
Bluetooth 5 will quadruple the range, double the speed - bokenator
https://www.engadget.com/2016/06/16/bluetooth-5/
======
creativeembassy
I could not care less.

\- 1.0 to 1.2: Hard to pair, and very unreliable. First major version, I'm
sure they'll fix it...

\- 2.0: More bandwidth. Still hard to pair, still unreliable.

\- 2.1: Adds "Simple Secure Pairing". Still hard to actually pair. Still
unreliable.

\- 3.0: More bandwidth. More features. Still hard to pair, still unreliable.

\- 4.0: Bluetooth Low Energy released. Still hard to pair, still unreliable.

\- 4.1: More features. Still hard to pair, still unreliable.

\- 4.2: More features. Still hard to pair, still unreliable.

\- 5.0: More range, more bandwidth. Still hard to pair, still unreliable.

I have the latest Apple "Magic" Trackpad, hooked up to a Mac Pro. At least
once a day, latency will take a dive, or it will completely disconnect. I have
to turn the trackpad on and off repeatedly, to see if it will finally re-pair
by itself. No other recourse, you can't easily access bluetooth settings on a
mac with only a keyboard. (Which I made sure to get with a USB plug, since my
last bluetooth keyboard had the same issues.)

I also have a Samsung Level BT headset, paired with a Samsung Note 5 phone. I
can listen to Google Music or Player.fm for between 1 and 10 minutes until the
headset will suddenly blast noise at full volume, and become unresponsive
until I turn it off and back on again. Left my ears ringing on more than one
occasion.

I've replaced my "magic" keyboard with a USB one, and recently hooked the
trackpad back up via USB. I've stopped using the Samsung Level and went back
to an old pair of headphones with a 3.5mm plug (that Apple is now trying to
get rid of.)

I had a past without wires. I am moving to a future with them.

~~~
zeta0134
I used the Bluetooth Audio in my new car for about two weeks.

It was actually pretty reliable, and felt like the future. I'd get in, turn
the car on, my phone would pair itself and pick up where it left off, and I
never once had to take it or my keys out of my pocket. Then I started to
actually _listen_ to my music.

The audio over bluetooth was frequently out of tune. I'm a musician, so I can
definitely hear this and it's infuriating. VLC on Windows had the same problem
for years and everyone told me I was crazy, but the car was at least twice as
bad. It sounded like an old cassette player, if anyone remembers those.
Googling reveals this to be a common issue with many different varieties of
bluetooth speaker. I can only imagine it's doing some sort of time stretching
to "hide" latency in the packets but, well, it's not hiding it well enough for
my ears. Trying to listen to anything melodic, especially piano pieces, was
just awful.

Fortunately, I discovered that my car also has a shockingly _excellent_ USB
Audio implementation, so I copied the Music from my phone onto a large USB
drive and have been happy ever since. More wires for me please, the future
isn't ready.

~~~
DiabloD3
Your phone may already be able to do it on its own: get an OTG adapter for
your phone (usually MicroUSB male to USB A female) and plug a USB cable in and
use your phone directly.

~~~
zeta0134
Alas, my phone is running a newer version of Android, and does the Media
Protocol thing instead of doing Mass Storage. I usually don't expect to be
able to access its files in a sane manner over USB; it's hit or miss.

Instead, I use Syncthing, so my files are synced properly between the phone
and my computer using my wireless network, no cables needed. I just copy the
same folder to my USB drive periodically and don't need to mess with it beyond
that. (In a pinch, I suppose I could use the OTG cable to update the USB drive
using my phone.) I like being able to have the drive plugged into the car at
all times, as it's one less thing to fiddle with when getting in and out.

If I'm going to plug a wire into my phone for my car, I'd _much_ rather just
use the standard AUX (3.5mm headphone jack) port that's built in, as it's
simpler and more reliable. I still do this from time to time if I feel like
using Youtube, Google Play, or another streaming based service, or if I need
to hear something on my phone (like Navigation).

------
micheljansen
That's nice, but the biggest UX problem with Bluetooth is still the pairing
misery. It's 2016 and it's still nearly impossible to use any one Bluetooth
device with multiple other devices. Try switching a Bluetooth headset from an
iPhone to a Mac or convincing your car to switch from one phone to another.

It's a huge mess and its not just a matter of the technology not working as
designed. These are fundamental problems that nobody seems to worry too much
about, apart from a small number of vendors (Apple did a decent job solving
the pairing problem with the Apple TV: [http://9to5mac.com/2013/07/29/new-
apple-tv-os-offers-nfc-lik...](http://9to5mac.com/2013/07/29/new-apple-tv-os-
offers-nfc-like-bluetooth-ios-remote-setup/)).

I realise it's pretty hard to beat the intuitive action of plugging physical
cables into devices to connect two things, but if we really want to get rid of
cables, things need to be easier.

