Why Bluetooth remains an 'extraordinarily painful' technology after two decades

 

ABI Research estimates that 5 billion Bluetooth-enabled devices will be shipped to consumers this year, with that number increasing to 7 billion by 2026. Bluetooth is now in everything from smartphones to refrigerators to light bulbs, allowing a growing number of products to connect to it. each other seamlessly - sometimes.

 Despite its ubiquity, the technology is still plagued with headache-inducing issues, whether it's the struggle to set up a new device to connect with it, switching headphones between devices or connecting Be far from doing.

"I have a very love-hate relationship with Bluetooth," said Chris Harrison, a professor of human-computer interaction at Carnegie Mellon University. "Because when it works, it's amazing, and when it doesn't, you want to tear your hair out."

"The promise was to make it as smooth and easy as possible," he said. "Unfortunately Bluetooth never got there."

The reasons for this go back to the relatively low-cost technology base.

The rise of Bluetooth

Bluetooth is said to have been named after the ninth-century Scandinavian king, Harald "Blue Tooth" Gormsen, for his blue-gray dead teeth and for uniting Denmark and Norway in 958 AD. was also known. Early programmers adopted "Bluetooth" as the code name for their wireless tech that connects local devices, and it eventually stuck.

The technology was set apart from Wi-Fi because of its "inherently short range," Harrison said. It is still the case that many users are accustomed to Bluetooth options in their phones and portable speakers operate on low power and can only connect over a limited range.

Bluetooth signals travel over unlicensed airwaves, which are effectively open to the public for anyone to use, as opposed to privatized airwaves controlled by companies like AT&T or Verizon. This may have facilitated its development and wider adoption, but it came at a cost.

Bluetooth must share and compete with other products using unlicensed spectrum bands, such as baby monitors, TV remotes, and more. This can cause interference that can disrupt the effectiveness of your Bluetooth.

Harrison cited other reasons why Bluetooth can be "extraordinarily inconvenient," including cybersecurity issues that can arise when transmitting data wirelessly.
For example, if you set up a Bluetooth speaker in your New York apartment building, you don't want anyone within a 50-foot radius to be able to connect to it. But manufacturers never settled on a streamlined "discovery mode" process, Harrison said.

"Sometimes the device will start automatically and it's like, 'I'm ready for peer mode,'" he added. "Sometimes you have to click some kind of weird setting to get the device into that specific mode."

In addition, several US government agencies have advised consumers that using Bluetooth puts their devices at greater risk of cybersecurity threats. The Federal Communications Commission warns that like Wi-Fi connections, "Bluetooth can put your personal data at risk if you're not careful."
At least one high-level government official is said to be a Bluetooth skeptic: Vice President Kamala Harris. In a much-watched video of Harris congratulating President-elect Joe Biden after the election ("We did it, Joe!"), he can be seen holding a bunch of wired headphones in his hands. According to Politico, Harris "has long realized that Bluetooth headphones are a security risk."

But businesses and consumers continue to embrace Bluetooth. Apple, perhaps most notably, ditched traditional headphone ports and introduced its popular Bluetooth-enabled wireless earbuds, the AirPods. Other tech companies have since developed similar products.
Some die-hard audiophiles, people "who complain that Spotify isn't high quality enough," as Harrison puts it, also refuse to embrace the world of Bluetooth headphones for sound quality reasons.

Despite its flaws, Harrison doesn't see a decline in demand for Bluetooth and admits that he himself uses it seamlessly — some "70% of the time."
"Bluetooth hasn't seen its peak yet," Harrison said, predicting the widespread adoption of the Internet of Things, or smart devices that work together in close range, will only increase its growth. . "Bluetooth will be the glue that ties it all together."