[HN Gopher] Wireless is a trap (2020)
___________________________________________________________________
Wireless is a trap (2020)
Author : behnamoh
Score : 445 points
Date : 2022-05-12 19:10 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.benkuhn.net)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.benkuhn.net)
| jhugo wrote:
| > For instance: most people, when their video call stutters,
| blame their Internet service provider. That's understandable,
| since most ISPs are overpriced oligopolists with barely-usable
| software and horrible customer service. 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.
|
| Can confirm. I work on videoconferencing infrastructure, and
| easily 90+% of the end-user quality problems we investigate are
| caused by the end-user's WiFi. It's very difficult from a
| customer support perspective too, because it's common for WiFi to
| have latency and loss problems that are severe for real-time
| video or audio but not so noticeable for bulk TCP transfers (like
| most speed tests) or web browsing. So communicating the issue to
| users is hard.
| crackercrews wrote:
| Opposite experience here. It's always the provider, and when
| the provider fiddles with settings on their end it fixes the
| issue.
| jhugo wrote:
| You'd be in that 10% then :)
|
| I'd also suspect people on HN might tend to have paid more
| attention to their WiFi setup than the average user.
| [deleted]
| SkeuomorphicBee wrote:
| I tried Bluetooth headphones a decade or two ago and at the time
| it was unusable. Then recently I thought to myself: it has been
| almost two decades, wireless audio is probably a "solved problem"
| by now, especially with its newfound notoriety after apple
| ditched audio cables. So I just bought some new Bluetooth
| headphones, and I'm thoroughly underwhelmed, it is nearly as bad
| now as it was then, high latency, audio drops (even some failures
| to connect at all, with no way to debug). Bluetooth headphones
| are the new printers, they fail (partially or completely) at
| their job half of the time and yet people just accept that as a
| fact of life and go with their days.
| pvillano wrote:
| my use case for Bluetooth headphones is noise cancellation on
| public transport/airplanes. for listening to music latency
| doesn't matter, although for me it's enough that I can't use
| wireless headphones to play games on my Switch
| thfuran wrote:
| They also often only support shitty audio.
| shmerl wrote:
| No question about it. WiFi can't come even close to wired
| connection, especially in latency.
| archi42 wrote:
| This is a true techy topic :) But the author proably mostly has
| expierence with bad environments (like apartment buildings with
| lots of competing WiFis) and/or cheap wireless devices or those
| which have to do severe compromises (e.g. style or size or
| battery runtime over RF performance).
|
| These were the issues I had:
|
| 1. SO's cheap wireless mouse produced WiFi interference ->
| massive packet loss
|
| 2. Small 2.4Ghz USB dongles plugged into USB 3.0 port (e.g.
| Logitech's wireless dongle or USB WiFi for RPi) -> USB 3.0
| interference render the dongle unusable
|
| 3. The HTC 10 has a metal casing -> incredibly poor BT RF
| performance, causing massive drop outs (especially bad with my
| FiiO Q5 DAC/headphone amp, which has a massive aluminum case)
|
| 4. Client stays on AP with very poor signal (barely in range)
| instead of jumping to different AP -> retransmissions cause
| massive degredation for all other clients
|
| 5. Lots of APs running at full power in an apartment complex,
| paired with a router/AP that had low WiFi performance anyway ->
| bad everything
|
| All but the last can be solved relatively easy (okay, I didn't
| swap the HTC10 due to BT, though that really annoyed me; it's
| time eventually came when the battery lasted half a workday
| without using the phone for anything). Especially coordinated
| WiFi APs (like Unifi) are great. And even the last point was a
| non-issue both in our last apt (one well placed UAP for testing)
| and our new old house (four UAPs).
| zw123456 wrote:
| I would not call it a trap, I would call it a trade off. But I am
| quibbling over semantics. I would reference Shannon here
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shannon%E2%80%93Hartley_theore...
| which essentially says the following: C ~= B * SINR ( see the
| link for exactness ) C is the capacity of the link (think bps) B
| is the amount of spectrum ( how many Mhz can I get across the
| medium ) and SINR is Signal to Interference and Noise Ratio
|
| If you think about this, of course, wireless will be limited
| spectrum, there are only so many Mhz that is made available for
| whatever wireless standard you are thinking about, Wifi, 4G, 5G,
| Bluetooth, whatever.
|
| And, obviously, wireless will struggle with Noise and
| Interference.
|
| Wired solutions, whether shielded twisted pair (e.g. CAT6) or
| Coax, or Fiber or Waveguide, whatever, will do much better on
| SINR, you have thermal noise sure, but generally, it would be a
| much quieter medium.
|
| Also, you would not have the FCC saying you only get X Mhz,
| whatever you can get across that medium you get to use.
|
| Thinking about all of these factors then of course, Wired will
| generally win out, all things being equal.
|
| The Trade off, is that wireless is more convenient.
| xeyownt wrote:
| It is more convenient on the short term.
|
| On the long term, if you look for reliability and hassle-free
| setup, you lose the benefit of convenience.
| kuschku wrote:
| When you're using 100% of the spectrum on your wires, you can
| just put down a second shielded cable. When you're using 100%
| of the spectrum of the air, that's it.
| musicale wrote:
| > Qt included a component which would poll for networks every 30
| seconds whenever a "network access manager" was instantiated,
| causing pretty much any Qt app using the network to degrade your
| wifi for ~5 out of every 30 seconds.
|
| This intrigues me and makes me wonder:
|
| 1. Why should it need to do this?
|
| 2. Why should this degrade the wireless network performance? (I
| don't recall the details of wi-fi but shouldn't it be able to do
| this passively without disrupting anything?)
| foobarian wrote:
| 2. if it needs to send/receive at the lowest bitrate (used for
| discovery/broadcasting) that takes up a ton of wall clock time,
| which is equivalent to a lot of bandwidth at the highest
| bitrate.
| hedgehog wrote:
| 1. If you want the machine to switch to stronger / more
| preferred networks when available it needs to know about them
| somehow.
|
| 2. The radio in most (all?) WiFi radios can only tune to one
| channel at a time, scanning all channels requires retuning to
| each one, which takes a little time.
| ogoffart wrote:
| > 1. Why should it need to do this?
|
| I vaguely remember from the time (~10 years ago) is that this
| was a requirement for phones (eg, when Qt is used on a Nokia
| phone) that the network request go to the interface preferred
| by the user (so not to use the cell network when wifi is
| available). Anyway, the whole thing was implemented in a
| "bearer manager" plugin, and that thing was quite buggy.
| https://doc.qt.io/qt-5/bearer-management.html
|
| I think apart from people running Qt on phone, this had
| virtually no use. And yet this was enabled by default on all
| platform, and causing lots of troubles. What we ended up doing
| for the application we were shipping was to make sure that this
| plugin was not included in the final package.
| chaostheory wrote:
| One con for Bluetooth that wasn't mentioned is security. It's an
| issue if you have this setup in a people dense space.
| richardfey wrote:
| The further problem with the Logitech device can be explained by
| driver or firmware updates: the driver may upload a firmware blob
| when device is powered up and if the combination of the two is
| not well tested you might get some unwelcome surprise. Another
| more mundane reason for jankyness could be related to I/O
| saturation: your mouse will not necessarily be prioritised when a
| variety of workloads are being handled by your OS.
| Pxtl wrote:
| This. I love Logitech hardware but G hub is software cancer.
| bowsamic wrote:
| I've never had any of these issues, except for Bluetooth latency
| adamch wrote:
| This is really noticeable with video chat. I never use Bluetooth
| when talking with my family... between the Texas - Australia lag
| and the Bluetooth headphones - Android phone lag, it's enough to
| impair conversation.
|
| Now the problem is just how to manage all the cables that come
| from having a gaming PC and work laptop that use the same
| keyboard and monitor. I have a KVM switch but I can't hide it
| under the desk if I want to press it.
| formerly_proven wrote:
| > I have a KVM switch but I can't hide it under the desk if I
| want to press it.
|
| Why not? I bolted mine to the underside of the table roughly 20
| cm (about 13/20 ft) back from the edge, it's both invisible and
| the button is trivial to find without fumbling.
| hug wrote:
| Most KVMs have a keyboard shortcut that will let you switch,
| commonly double-tapping scroll-lock and then hitting 1 or 2 for
| the first or second input.
| walnutclosefarm wrote:
| My broadband access has been wireless ethernet, over a roughly 5
| mile hop from the nearest tower, for roughly 20 years. I'd still
| be using 14.4kpbs modems over copper telephone wire without it.
| From the post in the South pasture where we pick that up, it's
| wired to the two dwellings on the place, and pure wireless after
| that, including extension APs in two more outbuildings, and a LR
| outdoor AP. Rarely have any trouble with any of it. Of course, I
| don't have to worry about my neighbor's router causing
| interference - the nearest neighbor with broadband is half a mile
| away, most of which, from a line of site point of view, is
| through dirt. Before I retired, I was CTO for a hospital where we
| ran 14,000+ APs on roughly 100 sites, serving 100,000 or so
| employees, patients and visitors daily. I regularly used it at a
| restaurant across the street from one of our buildings. The
| service was highly reliable and available nearly everywhere.
| (And, believe me, if you took away a surgeon's wifi that she or
| he used to do quick email and other updates between surgeries,
| you'd know it in short order.
|
| So, yeah, wifi can require some management, but the thought of
| running all those laptops, phones (you couldn't rely on cell
| service - which of course is another form of wireless - inside
| most of the buildings - worked some places, not others), and
| portable medical devices only on wired ethernet is a non starter.
|
| As for other forms of wireless - Bluetooth and BLE have their
| issues, but you get an awful lot in return.
| franklyemphatic wrote:
| If you mess with a doctor's icon placement you hear about it.
| If a computer they use looks old I hear about it. So, yeah.
| Don't mess with wifi.
| nerdbaggy wrote:
| AX has BSSID Coloring which really helps improve performance when
| multiple APs are on the same channel. Still have the saturated
| channel limitation but that rarely happens on 5Ghz
|
| https://www.extremenetworks.com/extreme-networks-blog/how-do...
| Avamander wrote:
| Anecdotal personal experience, but I don't think it would take
| 802.11ax to improve available bandwidth, just better AP
| hardware.
|
| I replaced a high-performance n/ac router with years old
| leftover enterprise AP. Price-wise the enterprise AP would've
| cost as much 2nd hand.
|
| It improved the situation in a very very crowded airspace in
| every measurable metric (~10-50%). Better latency, average,
| minimum and maximum speeds, connection stability, packet loss
| and even security (PMF support). All that on the same standards
| and other conditions.
|
| My suspicion is that consumers are being sold bottom of the
| barrel hardware and new protocols just rise the bar on what s*t
| they can get working.
| renox wrote:
| Yes! On my part of the bed video streaming with an IPad works OK
| but often this isn't the case for my wife! How am I supposed to
| fix this???
| ryukoposting wrote:
| I yearn for the day that I will get to work at a company that
| gives me a wired connection at my desk.
| tablespoon wrote:
| > I yearn for the day that I will get to work at a company that
| gives me a wired connection at my desk.
|
| It boggles my mind that any company _wouldn 't_ do that. Wifi
| sucks so bad and offices are so dense with people. The cube at
| my office have several network drops each, across many
| different cubicle systems. I figured they were standard
| equipment.