~~~
jacobolus
Apple’s stylus has a pretty effective and reliable pairing method: just
briefly plug it into the tablet.

Too bad this method can’t be more generally used.

~~~
digi_owl
You get pretty much the same thing these days if both devices support NFC.
Just get within range, and ding.

~~~
iainmerrick
Standardise that and make it ubiquitous and then it's interesting. Apple has
the advantage that they own their entire platform so they can adopt a new
"standard" immediately.

~~~
digi_owl
The standard already exist, and has been with us since 2.1. Now the ubiquity
thing is quite another kettle of fish...

~~~
iainmerrick
I didn't know that, cool! Though also depressing...

------
modeless
I don't need more range or more speed. I need it to reliably connect and stay
connected while devices are well within range of each other, and stop breaking
every time I upgrade anything. Unfortunately that would require making it less
complex, which is about as likely as a broken egg spontaneously reassembling.

~~~
honkhonkpants
As a matter of fact "more range" is quite the opposite of what I want from
Bluetooth. Do I really need to have 5000 keyboards within range of my computer
at the office, instead of the 100 I already have? I definitely do not.

~~~
the_watcher
Headphones are the big benefactor here, for me at least. I can walk to the
kitchen with my wireless headphones.

~~~
r0m4n0
Agree, I look forward to the day I can leave my iPhone in a gym locker and
work out with just headphones

~~~
TD-Linux
I'd highly recommend getting a tiny mp3 player (say Clip Zip, though they are
now discontinued...) and a short light headphone cable. Why send audio
wirelessly when the tech to play it is as small as the receiver?

There are also headphones with built in players, I don't know how the quality
of those is though.

~~~
justincc
Pretty much all the decent dedicated MP3 players have been discontinued. The
last really great one for me was the Samsung's range (nee Yepp). But
unfortunately the last one was the YP-U7 back in 2012 and it's very obvious
they aren't going to make any more, even though they never announced it.

Sony still does players but they're not very good.

~~~
pietro
You can still get iPods in all sizes and colors. They're pretty decent.

------
Unklejoe
You know there's a problem when a majority of the comments (on a website
filled with software engineers and other technologically inclined people) are
all claiming that Bluetooth simply sucks in terms of usability. Imagine how
hard it would be for someone like my parents to debug a Bluetooth pairing
issue.

I think they need to focus 100% of their efforts on addressing some of these
issues which seem to have been a problem since the beginning.

Bluetooth is “almost there” in my opinion. It’s incredibly convenient (when it
works), and I can envision how great it will be once they work all the kinks
out. It has been getting better and I’m confident it will keep improving.

Let me just add another data point:

I have a 2013 Android phone and a 2011 car. Luckily, the car supports playing
audio through Bluetooth which is really cool when it works. However, every
time I get into the car, there’s a 50/50 chance that BT audio will actually
work. The phone always pairs with the car, but it seems like it doesn’t
reliably “negotiate” the audio capability. Sometimes I can make a phone call
which seems to reset the system and can cause it to start working, but other
times I have to actually power cycle the phone.

The other issue is that every once-in-a-while, there will be this spontaneous
audible crackle. After the initial crackle occurs, there will be periodic
crackles about once every 10 seconds from there on out. The only way to get it
out of this state is to make a call or restart the phone. It seems almost like
there’s some kind of memory leak in a buffer or something which causes it to
eventually run dry and bounce off of being empty.

These issues seem more software related and probably have nothing to do with
the Bluetooth standard itself, but I won’t let that stop me from ranting.

~~~
CaptSpify
In my experience, if the implementation is wrong often enough that most people
think the procotol/spec are to blame, than the protocol/spec are usually too
complicated.

