Comments on: Bluetooth 2.2 to be released in mid-2009

Bluetooth 2.2 promises a new specification called High Speed Bluetooth, that will work in conjunction with your phone's Wi-Fi/UWB capabilities for faster file transfer, video streaming, and more.

[xZero2007x]

Quite interesting to hear that bluetooth is still being improved. After trying out streaming audio via A2DP, I have to say that I was quite disappointed with the results. A lot of times, it seemed as if the data stream was being heavily stressed when in reality, the actual streaming should have only been taking up a fraction of the total output capacity. Hopefully, I'll see some change with profile 2.2.
Also, I'm hoping that drivers become better built and ready to go when 2.2 comes out. To be frank, a lot of bluetooth transceivers (accessory and PC-hardware wise) have been far from perfect in terms of consistency from product to product and overall performance.
At least Bluetooth 10x will be utilizing WLAN, limiting what needs to be upgraded on existing machines.

In any case, I'm hoping version 2.2 can meet my [high] expectations.

[wlau]

I am surprised the original poster has issue with A2DP because it's extremely reliable and I use it on my laptop and mobile phone to listen to MP3 all the time. The quality is awesome, up to 16bit and 48kHz stereo. I am not sure what "heavily stressed" he is referring to. In fact, it's so reliable that I ditched corded headphones.

[random truth]

I wonder if this can be an upgrade by software like how apple released an N networking enabler and an update to the bluetooth chips firmware to make it 2.1+EDR Compatible

[AppleSuxLeo]

By that time...iPhony will still have BT 1.0

[random truth]

Seriously, no one cares what you think AppleSuxLeo. This is a post about bluetooth 2.2. We are not going to turn this into an apple product vs. other debate. Heres an abstract concept, people buy things they like. Yeah I mentioned apple their, big whoop its a company, they exist ultimately to make money (NOT, to please your every whim). This fanboyism on both sides is annoying and then when you think its bad enought the people who use linux feel they have to fuel the fire. Remember this post when you wnnt to comment on the mac vs. pc debate.

[AppleSuxLeo]

BT 1.0 will have to do...because Stevie knows what is best for you ;)

[random truth]

@AppleSuxLeo
What do you not get. I said nothing about bluetooth on the iphone. I was ranting against fanboys and all these stupid comments. I was talking about my macbook up 2 posts ago, but might as well comment about your bluetooth 1.0 claim. The iPhone has a bluetooth 2.0+EDR chip inside it. It has very few bluetooth profiles installed in the software. An example for this is that windows does not support bluetooth audio by default, but you can install a driver from bluesoliel to support make it support it. The same can be done with the iphone by a future software update. I am not saying that apple is right I am just pointing out simple facts. So lesson is dont be blind to love or hate.

[cobra--2008]

wlau, your experience is different from Zero's, but mine is similar to Zero's. I think the point to take away is that BT today is not a reliable solution. Consumers cannot be confident that pairing source x with receiver y will result in a satisfactory experience.

I use a BT-capable cell phone as a handsfree phone and MP3 music source, paired with a BT-capable car stereo receiver. While the actual phone function of the pairing works well, the music functionality is marginal. Sound quality is poor and the handshaking between phone and car only works properly ~80% of the time.

BT has been around for years now, and BT-capable products should NOT have hiccups like this. You may have two devices that pair well together, but we're far from a world where 100% of pairable devices work well together. From a consumer perspective, that's very disappointing.

[xZero2007x]

@cobra--2008:

You totally nailed what I was trying to say.

@wlau:

Don't get me wrong. I found bluetooth to be an enjoyable experience overall. What I meant when I said "heavily stressed," was that the hardware/software weren't working in a fully efficient matter. Bluetooth 1.0 supposedly had enough bandwidth to handle A2DP, but even with the larger output from 2.x, it's been far from reliable enough to become a standard anyone would want to use. I consider myself a light audiophile, and the performance I've had from the Voyager 855 was only mediocre. Hiccups occur once in a while with devices themselves, and its even worse on the computer--driver support isn't standard across the different hardware manufacturers, and apparently on some set ups, if the load on the other USB buses exceeds a certain thresh hold, you'll see that impact your bluetooth performance.

Point is (and I'm going to re-emphasize what cobra--2008 caught on from my original post), with all the years BT's had to grow into a capable technology, it's far from perfect. It's brought some innovative ideas, but other technologies have overtaken it in a lot of the purposes BT originally had. It's not 100% ready for the consumer market today and because of that, I'm setting high expectations for 2.2 to meet.

[guymatrin]

http://www.wirelessweek.com//Bluetooth-SIG-2009-Update.aspx

The update will probably be 3.0