| ryukoposting wrote:
| Startups.
| ggm wrote:
| I convinced my 8yo offspring that crawling like an alcatraz
| escapee over the under-house dust, asbestos, DDT, and probably
| decaying possum was "fun" and we did it together.
|
| OTOH he got the most fun using the power tools drilling the
| holes.
| keithnz wrote:
| I have everything wired except my headset (Technics EAH-A800),
| which works well, I haven't had any problems with it. Network
| cable vs Wifi is a REALLY different experience in terms of
| performance and ping, which I care more about for gaming than for
| work.
| areoform wrote:
| I bought a Homepod Mini on sale some time ago, and it's one of
| the worst experiences I've ever had. It continuously stutters. It
| stops working. I realize just how magical it is that it works at
| all. But the realization that it needs WiFi to stream music to,
| despite having bluetooth, has been quite depressing. I don't
| think the product will ever work without jitter given the amount
| of overlapping WiFi signals in my area.
|
| It's a bit like the butterfly keyboard of speakers. A wonderful
| idea in theory. But it makes you wonder if anyone at Apple has
| ever tried using it an apartment building, a dusty environment,
| or some place that isn't a pristine lab or upper middle class
| suburbia
| benhurmarcel wrote:
| Yes I wish the Homepod could use an ethernet adapter on its
| power supply, like the Chromecast does.
| lstamour wrote:
| I set up a second wifi hotspot in the same room as the HomePods
| and they still struggle to connect to wifi. At this point I've
| given up and assume it's like the Apple Watch - the wifi works
| when it wants to. It's annoying that Apple makes both products
| that work great with wifi and products that don't work great -
| and the ones that don't work great with wifi often lack
| Ethernet connectivity options or I would use that instead. At
| least my watch can connect to cellular. It's disappointing when
| you find yourself wanting 5G home speakers to ensure proper
| internet connectivity...
| turtlebits wrote:
| I have a stereo pair of Homepods and they work perfectly. Maybe
| the wifi channel of your AP is congested? Surprisingly, the
| Homepod also works when there is no wifi available.
|
| It still boggles the mind why there is no wired input though.
| bob-44 wrote:
| On my home network, the HomePod Mini's demand to use both
| IPv4 and IPv6 is what I'm thinking is contributing to the
| unreliability of my stereo pair. My ISP doesn't provide me an
| IPv6 address, so my home router and pihole both seem to
| struggle with the HomePod Minis. My original HomePod doesn't
| have this issue.
|
| What I'd really love is if my HomePod Minis stopped assuming
| the primary HomeKit Hub role and instead let my Apple TV
| connected via Ethernet handle all of the requests. There's no
| way to select a device to be the primary hub as far as I can
| tell.
| danaris wrote:
| ...Why does a lack of _external_ IPv6 address cause a
| problem _within_ your home network?
|
| (I'm genuinely willing to believe it _could_ , because I've
| seen stupider problems personally, but it does seem like a
| weird one.)
| bob-44 wrote:
| My consumer mesh router takes an all or nothing approach
| for IPv6 settings, which causes problems, and there's no
| customization of IPv6 DNS settings.
|
| I've been meaning to take an old Netgear router, put dd-
| wrt on it, and then put that between my cable modem and
| the mesh router.
| paradox242 wrote:
| Since the migration of most employees to working from home I've
| run into this on a nearly weekly basis in IT where wireless works
| until it doesn't. Corporate networks can be challenging enough to
| tune in an environment where you have a lot more access and
| control than someone at their home. Often this is in a dense
| urban setting where their setup consists of connecting to the
| cheapest wireless equipment their ISP could buy.
|
| Once the usual quick checklist items are exhausted,suggesting
| that maybe we ought to just run a cable before getting into
| troubleshooting buggy wireless drivers, old hardware that doesn't
| support modern 802.11 amendments, or conducting a full spectrum
| analysis are often dismissed, or even if they are open to it, no
| one seems to own an Ethernet cable these days or their gateway is
| in a closet, basement or some other inconvenient location.
|
| Someday I hope that installing Ethernet jacks throughout the
| house becomes as commonplace as it once was to do the same for
| phone lines, but to many it is an afterthought as they are used
| to their crappy wireless.
| vvanders wrote:
| I often joke that I have an amateur radio license and only use
| wired earbuds for conference calls.
|
| The 2.4ghz ISM bands are just noisy, sometimes all it takes is a
| poorly shielded microwave to take out everything in a 50 yard
| radius.
| DeathArrow wrote:
| I like speed on my desktop and there's no way I can have 10Gbps
| link with wireless.
| qq66 wrote:
| I wanted wired Ethernet in my office but didn't want to punch
| holes in the wall. Luckily I have an old "central vacuum system"
| that as far as I can tell has never been even powered on, many
| years before I bought the house.
|
| I tied a ping pong ball to a piece of string and used a vacuum
| cleaner to suck it through the pipes, then used the string to
| pull a stronger rope and then the Ethernet cable. So now my
| Ethernet goes from my office to the wireless router via the
| vacuum ducting.
| Forge36 wrote:
| I love how you ran the wire. Equal parts brilliant and
| rediculous.
| Lapsa wrote:
| Reminds me of my dad who connected to ISP through antenna
| made out of Pringles can. Surely he found a recipe somewhere
| but everybody was in awe regardless.
| neilv wrote:
| They have a name now:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cantenna
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Those were all the rage in the early 2000s. We siphoned off
| a coffee shop about 1/4 mile down the street from our
| apartment with one.
| zw123456 wrote:
| for those who do not have old pipes to use, most of us have
| coax, there is something called MOCA, simply go onto amazon or
| whatever and search. it allows you to run your ethernet over
| the cable tv coax in your house "over the top" of any cable tv
| you have runnning on it. cable uses the first 800Mhz of
| spectrum on the coax, moca rides above 1ghz so they can
| coexist. You can extend ethernet from any coax outlet to any
| other coax outlet. not hole punching, not central vacuum or
| whatever.
| nvgeele wrote:
| If you do already have telephone and/or coax cabling in your
| home, it might be easier in the long run to just replace it
| to be honest. Ethernet sockets and cables are cheap, and
| don't consume power.
|
| I was looking into MOCA, but eventually I decided against it
| due to pricing and latency concerns. In the end, I opened up
| the coax socket at my router, tied an ethernet cable to the
| coax cable, went to my office (room above the room where the
| router is), opened up the coax socket, pulled out the coax
| cable, and voila, I now had an ethernet cable in the duct.
| occoder wrote:
| And you don't even have to lose the coax cabling. If you
| tie _two_ ethernet cables to the coax cable, pull them both
| through the duct, you can then pull the coax cable back in
| place.
| ridgered4 wrote:
| Unfortunately, I bet a lot of this kind of cable is stapled
| down along the run. And with enough twist and turns I'm not
| confident the existing wire wouldn't break while being
| pulled, even without the staples.
| vetinari wrote:
| It's not that simple everywhere, We have brick walls,
| replacing cables means lot of dust and repairing those
| opened walls... provided you don't damage anything already
| there.
|
| So here I'm feeling adventurous for pushing 10 GbE over a
| run of Cat5E for the next decade or more.
| keeganpoppen wrote:
| oh man this is why i read HN; i had no idea that this
| existed-- somehow-- and am the kind of person that runs
| ethernet cables all over the house rather than compromise in
| any way (powerline SUCKS ASS); and also i happen to currently
| live in a house with 1.2 trillion coax jacks, but no cat5/6
| wiring to speak of, so this seems like it completely solves
| my problem in the best possible way. i don't know if i could
| possibly be more excited than this (i wish i were kidding
| more than i am).
|
| yeah, sure, if i got a bunch of _really_ fancy wireless
| equipment, that could probably swing it too, but would also
| require getting new WiFi cards to actually be able to take
| advantage.
| zw123456 wrote:
| I learn about in the last house I had which was in FiOS
| (fiber) available area and I of course ordered it and when
| they were installing it I asked the guy a bunch of
| questions and one was "who are you getting the signal
| across my Cable TV Coax" and he told me they were using
| MoCa so I googled it later and thought wow, that's
| interesting.
|
| Then Later I moved to this place and there is no FiOS but I
| have mm-wave 5G (2Gbps) but there was no Ethernet cable in
| the house so I thought, hey, I know, I will use that MoCa
| thing, and it worked like a charm, got my signal from the
| CPE antenna unit mounted on my Garage (best signal) down to
| my lab in my basement.
| girvo wrote:
| > You can extend ethernet from any coax outlet to any other
| coax outlet. not hole punching, not central vacuum or
| whatever.
|
| Man that would be perfect, except the main coax is already
| being used for my internet as is. I wish HFC for the NBN
| would hurry up and die already.
| DenseComet wrote:
| MoCA and cable internet use different frequencies so you
| can still use them. I'm currently using those adapters with
| comcast.
| girvo wrote:
| Interesting. I'll look into it and see whether it's
| possible.
|
| While my highly-tuned Wifi 6 setup at home is honestly
| quite excellent (even for my competitive FPS gaming
| needs, and even wireless VR has been brilliant), it would
| be nice to ditch it for higher reliability.
|
| Problem is, I'm pretty sure my rental has a single coax
| socket for cable TV (which is used for my NBN internet
| connection now). I'll have a look though!
| danachow wrote:
| Also Ethernet to bridging MoCA does add on about 3-5ms of
| latency round trip. Whether this is of any concern is
| another thing, it probably isn't for most - but it is
| something to know.
| zw123456 wrote:
| As I mentioned in the top post that it runs over the top of
| docis which is what the cablecos use which is 800Mhz and
| below and Moca is above 1Ghz so they coexist.
| girvo wrote:
| Yeah fair enough, though I think the bigger challenge for
| me is that most places I've lived in, in Australia, have
| a single cable connection point in the lounge room and
| that's it (for Foxtel). Though I'm going to check!
| ranger207 wrote:
| Wow, running Ethernet over coax like it's the 80s again.
| Nothing new under the sun I guess
| bregma wrote:
| Everything but the termination.
| zw123456 wrote:
| https://www.ieee802.org/3/ethernet_diag.html
|
| very famous diagram !
| zw123456 wrote:
| Ya, well, Moca 3 is pretty new BTW, and it's not your
| mommy's ethernet over coax, you are thinking of old timey
| ieee802.3 this is full on OFDM modulation over coax, RF'ey
| stuff like Docis. Fios uses this to get your signal in over
| your house cabling.
|
| I use it to get my mm-wave 5G 2Gbps signal from my antenna
| on my garage over the same coax my cable TV runs on to my
| lab in my basement and have a wifi AP for the rest of the
| place.
|
| Ya, sorry, I stream but I still like my cable, shrug :)
| Geezus-42 wrote:
| Make sure you put a filter on the outside of your house if it
| is hooked to the cable system so you don't create feedback
| and screw everyone else around you who are using the cable
| system.
| gabereiser wrote:
| There is also Ethernet over powerline via powerline adapters.
| I run these in my apartment. From the router you plug a
| "host" adapter into an outlet, plug in the ethernet cable.
| Now you have a source. Throughout the rest of the apartment
| or house you plug-in a receiving adapter (there's a little
| sync button to sync it to the host) and plug in an ethernet
| cable as an output. Plug that into a small switch if you need
| more connections. Repeat throughout your home. It's just as
| cool as MOCA.