~~~
lotyrin
In my experience, no standard is too simple for someone to mess up
implementing.

~~~
sib
True, but in the case of BlueTooth, the standard is so complex that _everyone_
_does_ mess up implementing it.

------
Niksko
Working with Bluetooth on a project last year was a gigantic pain in the ass.

Linux support was reasonably good, though with bizarre quirks and changes of
tooling between libbluetooth versions. OSX was a total nightmare.

The project is currently stalled because three days before I had to head off
(I was doing all of the programming and troubleshooting on the software side)
my collaborators decided to inform me that they would be using a different
laptop to what they'd been using for the rest of the project, and when we
tried our software with that version of OSX and hardware, it refused to work
nicely. We eventually came up with a bizarre pairing ritual that involved
removing devices, then quickly adding them, and in a specific order, and then
that mysteriously stopped working and now I don't have access to hardware to
fix it.

Knowing what I now know, if I'd had my time again I would have recommended
ESP8266 based boards instead of the LightBlue Beans we were using. Even though
one of our requirements was low power usage (which we certainly got through
Bluetooth 4), it probably would have been less hassle to just make the WiFi
modem sleep for a period and then transmit in bursts.

~~~
jerluc
Depending on how much data you need to transfer between the two devices, I'd
highly recommend a pair of ZigBee radios for low-bandwidth (<250k), super-low-
power applications. Specifically using a pair of XBee (series 1) radios in
"transparent" mode, you get what looks like a serial device on either end.
When used with a USB dongle, you can simply write your code to use basic ioctl
ops on the USB device file, which works well across most POSIX platforms.

------
voltagex_
I think a lot of the comments here could be attributed to the terrible
Bluetooth software stacks that are around (Car head-decks, Android (all
versions), Windows 8-10 default stacks).

I've got a brand new Plugable BT4 dongle that barely works in Win 10 because
Broadcom haven't updated their suite so it relies on the default 10 drivers -
you can't have a HFP and A2DP service running at the same time so a headset
with speakers and mic won't work.

~~~
klagermkii
At what number of terrible Bluetooth software stacks does one start wondering
if there isn't something fundamentally wrong with the specification that makes
it so incredibly hard to get right?

It's been bad from day one with Widcomm and later Bluesoleil on Windows. Mac
OS X for years had a Bluetooth where after a couple of hours of using the DUN
profile it would need a reboot, on an otherwise nicely reliable operating
system. Mice on Bluetooth have never worked as smoothly, reliably, or as well
as just using a proprietary protocol like Logitech Unifying.

It's not that I necessarily think it's an unsolvable problem, it's just that
after a decade with so many multiple implementations that can't get it right I
feel Bluetooth itself has to bear some responsibility.

~~~
x0x0
bluetooth is an extended public alpha

I so can't wait for phones to drop 3.5mm jacks so playing music can become an
infuriating ritual too

------
jamesrom
Bluetooth is very easy to hate. It never ever just works: the pairing rituals,
the flakiness. It's annoying.

But in recent years it has become more and more invisible. You've probably
used Bluetooth in the past 12 months without noticing. Invisibility is
something that the Bluetooth SIG should strive for.

~~~
starky
I can think of one device where Bluetooth has been invisible, the Surface Pro
3 pen.

------
smegel
But will it constantly fail to connect to devices it has been paired with a
million times before?

Don't know how I could live without that "feature".

------
zmmmmm
So much negativity about bluetooth in these comments ... and yet I can happily
say that bluetooth has really changed my life. Bluetooth headphones allow me
to walk around and exercise without an annoying cord trailing the length of my
body. And I can get to the office and sit down with my mouse and keyboard and
just start typing without plugging anything at all in. While it certainly had
early problems, I'm super happy with it these days and especially the increase
in bandwidth will be very welcome.

~~~
marssaxman
Bluetooth has made me feel happy about the existence of cords. Ahhhhhhh, I
think to myself: it will definitely work, when I plug this thing into that
other thing.

------
danjayh
For those who have given up on Engadget (I can't be the only one):

[http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/06/bluetooth-5-spec-
comi...](http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/06/bluetooth-5-spec-coming-next-
week-with-2x-more-range-and-4x-better-speed/)

~~~
bokenator
What's wrong with Engadget?

