely to report ill health following a sham
exposure as they are following exposure to genuine electromagnetic fields,
suggesting the cause in these cases to be the nocebo effect." Wikipedia
article has links to scientific studies.

~~~
triyambakam
Eh, I don't really care. I am not harming anyone by offering this for her. If
she feels better and I have fun then it's a good time.

~~~
gspr
> I am not harming anyone by offering this for her. If she feels better and I
> have fun then it's a good time.

Some would say you're harming your wife's understanding of reality, but that's
a private matter for you and her.

However, by sharing it on the Internet, you are potentially spreading this
bullshit, and you must expect reasonable voices to counter your claim.

~~~
minerjoe
Reasonable voices would not be so quick to comdemn. Please try to understand
that we are just beginning to discover the non-thermal effects of
electromagnetic fields, and the science is not looking too good for the
wireless industry, which will fight tooth and nail to discredit any findings
that would cut into their billions.

[https://www.researchgate.net/publication/323998588_Wi-
Fi_is_...](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/323998588_Wi-
Fi_is_an_important_threat_to_human_health)

Wi-Fi is an important threat to human health
[https://www.researchgate.net/publication/305691437_Electroma...](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/305691437_Electromagnetic_Fields_Act_Similarly_in_Plants_as_in_Animals_Probable_Activation_of_Calcium_Channels_via_Their_Voltage_Sensor)

Electromagnetic Fields Act Similarly in Plants as in Animals: Probable
Activation of Calcium Channels via Their Voltage Sensor

[https://www.researchgate.net/publication/283017154_How_to_Ap...](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/283017154_How_to_Approach_the_Challenge_of_Minimizing_Non-
Thermal_Health_Effects_of_Microwave_Radiation_from_Electrical_Devices")

How to Approach the Challenge of Minimizing Non-Thermal Health Effects of
Microwave Radiation from Electrical Devices

~~~
gspr
> [https://www.researchgate.net/publication/323998588_Wi-
> Fi_is_...](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/323998588_Wi-Fi_is_..).
> > > Wi-Fi is an important threat to human health

Pall's methodology and understanding of EM has been critized broadly and
repeatedly. Here's an "official" rebuttal to the paper you cite:
[https://www.researchgate.net/publication/328436881_Response_...](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/328436881_Response_to_Pall_Wi-
Fi_is_an_important_threat_to_human_health)

The rest of the papers you cite are by the same highly controversial
biochemist.

At any rate, the discussion at hand is whether "EMF sensitivity" is a real
condition. It patently is not. Anyone with such a condition would easily be
able to collect the large monetary rewards that have been made available, and
simultaneously immediately lift the social stigma they must feel. The fact
that they do not speaks volumes.

~~~
minerjoe
Yea, cherry picking, me. Note that the rebuttal does not refute Pall's
biomechanical thories, or say that there are no non-thermal effects, but that
we need more thorough research, and that this research is not being funded.
The precautionary principal (ignored in the USA, it seems), would indicate
that we should be cautious and not quick to dismiss.