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| Ethernet over powerline adapters cause enormous RF
| interference for HAM radio operators. Please do not use
| them.
| gabereiser wrote:
| Really? Because I have an ICOM transceiver and have no
| interference at all.
| fluctor wrote:
| Might depend on your shack/feedline/antenna location,
| too. As in every other part of ham radio, YMMV.
| vvanders wrote:
| Nooo, please don't use that.
|
| They basically turn all the electrical wires in your house
| into a giant antenna and radiate broadband noise.
|
| I honestly don't know how the damn things are even legal by
| the FCC given how noisy they are.
| Johnny555 wrote:
| _They basically turn all the electrical wires in your
| house into a giant antenna and radiate broadband noise._
|
| And they do it very poorly, I've never been able to get
| powerline networking to work well. I had trouble reaching
| the Wifi node in my office from the bedroom on the far
| side of the house, I thought powerline networking was the
| answer, but the link was not that fast (around 10mbit),
| with very variable latency, anywhere from 5msec to
| 100msec, and around 2% packet drops. Both outlets were on
| the same leg of my home power panel, I verified it at the
| breaker box.
|
| I finally ended up putting up a couple Unifi Nanostation
| M2's (the bigger ones with the 10dBi antennas) aimed at
| each other through the walls to act as a point to point
| network, and it was faster and more reliable. Still not
| super fast, I get like 30mbit, but latency is a nice
| constant 7msec, with little packet loss.
|
| But in a previous house, the walls were real plaster with
| metal lath behind acting as a faraday cage, and I had no
| choice but to use powerline networking (it was a rental
| house, so I couldn't easily run ethernet)
| hackcasual wrote:
| I would choose MOCA over Powerline. Powerline trips AFCI
| breakers, is really sensitive to other devices and wiring
| quality, add even in best conditions seems to perform worse
| (in my experience).
| elabajaba wrote:
| Powerline sucks. It's slow (in most houses you're lucky to
| get 100mbps throughput even with high end "2000mbps"
| adapters), and it tends to suffer from bad jitter and
| latency spikes to the point where it's more like bad wifi,
| while MOCA is generally pretty close to ethernet in terms
| of having basically no additional jitter or ping spikes
| (only real downside is the cost of the MOCA adapters, and
| that it's a shared link between all the adapters so you're
| limited to eg. 2.5Gbps combined on all MOCA links, which
| isn't a problem for most people).
|
| Also, for the cost of either powerline or MOCA adapters you
| can buy a big roll of CAT6 CMR and a fish bit and run
| ethernet through the walls (just do a good job on the
| patches if you're renting).
| wonnage wrote:
| I've gotten a pretty reliable 400-500mbps over a "2gbps"
| powerline adapter. Granted this was in small 1-2br
| apartments, but you're probably dealing with only one
| coax jack in the whole place and it's not feasible/worth
| it to run your own cabling.
| elabajaba wrote:
| Imo, in a small 1-2br apartment it's easy enough to run
| ethernet and hide it along the walls, either by tucking
| it under the moulding if you have carpet, or using cable
| hiders.
|
| I'm also just laser focused on good consistent latency
| though after years of suffering awful cable internet and
| trying to minimize all latency that I could control
| (https://i.imgur.com/i84mIsD.png was what it was like
| during the day in 2020 in the first wfh period. Luckily
| I've only been getting consistent spikes up to ~200ms
| throughout 2021 /s).
|
| edit: That ping was on hardwired ethernet with no load as
| well, and Rogers (realistically the only ISP where I live
| in Canada because my available Bell DSL connection is too
| slow) was throttling uploads to 4mbps.
| ninjin wrote:
| My go-to solution for routing ethernet while renting are
| 3M Command Hooks. They are remarkably strong, while being
| easy to remove - albeit a tad bit on the expensive side.
| zw123456 wrote:
| I am using MOCA 2.5 go get my 2Gbps over my coax, MOCA 3
| does 10Gbps.
| function_seven wrote:
| I have to begrudgingly agree with you. A couple years ago
| I plopped a couple powerline adapters on either end of my
| house. They're on different circuits, but the same phase
| of the panel.
|
| It worked great. I got a consistent 80Mbps through them.
| I was happy and probably commented here or elsewhere
| about how they _can_ work, or, "don't dismiss it, it
| might just be the trick."
|
| Well, now they're pretty flaky. They still work just
| enough for me to keep using them, but other WiFi issues
| I'm having are convincing me that I gotta stop being lazy
| and run some cable to all my rooms. (I even have a
| crawlspace! It will be relatively easy if I can just get
| cracking on it.)
|
| I don't know what changed between then and now. Phone
| chargers on the circuit? That random smart plug I bought
| last year? My A/C cycling in the summer? Doesn't matter.
| Powerlines are a hostile environment for high-speed data.
| Fradow wrote:
| I use those and have a generally positive view on them, but
| from personal experience, the adapters tend to de-
| synchronize, and re-synchronizing them is a pain (first of
| all because you need to actually access them, but since
| they are ugly they are generally kept hidden in hard to
| reach places).
|
| They are also the other issues people reported.
|
| IMO, they are fine in a rental where you don't have a lot
| of options and don't expect too much, but if you have a
| choice, use a better alternative.
| zw123456 wrote:
| yup although not sure you get the speeds you get with MOCA
| 3 ?
|
| 10Gbps !
|
| :)
| gabereiser wrote:
| Oh for sure there's no way I'm getting those speeds. I
| don't have that need though. A simple 1Gbps is enough for
| me. While advertised as 1Gbps adapters, I get at max
| 800Mbps which is fine. I don't suffer from stuttering or
| packet loss as reported by others. I also don't have a
| bunch of RF interference as reported by others. So I'm
| happy with them and will continue to use them.
| einichi wrote:
| I had no idea MOCA existed. Thanks for this.
| zw123456 wrote:
| Good Point, I bet a lot of people are not aware of it as an
| option, I just submitted this link as new
|
| https://www.techreviewer.com/tech-answers/moca-vs-ethernet
|
| I think it is a pretty decent review of the pro's and con's
| of using Ethernet cable vs. Ethernet cable. Perhaps others
| not reading this thread could also benefit from the
| knowledge.
| walterbell wrote:
| Yes, thank you. Ordered -70db MoCA point-of-entry filter
| for $5.
| SkeuomorphicBee wrote:
| I'm so glad that in my country we build houses with ducts for
| cables, with two separate duct networks (one for AC power, and
| one for "telephony"), when it comes time to change technology
| we just push those spring-tipped cable guides through the ducts
| and then pull the new wire (or even just use the old outdated
| wire as a guide to pull the new one). I've installed Ethernet
| cables and even replaced AC wire (to a wider gouge or more
| phases) on rentals with no need for any McGyver shenanigans.
| stratosmacker wrote:
| What country is this so I can read more and/or move?
| Ruphin wrote:
| I think in most (West-) European countries there are strict
| regulations/requirements that require ducts/pipes for any
| kind of power line. When my house was built (35 years ago)
| there were already regulations in place that required
| separate ducts for each group, separate groups for wet
| rooms (kitchen, bathroom) with grounding, etc.
|
| Overall I found the standards of electrical work in Europe
| is significantly higher than US counterparts. In modern
| buildings every outlet and line has mandatory grounding,
| and GFCI is built into the fuse box on every power line for
| any building that's less than 30 years old. That really
| came in handy once when I accidentally hit a power line
| when drilling through the ceiling. I can't imagine doing
| any kind of renovation work without GFCI on everything.
| hamilyon2 wrote:
| Can't you use 220/110v power wiring to also transmit ethernet?
| Seems a bit simpler than laying new cable.
| mhandley wrote:
| Yes, in principle. In practice I found all the TP-Link
| ethernet-over-power equipment I used to use to me even less
| reliable than the WiFi I was trying to supplement. It would
| work fine for a while, then just lose sync, and I'd have to
| go round unplugging and replugging everything to get it to
| sync again. In the end I ran cat-6, but it took me a long
| time to conclude it was worth the effort. Now my only regret
| is I didn't decide to do it 10 years earlier.
| Symbiote wrote:
| Depending on your wiring, the performance can be terrible.
|
| I have one of these, advertised as 2000Mb/s but actually
| doing about 80, and in a small apartment. Every 6 months or
| so it connects to my _neighbour 's_ system without me doing
| anything.
| dreamcompiler wrote:
| Off-topic but since you brought it up, does anybody ever use
| builtin central vacuum systems? I have several friends who have
| houses built during the era when these things were popular but
| none of them ever use the systems.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| They made more sense before high efficiency motors
| miniaturized & high capacity lithium ion batteries existed.
|
| Old vacuums were _heavy_.
|
| Now, they're more useful to repurpose into shop vacs.
| a9h74j wrote:
| I also once heard a vacuum cleaner salesman say (and yes,
| that used to be a thing) -- we know we can make vacuum
| cleaners less noisy (drop the universal motor IIRC), but
| people buy vacuum cleaners assuming the noise == power.
| jjeaff wrote:
| I have actually heard that some manufacturers purposely
| make their vacuums louder for this reason.
|
| I have a Miele and it is much quieter than any other
| vacuum I have heard.
| a9h74j wrote:
| Imagine if a Prius or Tesla instead had as much noise/HP
| as a conventional vacuum cleaner.
| WalterGR wrote:
| Everyone I've known that has them dispenses with the hose and
| uses it only as a - sort of - magic trash can for small
| objects.
| ajmurmann wrote:
| My house has this. I've only used it when something was wrong
| with the alternative. I love the idea, but the hose is huge
| and ours has a minor defect where it turns itself off if you
| plug the hose in completely. Roomba and then a handheld Dyson
| for details is much more convenient
| brandon272 wrote:
| Yes! Use mine all the time. Strong sustained suction and much
| quieter. Less frequent bag emptying. Air quality seems
| better. Hose is a pain to deal with, but not a big deal as
| long as you have somewhere to store it.
| lreeves wrote:
| Yeah I definitely do, the hose is stupidly clunky but as
| someone with allergies the big advantage is there's no pass
| through of fine particles into the room you're vacuuming.
| oh_sigh wrote:
| There are systems these days where the hose retracts up
| into the vacuum tubing in the wall, so you just pull out
| however much you need and then let it feed back into the
| wall when you're done.
|
| This is what I have and it's great. I also have a toe kick
| adapter, so I can use a regular broom and sweep the dust to
| a little port under a kitchen cabinet and it automatically
| sucks it up.
|
| I don't have allergies, I just never liked the way it
| smells so dusty after using a vacuum cleaner inside.
| JadeNB wrote:
| > Off-topic but since you brought it up, does anybody ever
| use builtin central vacuum systems? I have several friends
| who have houses built during the era when these things were
| popular but none of them ever use the systems.
|
| I grew up in a house with one. I haven't lived there since
| 1998, but, yes, we used it all the time. As my sibling
| commenter lreeves says
| (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31361950), it's good if
| you have allergies.
| theshrike79 wrote:
| On the plus side, all of the noise and dust goes Somewhere
| Else.
|
| On the minus side the long-ass hose is a huge pain.