~~~
nameless912
It's 80% clickbaity bullshit and 20% mediocre gadget reviews. Long gone are
the days when Engadget was a relevant source of tech journalism. On a
tangentially related note, does anyone remember Engadget's apple-only sister
site TUAW? That was a great outlet for a good long while until Engadget
started to shit the bed a couple years ago.

------
lewisl9029
What I want from my wireless devices is not more range or speed, but _total_
freedom from wires, especially for charging.

I remember from an Intel demo from a while ago, where they showcased a number
of peripherals using their inductive charging tech, where you can just dump
them onto a large inductive charging pad along with your phone and tablet
without having to fumble with plugging wires into each one. _That_ 's the
killer feature for a wireless device, in my opinion.

------
sly010
Here is a device I would pay for:

A USB dongle that somehow pairs to my Apple Keyboard and Touchpad and presents
itself as a standard USB keyboard and mouse to the OS.

I could plug said device to my cinema display's USB hub. This way both me and
my wife could use the same workstation by simply plugging in the computer.

------
tdkl
Can't wait for nearby ads[1] to hit me from a far larger distance in the
future.

[1]
[https://developers.google.com/nearby/](https://developers.google.com/nearby/)

~~~
kevincox
Yeah...

I think nearby is a really cool idea for many things, but I don't know if it
is worth all of the notifications I will have to ignore from every billboard I
walk by.

------
tranv94
Maybe I'm living in the past and haven't been informed, but is Bluetooth still
unsecure?

~~~
programmarchy
Bluetooth 4.0 and 4.1 had a broken key exchange that was vulnerable to both
passive and active attacks [1]. This could be remedied by a custom in-band or
out-of-band key exchange, but I think it was rare for device manufacturers to
go to those lengths.

The key exchange vulnerability was addressed in Bluetooth 4.2, which
implements ECDH and is at least theoretically secure. [2]

[1] [https://www.usenix.org/conference/woot13/workshop-
program/pr...](https://www.usenix.org/conference/woot13/workshop-
program/presentation/ryan)

[2] [http://blog.bluetooth.com/everything-you-always-wanted-to-
kn...](http://blog.bluetooth.com/everything-you-always-wanted-to-know-about-
bluetooth-security-in-bluetooth-4-2/)

~~~
IshKebab
Except... that pairing in Bluetooth 4.2 is _still_ broken. And they apparently
even used an algorithm from Bluetooth 2 that was known to be broken.

[https://pomcor.com/2015/06/03/has-bluetooth-become-
secure/](https://pomcor.com/2015/06/03/has-bluetooth-become-secure/)

Basically Passkey Entry is broken so eavesdroppers can trivially learn the
PIN. You must use a dynamic PIN (not always possible).

Oh and if you're thinking you can implement your own pairing method that is
actually secure, via the Out-of-Band method, think again! Neither Android nor
iOS support it.

~~~
gman99
>Neither Android nor iOS support [pairing ... via the Out-of-Band method].

I'm not sure this is actually true (unless you're talking about bugs with
individual manufacturers implementation on Android?). Both iOS and Android
support SSP with OOB key exchange via NFC.

There are lots of products that have been available that use this for
pairing/connecting, eg: [https://www.bose.com/en_us/support/article/pairing-a-
device-...](https://www.bose.com/en_us/support/article/pairing-a-device-with-
nfc-soundlink-ae-headphones-ii.html)

~~~
IshKebab
Android supports OOB via NFC, but only as a special case. You should just be
able to call `createBondOutOfBand()` but the method is hidden:

[https://android.googlesource.com/platform/frameworks/base.gi...](https://android.googlesource.com/platform/frameworks/base.git/+/master/core/java/android/bluetooth/BluetoothDevice.java#888)

I'm pretty sure iOS doesn't support pairing via NFC.

[https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/nfc-speakers-from-apple-
you-c...](https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/nfc-speakers-from-apple-you-cant-use-
iphone-6-pair-jamie-conyngham)

[http://www.informationweek.com/mobile/mobile-
business/iphone...](http://www.informationweek.com/mobile/mobile-
business/iphone-6-nfc-radio-limited-functionality/d/d-id/1315778)

So, no, they don't support OOB (except in one limited case on Android).

------
_RPM
Try going from having bluetooth off on your phone to bluetooth being on in
your car that has bluetooth capable device. It sucks. Every car I've been has
trouble pairing if bluetooth wasn't on prior to me entering the car. For one
car, I had to turn the engine off for it pair. WTF?

------
0898
Forgive my ignorance, but how come the range is affected by the protocol?
Wouldn't it be the aerial?

