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.
If you have an android, when your phone doesn't pair audio, going to Bluetooth settings, hitting the gear icon next to your cars name and turning audio off then on again usually fixes it.
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.
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.