|
| In the 2020's you can just get a robovac for daily cleaning
| and a smaller unit for manual stuff.
| brk wrote:
| Our house, built in 2004, has one. We've never used it. The
| closet that has the vacuum in it also has some other
| equipment and is a bit of an IDF for my home network.
| Strongly considering removing the vacuum unit entirely and
| using the ducting as conduit per the above comment!
| Ruphin wrote:
| I recently did some renovation work and the house had unused
| telephone (and COAX cable) wiring running to most rooms.
| Decided they would probably remain unused forever, so I
| replaced everything with cat6. You can usually use the old
| cables to pull through the new one. It's a bit of a chore and
| may require some specialised tooling for certain outlet
| brands/types, but it's so nice to just have ethernet outlets
| everywhere.
| muxneo wrote:
| This is quite interesting idea!
| wpietri wrote:
| Now that's a proper series of tubes.
| mro_name wrote:
| Like the beetle with honey on its antennae, pulling the
| thinnest first thread. Thanks for sharing!
| closeparen wrote:
| If you are thinking about doing this make sure you use plenum-
| rated cable, otherwise in addition to packets your Ethernet
| cables will also be an excellent transport for fire.
| [deleted]
| conk wrote:
| I'm under the impression the concern is more about smoke
| being emitted during a fire which would then filter into a
| room and obscure escape paths.
|
| This is more of an issue in a commercial building where you
| have lots of people who need to move through potentially
| narrow escape routes than it is in a home where every major
| room will have multiple means of egress.
| tablespoon wrote:
| > I wanted wired Ethernet in my office but didn't want to punch
| holes in the wall. Luckily I have an old "central vacuum
| system" that as far as I can tell has never been even powered
| on, many years before I bought the house.
|
| Lucky you, you had a preinstalled system of cabling conduit :)
|
| Before I had my basement finished, I installed a bunch of PVC
| conduit for the network wiring, so it would be possible to
| upgrade or add to it in the future.
| a9h74j wrote:
| Same intent here. I don't know what cable I will eventually
| upgrade to, but the first step will be easily-snakable
| conduit to every room.
| rkagerer wrote:
| The great thing is you can upgrade the cable in future for
| newer technologies (eg. over a decade ago I bought used
| Mellanox equipment cheaper than 10G and ran fiber drops).
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| I have a fairly modern house (built mid 2000's) but for some
| reason wasn't built with ethernet; what was there was phone and
| coax cable lines, going through these yellow PVC tubes embedded
| in the wall.
|
| In theory it would be a matter of tying an ethernet cable to an
| existing coax cable and pull through, but in practice, eek. I
| don't believe those lines are continuous, or there may be
| debris or kinks in it somewhere in the wall. In the end it took
| an electrician half an hour and an improvised cable pump to get
| it through.
| Lightbody wrote:
| You should double check that they didn't actually run CAT5e
| and just terminate using RJ11. My old house (built in 2007)
| did that.
| gonzo wrote:
| Internet as a series of tubes!
| tzs wrote:
| The various people who have replied to you with their own cable
| solutions is interesting. Mine seems downright uncouth by
| comparison.
|
| I just ran mine up near where the wall meets the ceiling. When
| inside I look down a lot more than I look up so the ugliness of
| the cable doesn't bother me.
|
| Here's part of my Ethernet cable run [1] through the living
| room. The other cable in that picture is a speaker cable for
| one of the home theater rear speakers.
|
| [1] https://imgur.com/gallery/uZ0VvtM
| PretzelPirate wrote:
| Perhaps there's a market for ethernet cables with LED wraps
| so you can run your cables near the ceiling AND have cool
| lighting effects in your house.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| There's cable gutter kits you can probably get at your local
| DIY store to make that look a bit neater if you're looking to
| improve. They're usually stick-on so no drilling or anything
| required.
|
| There's also decorative ones that run along your floor, I
| forgot the English name, but they're a bit bigger than the
| usual ones and can hold a number of cables out of sight.
| vetinari wrote:
| You mean baseboards? Checking them is a good idea; some do
| have a space for running a cable. So if there's no need to
| go over a corner, it might be an option.
| bee_rider wrote:
| They are sharing their stories because they are more clever
| than the rest of us.
|
| I had a cable going diagonally across the wall for ages
| before the SO put their foot down and demanded something
| slightly more aesthetically pleasing. Now it follows the trim
| at least.
| a9h74j wrote:
| I've imagined utility in making a crown molding be a c.a.
| 10cm angled piece with space behind, for just these
| reasons.
|
| Held with screws of course, or otherwise removable and
| replaceable.
| Ekaros wrote:
| And if you don't want it to look especially great surface
| mounted trunking is decent enough and affordable.
| Actually it is very common here. Small rectangle mounted
| either to ceiling or floor of the wall.
| theshrike79 wrote:
| You can find crown molding with room for cables in it off
| the shelf, at least around here.
| mananaysiempre wrote:
| You can also just own it, cables are not inherently ugly. I'm
| not saying go full on Centre Pompidou, but a couple of dirt-
| cheap adhesive clips in an appropriate colour can go a long
| way (though not if your walls are plastered). The setup in
| 8-Bit Guy[1]'s old studio is a good inspiration.
|
| (Sometimes the clips can be a bit _too_ cheap, in which case
| tearing off the original crappy adhesive and using some of
| that insanely-strong double-sided 3M tape helps.)
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8uT9cgJorJPWu7ITLGo9Ww
| AussieWog93 wrote:
| Our Ethernet cables go out the windows and around the house.
| Joys of renting!
| wrycoder wrote:
| Around here, the cable installers nail the cables around the
| outside of the cheap houses and just punch holes through the
| walls to access the interior.
| robotnikman wrote:
| Other alternatives I've found to work are Ethernet over power
| (varies depending on how well your house is wired though) and
| ethernet over coax using MoCA adapters (if your house was
| previously wired with coax for cable TV these work great)
| aidenn0 wrote:
| I've used Ethernet over Power, and it sucks except under
| ideal conditions. The pre-G.hn versions are quite slow.
|
| G.hn is fast, but all of the G.hn devices I've found seem to
| use the same chipset (and presumably similar firmware, since
| the configuration pages have identical options, but different
| branding), and the chipset seems to buffer a massive amount,
| which means a single hiccup while using a high-bandwidth
| application makes the network unusable for a while.
|
| Example: while streaming video over a G.hn adapter, I was
| running ping. There was a brief hiccup, and then ping times
| exceeded 20 seconds (!!), finally recovering after a few
| minutes. I eventually ran a program that ran on devices
| connected to each side and would reboot the adapter if ping
| times exceeded 500ms. This made the network _far_ more
| reliable.
| gabereiser wrote:
| This hasn't been my experience at all. I use TP-Link
| adapters and don't see any ping interference or latency. I
| think it also has a lot to do with how in phase your power
| is.
| aidenn0 wrote:
| Which TP-Link adapters? They don't seem to make a g.hn
| and the last ones of them I tried were AV1000.
| gabereiser wrote:
| It's the AV1000s. I don't seem to have the issues you all
| are reporting with them. No packet loss. No latency
| beyond a reasonable 1ms. My apartment's power lines are
| clean, properly grounded, and perfectly in phase I guess.
| aidenn0 wrote:
| AV1000 worked reliably for me, but at 40mbit
| christoph wrote:
| I've used the TP-Link AV2000's for a few years, they're
| OK for me, sure I'd rather have proper hard wired
| ethernet, but I also prefer not punching holes in
| walls/ceilings all over my house. It's ridiculous they
| get marketed as 2000Mbit though, best I've ever got is
| close to 200Mbit and I'm in a fairly ideal set up for it.
| Also, never mix lower adapters like 500's, as this seems
| to cap the whole network at the lowest common
| denominator, even when they're not in use.
| adhesive_wombat wrote:
| I use the TP-links too, but sometimes, every few weeks,
| they fall over and one of them needs a power cycle. I put
| them on the same circuit so they don't have to traverse
| the consumer unit to talk to each other.
|
| I could have put Ethernet in, but adding a wire under the
| floor was vetoed in the interests of not making a mess.
|
| Don't listen to them! Run that Ethernet!
| mhandley wrote:
| I had the same issue, except it was usually every couple
| of days they'd need replugging to resync. Only regret
| from running ethernet recently (yes, it was messy) is
| that I didn't do it 10 years ago.
| bin_bash wrote:
| MoCA adapters are crazy expensive though
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| In my case I used just a single pair of them to get wired
| Gigabit up to my second floor from the basement. Based on
| my layout and needs that got me everything I couldn't
| easily handle with Ethernet runs.
|
| Ethernet runs are cheaper in parts, but MoCA adapters are
| crazy effective at avoiding large drywalling jobs.
| themitigating wrote:
| A gocoax 1gbit is $60
| ILMostro7 wrote:
| But you need (at least) two, in order to be useful at
| all.
| themitigating wrote:
| Hi, yes that's true but to compare pricing you need to
| think of the cost of cat6 cable, which isn't much. Also
| the time to run the cable.
|
| This is assuming you have coax rg6 or better already in
| the wall
| mason55 wrote:
| It's true but you might not need that many. Our house was
| built in 2000 and every room is wired with coax but no
| ethernet. With some strategic placement I was able to get a
| hardwired switch in my office + two hardwired wifi APs with
| just two MoCA adapters - $300 well spent.
|
| It would be pretty expensive to turn every coax run in my
| house into a hardwired ethernet switch but well placed
| hardwired APs obviates the need to do that.
| chrisweekly wrote:
| Yeah; I'm about to upgrade the backhaul on my Orbi mesh
| system to be wired, via extant coax nodes in good
| locations.
| chime wrote:
| Hard to compare what "crazy" expensive is but I bought a
| pair of these for $90 https://amazon.com/dp/B01MRV4WA1. For
| the 3 places in my house I wanted to wire with Ethernet, I
| was done under $300. Patching drywall, paint touch-ups, new
| cables, and the overall time and headache would have cost a
| lot more. I was done in a matter of minutes using old coax
| and these adapters.
|
| In my case, I didn't build a MoCA network, just used these
| devices point-to-point. If you go full MoCA, think of it
| like a distributed hub - no switching, no routing, no
| security. In fact you should put filters to prevent
| neighbors from listening in using their own MoCA adapters.
| For me, point-to-point worked. YMMV but Ethernet over Coax
| is definitely worth looking into for upto 1gbps speed,
| which is plenty for wifi, netflix etc.
| walterbell wrote:
| _> In fact you should put filters to prevent neighbors
| from listening in using their own MoCA adapters._
|
| Wow. Who knew that inbound cable internet has outbound
| data capability? Thanks for posting.
|
| Is this a suitable filter (-70db)?
| https://www.amazon.com/GLP-1G70CWWS-Filter-Eliminate-
| Multi-R...
| trelane wrote:
| > Who knew that inbound cable internet has outbound data
| capability?
|
| The physical medium isn't directional, so there's no
| reason to assume it would not transmit and receive. A
| coax cable is equivalent to three wires with better
| isolation from the environment (and with one "wire"
| usually used for ground).
|
| There's an asymmetry in commercial broadband over coax,
| but Im not sire why that is precisely. Perhaps someone
| familiar with DOCSIS etc. could say.