~~~
retSava
There are many things in a protocol specification that can affect range.
Allowed transmission power, specifiying that compliant receivers should have X
dBm sensitivity, data bit rate, channel frequencies, modulation, etc.

------
pinaceae
Oh anecdotes.

Use Bluetooth home spekaers, headphones and car radio all the time against my
iPhone 6S - works really well.

What I do though is manually connect when I want this particular device to be
connected (say my headphones in the gym), and then disconnect after use.

Might be magic trick most are missing.

------
DevikaG
Its really exciting to see that kind of capabilities and potential that
bluetooth 5 brings to the table for IoT. However, what excited me even more is
the capabilities put forward by bluetooth 5 to boost beacon adoption and
location-based services. Given how Google's recent updates such as Google
Nearby and Android Instant Apps are also ones with location-based services at
its core, bluetooth 5 onces it's launched will definitely boost beacon
adoption to a significant extent.

------
Someone
I guess that is with the same power usage, as it would be disingenuous if that
were different, but it would be nice to have that confirmed.

Also, I guess that, for many IoT devices, keeping range and speed the same
while decreasing power usage significantly (although, as a third guess, I
expect 'double the speed' means that devices can go to low power mode quicker,
potentially halving power usage of the entire device) might be more useful.

------
BuckRogers
The only reason I like Bluetooth at all is because the alternative is a bunch
of USB receivers plugged into my NUC.

But I have to admit that it seems to work pretty well on my iPhone while years
ago on other phones I had a lot of disconnects. I have one of the LG around
the neck headsets and it's actually really good at this point.

I'd like to see more BT headsets for PC hit the market. The only ones I could
find were from Turtle Beach.

~~~
aphextron
>. I have one of the LG around the neck headsets and it's actually really good
at this point.

These are great but the real drawback that keeps me from going wireless is
still the audio quality. Hopefully this upgrade will be the end of that.

~~~
BuckRogers
I'm concerned about Apple possibly removing the 3.5mm jack. Removing the
ability to use a headset + charge my phone at the same time is going to be a
killer. I may switch back to Android if that happens.

I bought one of the very few 3.5mm cellphone headsets I could find (Voistek)
for my wife and it works pretty well. We shouldn't be forced into choosing
between wired up for charging or wired up for headset/headphones.

------
wjd2030
And then bluetooth became wifi.

------
tracker1
My hope for the future of phone/car interfaces is that once you've paired a
phone, the touch screen basically becomes a display for the phone... I have a
brand new (less than a week old) car, and the UI feels sluggish, and looks
very dated at this point. I'd rather my N6P managed the whole thing. Hopefully
BT5 can allow that to happen.

------
pknerd
Wonder why it was not thought earlier? After BT we saw development in
WiFi,GPS, RDID etc. Nobody thought that BT could help indoor for the shopping
mall usecase present in the article.

Now they are planning for late 2016, means it will only be available in new
phones from 2017

------
mschuster91
Ah great, a new BT version once again, when even the LAST standard isn't
properly supported (and especially documented!!!) in BlueZ. Not to mention
Windows (which usually comes with a next-to-useless stack, and every other
stack costs $$$) or OS X...

------
mtgx
With all the Bluetooth car hacking going on and with the emergence of
"connected cars" and self-driving cars, you'd think they would've introduced
some stronger security features for Bluetooth 5.0 as well.

------
kin
Nearly every comment in this thread is about pairing issues. I can definitely
agree with most that I don't care about range and speed as much as I do the
usability of pairing with multiple devices.

------
aleksei
While I'm not a fan of Bluetooth for data transfer (pairing pains), this could
be great for cheap indoor location services, eg. navigating inside a building
with your phone.

------
gambiting
And hopefully we will get bluetooth audio that doesn't suck?

------
rsync
Do I want longer range from bluetooth devices ?

I sort of thought the short range was, kind of, a feature ...

How far do you really want your mouse trails and your keystrokes to fly out
into the ether ?

------
jtchang
I want better range, more bandwidth, less power consumption, and smaller
footprint. Oh and make it super reliable.

One can dream...

------
tmaly
am I the only one, or does putting more radiation out into the environment
pose substantial health risks.

All of this excess radiation is bound to cause some potential mutations in
DNA. Adding even more is only going to increase the probabilities.

------
x0ner
Curious if these upgrades include any addressing security.

------
coroutines
I kind of want an 802.11z that does wifi over Bluetooth for sub-802.11a
conditions. Am I weird?

~~~
Nullabillity
IIRC there's already a spec for this, usually it's called something like PAN
(Personal Area Network).

------
williadc
John Gruber from Daring Fireball has already written his review:

> “Next year it will work great” should be Bluetooth’s slogan.

[http://daringfireball.net/linked/2016/06/10/bluetooth-5](http://daringfireball.net/linked/2016/06/10/bluetooth-5)

~~~
theGimp
That's just gratuitously negative and dismissive.

Bluetooth 4 is actually not bad at all in my experience. Pairing is painless
relative to old versions; sound quality is flawless; connections are quite
reliable. The "strain" is to be expected around other devices since Bluetooth
uses 2.4GHz, a very crowded band. I can't speak to the technical bits since I
never looked at them, but my experience as a consumer has been positive.

Sure, it doesn't have the same range as a WiFi router, but it also doesn't use
1.5-20 watts (My source:
[http://www.tpcdb.com/list.php?type=11](http://www.tpcdb.com/list.php?type=11))

~~~
kabdib
Depends on the devices. My car, for instance, has about a 50% chance of
successfully hooking up to my iPhone.

BT needs fewer features and better implementations. But apparently interop and
reliability are not sexy enough for the BT standards folks to worry about. Can
you imagine TCP/IP being in the same quality hole that Bluetooth is in?

~~~
theGimp
Right, I agree that it depends on the device. A Chevy model I don't recall had
the stupidest bug where you sometimes couldn't pair unless you reset the car
computer... by leaving the driver's door open for 5 minutes.

I don't blame the Bluetooth standard though, messy as it might be. That's
clearly terrible implementation on the car manufacturer's part.

~~~
kabdib
BT seems over-complicated, especially considering that it's quite often low-
level (I really mean that organizationally) firmware engineers working on
products that won't be updated after they ship.

Given the types of products that are made with BT support, the hostile
environments that they're developed within, and the common after-sales
abandonment of support, BT should be a simpler protocol that is a LOT more
resilient to implementation mistakes. But I don't think that anyone designs
protocols to withstand institutional failure :-)

~~~
com2kid
BT itself is not overly complicated. Bargain basement BT chips, which is what
everyone ends up using to save pennies, are full of bugs that have to be
worked around. Of the various BT stacks out there, only a few are actually
good, and the good ones get to charge appropriate licensing fees, meaning that
they aren't in wide use.

When you combine randChip with randBtStack, the end result is not necessarily
a quality product. The poor engineers who have to work with this combination
end up resorting to sending reset commands to their chip in an attempt to get
the damn thing working.

~~~
gtirloni
It would be really interesting to have a list of good BT stacks and devices
using them. That way maybe we could avoid the bad ones. As a consumer I have
no idea which devices will actually work properly (and I assume Bluetooth as a
whole sucks).

------
x5n1
What does bluetooth not require support for multiple simultaneous devices.
Have more than one device that won't let you connect more than one at a time.

~~~
bokenator
I think it's a bandwidth issue. If I use bluetooth mouse, keyboard, and
headphones at the same time, the mouse becomes very sluggish. It works totally
fine if I turn off either the keyboard or the headphone.

~~~
digi_owl
I suspect that comes down to the protocol used.

I had no problem connecting a keyboard and phone (as modem) to a N800 back in
the day, while also playing music from the phone to a pair of bluetooth
headphones. But that was if i used PAN For the data connection between N800
and phone.

If i used DUN, either the music or the data would occasionally skip.

And that may well be what gives Bluetooth its reputation. So many choices for
the various OEMs in terms of protocols/profiles, on top of a more complex air
interface (channel hopping).

Given all of it, one may well be better off comparing Bluetooth to USB than
wifi. As wifi is Ethernet over a single radio channel.