| [deleted]
| garaetjjte wrote:
| Note that Ethernet over power should also work on coax, or
| really any other cable. (connect adapters to the wire and
| feed it with eg. 48V power supply)
| ta988 wrote:
| Not really the newer ones use the 3 wires (phase, neuter
| and earth). I have one and reach 400-600Mbps in a really
| old building with really long and shitty cabling. Ping is
| 5ms more than pure Ethernet though.
| throwaway09223 wrote:
| I once wired up an apartment for ethernet using the old rj11
| (telephone) wires. The phones were all run with cat5e so it was
| very easy. If you're only doing 100bt you only need two pairs
| for full duplex, leaving two other pairs to run two phone
| lines. There are a lot of homes built using cat5 for the phone
| systems with 2-3 unused pairs in each cable. All I did was swap
| out the faceplates for rj11/rj45 combo plates and rewire.
|
| Of course these days you might just give up the land line
| entirely to get gigE over all 4 pair and just remove the old
| rj11 jacks.
| toast0 wrote:
| > If you're only doing 100bt you only need two pairs for full
| full duplex, leaving two other pairs to run two phone lines.
|
| 10base-T and 100base-Tx both use two pair even for half
| duplex.
| 300bps wrote:
| Cat5 has four pair.
| e12e wrote:
| Yeah, 1 pair for signal, one for shielding. Cat3 and
| Cat5/5e/6 aren't the same - but I think you can
| practically get up to 1gbps over Cat3 - 10gbps is
| unlikely.
| throwaway09223 wrote:
| The "shielding" is done by measuring the difference in
| signal between two wires in a pair -- that's why twisted
| pairs are used. There isn't a dedicated pair for this
| purpose.
|
| You need only _one_ pair to run half duplex 10 /100bt
| (contrary to what's stated above), and two pair to run
| full duplex 10/100bt. In FD, there's one pair each for
| tx/rx. 10/100bt are very similar in this regard.
|
| The different cable categories mostly relate to the wire
| quality and the number of twists in each pair.
|
| gigE is very different and uses all 4 pairs.
| e12e wrote:
| Right you are! Twists for shielding, two pairs for duplex
| - which means that since the 90s on, you practically
| always want two pairs pr connector to enable duplex (be
| it 100mbit or faster). Ed: but probably 4 for gigE.
| slyall wrote:
| Around 20 years ago the Internet suddenly became a thing but
| you had big hotels that were not pre-wired with RJ45 and the
| owners did not to spend lots of money running new cables.
|
| One solution was to use the existing phone line in each room
| and put an ADSL modem on it. They got Internet (and kept
| analog phones) in every room by just upgrading the endpoints.
| kirrent wrote:
| My wired ethernet triumph was in my current rental. There's an
| old under-floor evaporative air-conditioning ducted system
| which is no longer used. I bought a $40 remote control car with
| large rubber wheels and a low CoG, strapped a GoPro and a head
| torch to it so I could stream video to a phone, and tied on a
| piece of string. The mission was to get from my study to the
| kitchen which is about 10m all up.
|
| It was more of a challenge than expected. The ducting had
| ramps, multiple corners, debris/rubbish, and a mouse skeleton
| to navigate around. All of this wasn't helped by the terrible
| latency and needing to move the phone to different places to
| reduce distance and attenuation through the floor. I got stuck
| quite a few times but could always use the string to pull back
| a bit when I got wedged on a rock. Sometimes I just needed to
| gun it to get over an obstacle.
|
| In the end, the car and ethernet cable were cheaper than a good
| wireless card or POE kit, and I got to give away the car to a
| kid.
| account-5 wrote:
| I love how you had to use wireless to solve your wireless
| problems.
| OJFord wrote:
| All new tools have to be made with the old ones.
| HWR_14 wrote:
| I mean, he was running a string under the floor connected
| to the RC car. He could probably have piped the video
| (and maybe power) over a thin enough wire to go
| completely wired.
| klenwell wrote:
| > It was more of a challenge than expected. The ducting had
| ramps, multiple corners, debris/rubbish, and a mouse skeleton
| to navigate around.
|
| My uncle worked for a company that designed and installed
| commercial ductwork. The joke he liked to tell while they
| were going in: "Make sure Bruce Willis can get around in
| there."
| mxuribe wrote:
| As a fan of the Die Hard movies, i got this reference
| immediately! lol :-D
| turdnagel wrote:
| Have you ever seen Blue Streak? There's a scene with a remote
| control car just like that.
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUGjZQtXkr4
| chrisweekly wrote:
| Stories like this make HN what it is. Thanks for sharing!
| Love it!
| all2 wrote:
| Can we have this as a video game? This would be hysterical to
| do multiplayer. Maybe old style MarioKart balloons or
| something.
| numlock86 wrote:
| Do you mean "Mario Kart Live"?
| KineticLensman wrote:
| I visited an old Victorian National Trust house in the UK
| where the owner had used his rabbit-hunting ferrets to help
| install electric wiring under the floors rather than rip up
| the expensive wooden floors and panelling
| fnands wrote:
| At Fermilab they used a ferret (in a diaper!) to clean out
| the beam pipes:
| https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/felicia-ferret-
| particl...
| dspillett wrote:
| Ferrets were often used to drag cables to the right place.
| It is apparently an urban myth that Boeing did this in jet
| manufacture, but they were used in other similar contexts.
| Arrath wrote:
| Very clever!
| fabioyy wrote:
| anyone have tried to use fiber? is there a fiber to ethernet
| conversor? ( to connect the playstation for example )
| chrismcb wrote:
| I dunno my wireless just works. Two people in the house running
| meetings on wireless. TV is on wireless. Everything seems fine.
| My wireless keyboard acts up sometimes, but I blame the keyboard
| not wireless. I do run wires when I can, but that is mostly just
| the equipment near the modem Perhaps it's because we are in the
| suburbs and the house is fairly open. Or maybe I just have my
| wireless setup properly.
| tempnow987 wrote:
| I love wired connectections.
|
| The LATENCY is noticeably better. If you are on a zoom call with
| both parties on headsets and on wired connections (so no echo
| cancellation needed) or other audio connections I find it
| noticeably better (less stepping on each other etc).
|
| I have AT&T's fiber product (2 Gbps) and the office has their biz
| product (300 Mbps) and latency between is good and to google et
| al is great (< 10 ms in almost all situations).
| nezgar wrote:
| Wired ethernet resolves most of my own teams/zoom/webex etc
| anxiety that any glitches in anyones meeting video or audio are
| probably NOT caused by my own connection....
| nomel wrote:
| At home, my WiFi vs Ethernet ping is just a few ms different.
| For data, my WiFi 6 devices (most of them now) are faster over
| WiFi.
|
| But, at work, there's hundreds of ms difference between
| ethernet and WiFi. I assume it because most offices use mesh
| networks now, and none here are WiFi 6.
|
| So, network setup and router quality definitely play a part. My
| AP was ~$200, used for streaming VR.
| 1ncorrect wrote:
| Wireless network links should be exclusively the domain of
| nomadic, temporary or sacrificial endpoints.
|
| If the device is expected to be used in a fixed spacial or
| temporal manner, or you care about the data conveyed across the
| link, constrain its path as much as possible with a waveguide.
| walterbell wrote:
| Yes, even WPA3 remains vulnerable to various attacks.
| mro_name wrote:
| also having a dedicated place for work is a bliss. Nearby the
| outlet.
| alexvoda wrote:
| It's too late now. We are already entering the age of laptops
| without headphone jacks.
|
| If only people listened earlier.
| amelius wrote:
| Wired would be so much better if it were just a replacement for
| wireless, where you just plug a wire between two points, and they
| start communicating without any configuration necessary if the
| two points already had a wireless communication going.
| falcolas wrote:
| It... usually does? For example, I can plug in an ethernet
| cable to my router and computer, and it works perfectly fine.
| And if I unplug, it's still connected, just by wifi.
| timando wrote:
| Now try with an SSH session open
| tedunangst wrote:
| I blame the wifi. I can ssh from one wired machine to
| another just fine, but when I unplug the cable the wifi
| doesn't seamlessly take over. This is clearly the fault of
| the wireless.
| the_third_wave wrote:
| If you configure things so that the wifi adapter gets the
| same IP address as the wired connection you should be
| able to continue communicating with those machines. SSH
| uses TCP which is connection-oriented so as long as the
| connection can be made it should work (bar problems with
| MTU etc.). You might experience a stall before the
| connection becomes alive again but it should work.
| ChadNauseam wrote:
| I think it's a problem with the TCP/IP stack somehow. If
| I try the same thing when downloading something from
| chrome, the download fails. If I'm loading a website I
| get a "connection interrupted" error. Really there's no
| reason that my device shouldn't have its own IP and treat
| wifi and ethernet as two different routes to my device.
| Remember "IP routes around damage"?
| Nextgrid wrote:
| NAT, among other things, breaks that.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| Nothing to do with Wi-Fi, the same would happen if you
| had 2 Ethernet connections.
|
| Your Wi-Fi and Ethernet are both network interfaces with
| their own IP addresses - those addresses don't move when
| you switch between interfaces. If you established an SSH
| session while on Ethernet and then unplugged it, that
| session will not carry over to Wi-Fi unless you change
| your Wi-Fi interface's IP address to the wired one's and
| that both networks are on the same L2 segment (typical
| for home networks, but not always the case for
| enterprise).
|
| A potential solution is either MPTCP (which will
| establish multiple connections over all interfaces and
| can tolerate the loss of all but one of them) or to VPN
| into your router and use the VPN link as your default
| route - this means that the VPN connection might drop and
| reconnect but your IP address to the other hosts (which
| is actually the one of your VPN gateway) will remain
| constant, so traffic flow will be restored as soon as
| your VPN reconnects even if your local IP changes.
| falcolas wrote:
| It's been literal decades since I configured this (and
| carried it forward with the rest of my dotfiles), but
| there's a configuration setting that makes SSH
| reconnections of existing sessions seamless. No, I don't
| know what it is off the top of my head, let's call it an
| exercise left to the reader.
| mmwelt wrote:
| Wouldn't be a problem if you have a Wireguard connection to
| your router.
| pxx wrote:
| You should be using mosh regardless.
| layer8 wrote:
| TIL why Bluetooth is called Bluetooth:
|
| > It was the epithet of King Harald Bluetooth, who united the
| disparate Danish tribes into a single kingdom; Kardach chose the
| name to imply that Bluetooth similarly unites communication
| protocols.
| [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bluetooth#Name_and_logo]
|
| Another thing, not mentioned in the article, is that microwave
| ovens tend to interfere with Bluetooth in my experience.
| kQq9oHeAz6wLLS wrote:
| Tom Scott had one of his usual informative videos on this
|
| https://youtu.be/VdmQp9M9jUo
| HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
| Not just your experience. I worked for a company that made a
| lot of wireless devices. We had a pretty open-plan office and
| learned not to test anything around lunchtime.
|
| Seriously. There were many times that I was working on
| something that suddenly had a spike in the receive failure rate
| and I'd look at the time and realize that somebody was heating
| up their lunch in the microwave.
| JonathonW wrote:
| And WiFi. And anything else that might happen to operate in the
| 2.4 GHz ISM band (like some cordless phones, back in the day).
| falcolas wrote:
| It absolutely does. Especially if folks are in the habit of
| opening the door before the microwave shuts itself down.
| jchw wrote:
| A little pro-tip for those about to run wires through your walls:
| use shielded cables. Also, probably don't run them anywhere near
| AC wire. Some people recommend a full stud between them, whereas
| the NEC allows them to be run next to eachother as long as there
| is at least 50mm of clearance.
|
| I think this is usually recommended for safety reasons, to
| prevent mistakes from causing high voltage to get into your low
| voltage runs and become a shock hazard or potentially start a
| fire. But, I have noticed empirically that running a bit too
| close with the wrong cable does absolutely result in some serious
| interference issues. So... your wired connections are not free of
| signal issues either, especially if you want to neatly run them
| in-wall.
|
| edit: also, worth noting that this is a highly U.S. centric piece
| of advice. I mean I'm sure it applies elsewhere, but both
| electrical systems and construction differences probably make
| some of the details very different, and I'm not cultured enough
| to know exactly which and how.
| fulafel wrote:
| Ethernet on copper cabling doesn't seem to be keeping up,
| shielded or not, previous and current gen ethernet (10g/100g)
| over copper is really power hungry or nonexistent.
| jchw wrote:
| Consumer devices hardly even have 10Gbit, and often don't
| even have WiFi 6. Even if they did, my NAS running on
| spinning rust is not bottlenecked on network bandwidth even
| slightly, and affording the amount of switching fabric
| necessary to sustain 10Gbit across all my devices is not
| economical right now.
|
| I mean, this might be different for fiber in some regards,
| but I doubt that is terribly economical either.
| thfuran wrote:
| How is your nas not bottlenecked by 1gbps? I'd expect
| pretty much any modern single hdd to have a sequential read
| speed over 120 MBps, let alone an array.
| jchw wrote:
| Well, I have a few comments.
|
| - It is true that a modern HDD has over 120 MBps
| sequential read, but not by much: 4GiB WD Reds are
| probably somewhere around 150-160 MB/s.
|
| - Sequential speeds aren't really that practically useful
| for me. While I do have some large files, most workloads
| are going to involve smaller files and a lot more
| seeking.
|
| - When using a filesystem with parity, like btrfs or zfs,
| you definitely have some overhead for writing and
| checking parity. I'm sure it's still very fast, but it is
| overhead, and NASes don't tend to be the most cutting
| edge compute boxes.
|
| - Even if some RAID configurations might improve
| performance, the configuration I am using has a fair bit
| of overhead. I suspect you need something like RAID 0 or
| 10 for maximum performance, but those setups are
| inflexible compared to RAIDZ or Synology SHR.
|
| - As it is now, my NAS is unable to saturate the network
| bandwidth using Samba alone. It just never reaches a
| gigabit. Part of this is probably related to Samba or the
| CIFS protocol, but honestly I don't know if it has the
| raw CPU muscle.
|
| All in all, I am not too concerned about it. It is
| possible that I could yield better performance with 10
| GbE, but I don't think it would matter for most of my use
| cases. Plus, disk resources are definitely being consumed
| by background tasks as it is.
| fulafel wrote:
| Consumer NAS and laptops[1] do have it and with SSDs the
| story is different.
|
| [1] Or more accurately, as laptops dropped builtin ethernet
| ports, the kind of ethernet you use got decoupled from the
| laptop model.
| jchw wrote:
| My M1 Mac Mini only supports 1Gbit. My Synology NAS only
| has 1Gbit ports, and while I do have the 10Gbit interface
| card for it, using that prevents you from using NVMe
| cache, and with SATA, even a good SSD will have trouble
| saturating SATA due to the exact reasons NVMe exists. My
| phone is too old for Wifi 6, My surface laptop 4 has Wifi
| 6, but no thunderbolt port; just a _single_ USB 3.1 port.
| Technically enough for 10 GbE, assuming you didn't need
| absolutely anything else on that port.
|
| Then you need 10Gbit network equipment. A 10Gbit switch
| with more than 8 ports is going to be expensive and
| consume a pretty ridiculous amount of energy. It would be
| difficult to argue that there is any truly "consumer
| grade" 10GbE equipment; almost all of it comes in sizes
| designed to fit in racks... Wifi 6 APs exist, but my AP-
| HD isn't, because it wasn't purchased that long ago,
| still works, and I have had no good reason to replace it.
| Not to mention the actual speeds I get on WiFi are never
| even close to the theoretical speeds, making it seem
| unlikely it could even saturate my 1GbE setup in
| practice.
|
| Although I do have some 10GbE equipment, even directly
| connecting devices together I have found that many of my
| devices, of which many are consumer-grade, already
| bottleneck elsewhere and can't even come close to
| saturation. So as of today, 10GbE does not seem to be a
| huge win for most users, even if they do own some
| equipment that can do it.
| walterbell wrote:
| Some of the "shielded" ethernet cables on Amazon are
| questionable.
|
| Monoprice sells double-shielded (SFTP) enterprise-grade cables
| directly.
| thfuran wrote:
| Pretty much everything sold on Amazon these days is
| questionable. A lot of their Ethernet cables are definitively
| trash though.
| [deleted]
| wwweston wrote:
| This is one reason why I'm still down on Apple's decision to
| remove 1/8" audio jacks from iPhones: they took away a decades
| old "just works" standard that wasn't subject to interference or
| battery or latency issues and replaced it with something that
| fundamentally is. Their efforts at filing down the sharp edges
| here with the airpods (and they have done as well as anyone could
| expect and more) don't change the fundamentals.
|
| "Get a dongle" -- maybe I will when I finally give up my original
| iPhone SE, but I'm not going to be cheerful about paying an extra
| $30 for the privilege along with the overhead of keeping track of
| an additional thing.
| TimTheTinker wrote:
| If I'm not mistaken, removing the 1/8" audio jacks was
| significant in enabling the IP67+ water resistance ratings
| iPhones have these days.
|
| That rating comes in handy for those who have butter fingers
| like me and drop their phones in water once in a while.
| ozfive wrote:
| Couldn't a rubber gasket on the 1/8" jack help with water
| resistance?
| tablespoon wrote:
| > Couldn't a rubber gasket on the 1/8" jack help with water
| resistance?
|
| Couldn't the jack itself be made to be water resistant?
| Seal it up and use relatively inert metals for the
| contacts.
| [deleted]
| throwaway821909 wrote:
| Yes, there are plenty of phones that have IP68 & 3.5mm
| without any rubber flaps etc., not to start a flamewar
| but it's strange to me that a lot of people seem to think
| they would be a necessary tradeoff... Apple had other
| reasons to get rid of it.
|
| https://www.gsmarena.com/sony_xperia_1_iii-10712.php
| https://www.gsmarena.com/samsung_galaxy_s10-9536.php
| boolemancer wrote:
| I have a phone from 3 years ago with both an IP68 rating and
| a headphone jack. There's zero reason that Apple couldn't do
| the same, they just wanted to convince a lot of people to buy
| $150 headphones.
| BenjiWiebe wrote:
| My Galaxy S5 is IP67, has headphone jack and user
| replaceable battery. 8 years old.
|
| If it was possible then it's possible now.
| nomel wrote:
| IP67 is "up to" 1m. IP68, on the iPhone12, is 6m. That's
| a very significant difference.
| eptcyka wrote:
| S10 had a jack and an IP68 rating.
| [deleted]
| the_third_wave wrote:
| I'm still using a number of Motorola Defy phones from
| 2010-2011 which are IP67+ rated (30 minutes at 1.5m water
| depth). Needless to say they have 3.5mm headphone as well as
| micro-USB connectors. The solution to this problem lies in a
| simple rubber plug which closes the hole when the connector
| is not in use.
|
| Does it work? Well, one of the phones used to be my
| daughter's. She forgot to take it out of her pocket when she
| put her trousers in the washing machine so it ended up going
| through a full wash and spin cycle. It still worked, there
| was no water ingress in the phone itself. The earpiece did
| seem to have gotten damaged so I replaced it (5 new earpieces
| for $2.50 incl. shipping, I still have 4 left...). This phone
| is now used as a media player, running mpd which can be
| remotely controlled from other phones in the network. It
| connects to my jobsite radio (an oversized and overweight
| boombox I made around an old car MP3/CD/Radio with 2x40W
| speakers with bass reflex and a SLA starting helper/power
| pack) using that 3.5mm jack.
| daurnimator wrote:
| My Sony Z3 Compact back in 2014 had IP68 and a headphone
| jack.
| mackrevinack wrote:
| no sony had waterproof headphone jacks a really long time
| ago.
|
| a lot of their phones still have headphone jacks as far as i
| know. seems like they are the only decent company left in
| that regard
| aldebran wrote:
| The only reason they did that is to sell more AirPods. And it
| worked. They're making billions by selling high margin wireless
| earphones.
| mackrevinack wrote:
| there was an obvious trend with other phone manufacturers as
| well. as soon as they made their own brand of wireless
| headphones/earbuds, the headphone jack was removed from their
| phone.
| bee_rider wrote:
| It is so annoying.
|
| I got the dang dongle. Now, I want to listen to a podcast while
| doing to bed. Of course, because cellphone batteries only last
| like 24 hours, I have to charge overnight.
|
| So now I've got some big fancy inductive charger, so I can
| leave my charging port open, to attach a dongle. But hey at
| least Apple saved $1 and got to remove the only non-proprietary
| port on the thing.
| quickthrower2 wrote:
| For me I think it has just reduced my podcast consumption.
| Too much hassle now.
| Gareth321 wrote:
| No no, friend, you just need to buy this additional $35
| accessory. Problem solved!
|
| https://www.apple.com/shop/product/HLJV2ZM/B/belkin-35-mm-
| au...
| bee_rider wrote:
| That might have been an option.
|
| I had some adapters with the plug built in like that, they
| were notably lower quality than the one without the plug,
| but it could be that the ones I got were just some no-name
| junk brand.
| nomel wrote:
| I have an anecdotal possible reason they were motivated: I
| broke four screens due to my wired headphones pulling the phone
| out of my hand/off a surface.
|
| I now use AirPods, and it's, mentally, very different, since my
| head is no longer part of my phone.
| w-ll wrote:
| I've had wired headphones save my phone from a drop
|
| -\\_(tsu)_/-
|
| I also use air pods now and am fairly certain this water
| fountain i walk past daily has a short causing some sort of
| arc that interferes with bluetooth as they always cut out
| walking past it.
| rapind wrote:
| > I've had wired headphones save my phone from a drop
|
| Same, an embarrassingly large number of times actually.
| [deleted]
| wpietri wrote:
| Yeah, for me it's the "additional thing". I have a few
| different pairs of headphones depending on location and
| purpose. They're cheap, effective, and easily replaced if they
| fail. Having another doodad is just not appealing, whether I
| try to keep one on the phone at all times or buy a bunch that I
| add and remove from the headphones depending on what I'm using
| them for.
|
| I've stuck with the Pixel A series precisely because of the
| headphone jack. I'm sad to see that once again Google is trying
| to remove it:
| https://www.theverge.com/2022/5/11/23067702/google-pixel-6a-...
| girvo wrote:
| My solution was to just leave the lighting-to-3.5mm adapter
| attached to my headphones, rather than my phone. But I was
| lucky enough that I had two dongles spare and only two sets
| of wired headphones I cared about. Works well though.
| harha wrote:
| If they at least had USB-C, then you could use it on your
| laptop (or at least try, never sure if any USB-C adaptors
| ever work)
| sdoering wrote:
| They do. At least mine on a MacBook Pro as well as a
| Lenovo Yoga and a Dell XPS 13.
|
| I bought a totally cheap no name one when I got a company
| phone without audio jack. Since then I have used it on
| many different machines as well as (Android) phones. The
| adapter stays with the headphones as I just would loose
| it otherwise.
|
| Edit: Typo
| turtlebits wrote:
| If you need to move around, wired headphones suck. IME,
| interference and latency are non issues with BT. Otherwise, the
| lighting to 3.5mm dongle works perfectly.
|
| At my desk, i do have wired headphones, but they are plugged
| into my TB dock.
| kitsunesoba wrote:
| Yeah, at my desk I use a decent pair of cans (HD6XX or K550
| depending on situation) hooked up to a nice DAC/amp since
| there, cords aren't much of an annoyance. Especially the type
| on larger headphones which is thicker and far less prone to
| tangling.
|
| Away from the desk though? Bluetooth all the way. Even if I'm
| just lounging on my bed bluetooth is better because there's
| no wires for the cat that will most assuredly be in my lap to
| chew.
| dataqat wrote:
| Just out of curiosity, what bluetooth do you use? There is
| no bluetooth options on the market that don't actively
| physically hurt my ears in a way that wired headphones
| never ever have.
| kitsunesoba wrote:
| Prior to the pandemic it was mostly AirPods Pro, but now
| that I spend most of my time at home it's a pair of
| AirPods Max. In the past I've also used a pair of Sony
| WH-1000MX3 which were pretty comfortable.
| Sebb767 wrote:
| > IME, interference and latency are non issues with BT.
|
| Depends on your usecase. Music and Zoom is fine, but for
| competitive gaming I'd always go wired.
| recursive wrote:
| Music might be fine for listening, but it is emphatically
| not fine for playing. It's completely unusable. It's like
| trying to talk while listening yourself 100ms delayed.
| Probably fine for competitive gaming if you're just
| spectating too.
| vonseel wrote:
| While off-topic, somehow Apple has screwed this up in the
| M1 MacBook Air built-in audio hardware too. I wanted some
| monitoring while playing acoustic the other day so I
| opened logic and rather than connect my expensive audio
| interface, I just wanted to use the built-in mic and
| headphone output to monitor myself playing and singing in
| real time. For some reason there was still an audible
| delay even though I wasn't using plugins and had the
| buffer set very low. I'm pretty sure it was in low
| latency mode... you shouldn't have to use an external
| audio interface just to do real time monitoring like that
| such a simple use case.
| recursive wrote:
| I've been under the impression this whole time that you
| need a specialty audio interface if you ever want to do
| near-real-time (<10ms) monitoring or recording. I'd been
| lead to believe years ago that default consumer audio
| hardware just cannot do it.
|
| So did that work prior to M1?
| girvo wrote:
| AptX low latency apparently makes it better (35ms is the
| "guarantee"), but I've honestly not tried it. I'm not going
| to make my 400FPS on a 240hz monitor low latency gaming in
| Valorant worse by going wireless for audio.
|
| Though I do use a wireless mouse (G Pro X Superlight) and
| it's brilliant, though it's wireless adapter is attached to
| a cord that lets me plug it in to keep going if I forgot to
| charge it, so its the best of both worlds.
|
| Really, its only my mouse that I move around enough for
| wireless to be worth it in competitive gaming.
| usednet wrote:
| I played competitive FPS games for years at high ranks
| with a Bluetooth headset before learning of the delay. I
| did not notice. However, for a while I switched to a
| Bluetooth keyboard and until I realized the input delay
| was severely impacting my performance. Wireless mice
| (non-Bluetooth) on the other hand have low enough latency
| that most pros are fine using them.
|
| Some advice for Bluetooth headset gamers - Bluetooth
| completely breaks the audio for some games like
| Battlefield 1. The only solution is to go into device
| manager and disabling Handsfree Telephony on your device.
| reaperducer wrote:
| _I 'm not going to be cheerful about paying an extra $30_
|
| $9. Not $30. If you're going to grind a three-year-old axe, at
| least get your figures right.
|
| https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MMX62AM/A/lightning-to-35...
| wwweston wrote:
| Thank you, I will now discount the economic fraction of my
| not-cheerfulness about dongles by about 70%.
|
| The axe grinding, however, was brought up by Mr Kuhn. This is
| simply one instance of it, and the economic fraction isn't
| even the biggest part.
| samatman wrote:
| I wish I had only bought three of those tiny things...
| finally ended up sugruing one of them to the lav mic.
| _carbyau_ wrote:
| :-) I don't know what a lav mic is. Upon trying to figure
| out what lav meant my mind went to "lavatory".
|
| Google clarifies: Lavalier(aka Lapel) Mics. I know my
| mental model should drop my first jumped to conclusion but
| I find it childishly amusing.
|
| So now I assume you have a lapel microphone specifically
| set up in your toilet for zoom calls that happen to catch
| you out.
| Gigachad wrote:
| It's a mic that clips on to your shirt like the ones news
| reporters use.
| AA-BA-94-2A-56 wrote:
| The "dongle" is apparently a pretty good for the price audio
| DAC. I'm generalising with my lack of knowledge, but a semi-
| decent DAC can improve audio quality and boost volume.
|
| I usually just go wireless, although it has its problems
| especially with Spotify.
|
| But if I decided to go wired, I would have no qualms about
| going wired with the Apple USB-C audio jack dongle.
| gkop wrote:
| Yes and it's under $10, much less than $30. (I think Apple
| subsidizes it)
| moffkalast wrote:
| Honestly if you're paying $600 for a phone, they ought to
| just throw that into the package when you get it.
| eptcyka wrote:
| How would you connect a usb-c dongle to an iPhone?
| frosted-flakes wrote:
| The equivalent Ligtning model.
| javajosh wrote:
| Do you have a reference? I've always assumed the Apple 1/8"
| USB-C dongle was passive.
| joecool1029 wrote:
| It's active. I use them for my android devices. They'll
| also work as a soundcard on any laptop/desktop with usb-c
| ports. Durability sucks but if it lasts 6 months I'm ok
| with picking up a new one from Walmart for $7. Both my
| phones and my IEM's cost around 100x more. When measured
| against that, it's a good value.
|
| There's a quirk that requires a script to uncap the volume
| on Android but it's the best IEM DAC I've heard under $200.
| I don't think they subsidize it. It's just economies of
| scale at work. Here's a Head-Fi review and analysis of it:
| https://www.head-fi.org/showcase/apple-usb-c-to-3-5-mm-
| headp...
|
| Edit: More context on 'fixing' the Android volume capping
| issue for it (quirks are common for devs to add at usb-
| audio driver level in kernel, but this is something
| different with Android's defaults): https://forum.xda-
| developers.com/t/guide-magisk-apple-usb-c-...
| bodge5000 wrote:
| Based off my experiences with my iPad, I'd really like an
| iPhone, but whether its for reasons of practicality or just
| principle at this point I refuse to cave to "just use a dongle"
| or any of that. The few times I've used wireless audio its
| presented me with a load of problems (having to charge
| something Im not used to having to charge, connectivity issues,
| poor audio quality, you know the drill) with the only upside
| being I can move further away from the thing that fits in my
| pocket.
|
| I'm willing to use the equivalent of a dongle with my PC (audio
| interface), but obviously thats a very different use case. I'm
| just glad laptops haven't decided to take the "brave" action
| yet.
| FooHentai wrote:
| Good wireless is expensive, and not maintenance free. This is at
| least true in any business setting. At home, wireless is simply
| fantastic for mobile devices, but wiring in fixed items (PC,
| consoles, TVs) is 100% the way to go.
|
| Also, being conscious of what's in the air space is as crucial as
| the quality of your wireless equipment. It's all for nought if
| your microwave, AV sender, bluetooth headset or crappy 2.4Ghz
| wireless mouse is shitting into the same airspace as your network
| connection.
|
| I say all of this as someone that pushed HARD to switch our
| office from wired to wireless when we moved. Aside from the
| direct cost saving (~200k in wiring alone) the side benefits of
| things like not having to use a crappy 'presentation PC' in each
| meeting room was a complete revolution. You just bring your
| laptop, and it's not even going to shit itself roaming from wired
| to wireless because boom, you were on wireles the entire time
| anyway. Same principle about wiring in fixed items applied
| though, we put fancy ipad meeting room control stuff in, and
| dropped extra on ethernet adapters for them because they're fixed
| devices, wireless is not a good choice for that despite ipads
| being wireless devices primarily.
|
| Lack of visibility is probably the biggest shortcoming for
| enthusiast-level home wireless. I've had good outcomes buying ex-
| business Aruba gear and repurposing it for home use, but it's
| power hungry and you need to know what you're doing to get it off
| the ground. But being able to actually see what's sitting in the
| spectrum and watch the impact of things like turning on the
| microwave for ten seconds is a game changer.
| Night_Thastus wrote:
| I feel the exact opposite. When I was younger, I thought wireless
| anything was terrible. Slow, inefficient, finicky, requiring
| constant charging.
|
| But since then I've realized things have changed. It's incredible
| how much wireless and battery technology have improved in the
| last 10+ years.
|
| If you want to perform at the top level in most games, you _need_
| a wireless mouse. It allows for significantly easier and freer
| movement than a wired mouse, even with a bungee. Charges can last
| for weeks, and due to faster charging can charge in an hour or
| two.
|
| And as my list of equipment and peripherals grows, I find myself
| wishing more of them were wireless so I don't need to deal with
| them getting tangled, needing to re-route them, them being too
| short if I raise a desk up, etc.
|
| However, there are some exceptions:
|
| * Internet. The reliability problem has largely been solved if
| you have decent quality equipment. (I have a Ubiquity Wifi 6
| lite, and it works great) However, the delays are still there,
| and some houses/apartment layouts and materials just aren't
| workable. I think people overall underestimate WiFi though, as
| most setups are very poorly done. The crappy WAP in your comcast
| router/modem/switch/wap combo box is terrible and will never
| perform well no matter what. But a good dedicated setup with WAPs
| spread and placed properly will do amazing.
|
| * IEMs. There are no standards for transferring high-resolution
| uncompressed audio wirelessly right now (BlueTooth cannot do it),
| so the only way to get the best experience is a wired IEM. This
| isn't true for all digital audio transfer, like streaming. That
| can be done wirelessly just fine over wifi. (IE, wirelessly
| sending audio to a Raspberry Pi, when then sends it to a DAC,
| etc)
|
| The moment such a standard exists for IEMs, I will gladly swap
| over. The wires constantly get tangled, are too short, get
| damaged, or rub against things while moving leading to
| undesirable sound coming into the ear.
| panny wrote:
| >June 2020
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23589798
| wodenokoto wrote:
| > Any program on your computer can ask your wireless card to
| enumerate the nearby networks. This causes it to go into "polling
| mode," where it spends less time transmitting data and more time
| listening for routers advertising their network info
|
| Except for the Wi-Fi widget I click on when I want to choose Wi-
| Fi network, what software needs this access? I can think of two
| use cases:
|
| - A Wi-fi diagnostics application.
|
| - Data collection to co-relate Wi-Fi networks and locations.
|
| I don't see why the OS doesn't simply refuse going into to
| polling except for white listed applications, because out of the
| box there is only one application that needs to ask for polling
| (my wi-fi widget) and I don't care if Google Maps wants to geo-
| tag the wifi in my surroundings, so just give it the list from
| the last whitelisted poll. And if I need a Wi-Fi diagnostic tool,
| then I am an advanced enough user to figure out how to white list
| it.
| mod wrote:
| A lot of smart devices create their own local wireless network
| for setup, and manage the process of switching between them.
|
| Pretty valid use case IMO.
| leokennis wrote:
| Counter point:
|
| - I can move houses and just put all my WiFi mesh nodes anywhere
| and I'm online again.
|
| - I can play music from my phone while cooking, and use the phone
| besides my stove to view the recipe simultaneously
|
| - I can browse photos and create a photo book online sitting next
| to my wife on the couch, instead of sitting at an uninspiring
| desk in the working from home room
| magic_hamster wrote:
| Wireless is an added bonus to my router which we mostly use
| wired. It's nice to have for guests and mobile devices.
| grujicd wrote:
| I have another problem with bluetooth - sharing. With a cable you
| always know the device is connected to you and you only. With bt,
| another person's device can overtake your audio even if they
| don't mean to. They were paired once and now simple notification
| sound can take over your bluetooth speaker. These invisible
| connections from multiple devices are hard to track and often
| cause problems.
| bmicraft wrote:
| I don't know what kind of headphones you have but none of mine
| can be "taken over" while music is playing. Most don't do that.
| grujicd wrote:
| Most of my problems are with JBL Charge 4, which I often
| share with friends. Multiple phones get paired and connected
| during a day. Notifications definitely can stop currently
| played music from another phone in this case.
| theshrike79 wrote:
| This is 99% a UI/UX problem, not a bluetooth or wireless issue.
| HWR_14 wrote:
| I find bluetooth sharing to be a feature. I can make my
| headphones enumerate which devices they are connected to. They
| can also connect to both my computer and my phone
| simultaneously, so I can be using the computer audio mostly and
| have my phone override the audio input/output when a call comes
| in.
| a-dub wrote:
| lol. been saying this since 2007.
|
| although wifi works pretty well in professional installs these
| days and bluetooth earbuds were a godsend with masks.
|
| bluetooth connections are still unacceptably flakey though...
| even with top shelf name brand gear.
| pkulak wrote:
| My covid project was wiring my house with Cat-6. Getting wires
| through existing walls is an art form, and pretty rewarding when
| you get a run working! I'm by no means a pro now, but I do own a
| 6-foot drill bit.
| test6554 wrote:
| Hello ladies!
| swah wrote:
| I haven't had problems with Bluetooth in a while - love my TWS
| earbuds, RF mouse, BT mouse and BT/RF keyboard. Those devices
| last for months/years on two AA batteries (other than the
| headphones of course). I will concede that the audio delay
| degrades the call experience a bit.
|
| Wifi on the other hand... I have no idea if its interference or
| the modem. It worked fine for months, then all of sudden my
| connection went to 2Mbps. And my Chromecast can no longer connect
| to it, etc..
| sgtnoodle wrote:
| I ventured under my 120 year old house to make a couple Ethernet
| runs. It took a lot of meditation on my part to bear doing it. On
| one run, I needed my wife to pull on a fish line from above, but
| then she had to feed the baby, and so I watched an episode of
| star trek on my phone for half an hour while wedged between wood
| stilts.
|
| 6 months later, I got a notice that the cable I used was recalled
| for a bad UL rating. Monoprice had to pay a contractor had to
| come out and replace it. When coordinating the work, I warned the
| company that it was a very dirty job that would require two
| people. They sent an older guy out all alone, and he poked around
| for half an hour then left, saying he would come back with PPE
| and a helper. A couple weeks later the same guy came back alone
| and unprepared again. Finally the third time he came back with a
| much younger guy and bunny suits, and they redid the runs.
|
| I had stapled the cables up every couple meters, and followed a
| Manhattan path based on where I could crawl to. they just fished
| it in a straight line, and left it resting in the dirt. They
| presumably billed Monoprice several thousand dollars...
| humpday69 wrote:
| What is a "bunny suit" in this context? The web results make me
| wonder if there was miscommunication about hiring plumbers for
| a "very dirty job" if you know what I mean.
| can16358p wrote:
| Now having read this comment, I can't think of anything _non-
| dirty_.
| mintplant wrote:
| Something like this: https://www.nciclean.com/disposable-
| bunny-suits.html
|
| (For reference, I searched "bunny suit ppe" to find an
| example.)
| sgtnoodle wrote:
| Oh, and they left the box of recalled cable that I hadn't
| installed yet, so I have like 400ft of free but uninstallable
| CAT6.
| HWR_14 wrote:
| Free but uninstallable CAT6 has some uses. I've seen quite a
| few street artists use the thin copper wires to make art,
| usually jewelry. But with 400 ft, I could see some art or
| construction projects that make use of it as a physical not
| electrical product.
| sgtnoodle wrote:
| It would be perfectly safe to run in a conduit or to bury.
| It's just not rated to run between floors, but was stamped
| saying it was. My home is single story, and I mentioned
| that during the recall process, but the process was rather
| rigid...
| HWR_14 wrote:
| What does "the process was rather rigid" mean? Couldn't
| you just decline? (Although maybe it wasn't even safe for
| your use.) But then, I don't even understand why it would
| be safe to run _except_ between floors.
|
| Also, did you try pushing back on the replacement
| worker's work? It's a bitch to do, but I've gotten
| companies to either redo their handyman's bad work or
| just let me choose a vendor (which I would ask for after
| the 2nd time he showed up.) Stapled Manhattan distance
| wiring is not the same as diagonal through the dirt.
| can16358p wrote:
| Wireless (and LTE hotspots) gives me freedom to get my laptop and
| work with wherever I like with my laptop.
|
| I don't need cabled connections of any kind 99.9% of the time,
| Wi-Fi, Bluetooth headset, and my laptop "just work". Any
| stability and performance gain from using a wired setup is
| negligible in daily life (apart from very specific tasks) and
| convenience of wireless is far outweighing any gains of wires.
|
| Been this way for many years with zero issues.
|
| So yeah, I like this "trap".
| nonrandomstring wrote:
| Three notable things in this article are:
|
| 1) wireless degrades by degree and is hard to debug
|
| 2) it fails silently or just in non-obvious ways
|
| 3) people generally have no idea how good it is supposed to work,
| until they experience it working properly
|
| I think there are many things, in life generally, but especially
| in tech, where these qualities conspire to give people a rotten
| time.
|
| People will complain when things fail, or take action. "Graceful
| degradation" seems like a feature, but it can keep you on a
| slippery slope of increasing tolerance toward ever worse
| performance.
|
| The complexity, and fuzzy "connection to everything" means that
| no one has to take responsibility. Maybe it's your neighbour? Or
| the trees? Or the alignment of Venus and swamp gas on a full
| moon?
|
| Unless you have a full spectrum RF field meter and other very
| expensive test gear microwaves are "black magic" to even great
| engineers.
|
| I'm sure when Apple met to discuss remotely degrading iPhone
| performance the words "They'll never notice" were spoken.
| Companies that sell complex services and oversell resources love
| this combo of fuzzy, hard to measure, diffuse, naturally erratic
| behaviour, broad tolerance, mixed with vague customer
| expectations.
|
| They prevent you from knowing, and comparing, what you should be
| getting, and what you are getting.
|
| Many recent development directions, 5G, secure enclaves,
| encrypted updates and exfiltration (telemetry), are set to
| increase the "random magic factor" and make gear even more
| precarious and mysterious to the end user.
| er4hn wrote:
| I think your posting of this comment may have had a "graceful
| degradation" for an improved user experience. Unfortunately it
| has appeared twice with people commenting different things on
| each thread ;)
|
| edit: disregard this, I don't see the other thread anymore.
| Maybe I was the one experiencing magic fuzz factors.
| nonrandomstring wrote:
| I blame bad wifi. :)
| Nextgrid wrote:
| > Unless you have a full spectrum RF field meter and other very
| expensive test gear
|
| You actually have that, at least for the frequency range that
| matters: the wireless hardware in your computer.
|
| Your wireless card absolutely knows how good/bad the RF
| environment is - it wouldn't work without it. The problem is
| that none of this information is exposed to the user.
|
| The Wi-Fi "signal strength" meter is consistently useless on
| basically every device I've tried. In fact, I wonder what would
| it take to actually make it go down, since it's happy sitting
| at max level even if you can't get a single packet through. I
| guess it must be measuring RSSI, when the one that matters to
| the user is "how many packets am I actually missing" which can
| be obtained by keeping stats on TCP flows or pinging the
| default gateway.
| mypalmike wrote:
| "I'm sure when Apple met to discuss remotely degrading iPhone
| performance the words "They'll never notice" were spoken.
| Companies that sell complex services and oversell resources
| love this combo of fuzzy, hard to measure, diffuse, naturally
| erratic behaviour, broad tolerance, mixed with vague customer
| expectations."
|
| I suspect Apple would prefer their products to be reliable
| rather than erratic.
| nonrandomstring wrote:
| They quite deliberately decided to make them degraded (to
| prolong battery life). And they were fined for it [1]. Nobody
| mentioned erratic in that case.
|
| [1] https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-51413724
| ChadNauseam wrote:
| True, although longer battery life makes a battery-powered
| device more reliable too
| jolux wrote:
| Not just to prolong battery life, to prevent the device
| from overdrawing the battery and shutting down when it
| couldn't provide the same peak current as it could when
| new.
| schwartzworld wrote:
| Other possible solutions could include: making batteries
| easy to replace.
| dijit wrote:
| Not disagreeing.
|
| This was likely a compromise from that design decision.
|
| Since the slowdown was based on battery health and not
| absolute age of the device it was (and is) still possible
| to replace the battery.
|
| But "the market" (ugh) seems to have decided that it
| wants phones with integrated batteries, and touch
| screens, and no physical keyboard, that are too big to
| use with one hand.
|
| So that's all we get.
|
| Unless it's extremely niche.
| [deleted]
| jolux wrote:
| See, the alternative to what Apple did is having phones that
| randomly shut down at peak load. I have had this happen to me
| on a degraded battery in a cold Rochester winter. It's not fun!
| It means I can't even trust my phone to be a phone anymore. I
| think that is more of a "random magic factor" than things
| getting slower.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| The right solution would be to degrade performance and _tell
| the user_ about it, not do so silently.
| jolux wrote:
| I agree. They should have told the user to replace the
| battery.
| doommius wrote:
| Yup. Also just mostly wireless equipment is super low quality.
| It's easy to see this when living downtown in any larger city.
| You'll easily be competing with 100s of other APs for the 2.4 ghz
| wireless band. With tbr 5 and 6 ghz this is getting better but
| there still isn't nearly enough channels.
| nl wrote:
| This "managed cables on my desk" is reason enough to stick with
| wireless.
| Duologic wrote:
| I can really recommend cable sleeves/tubes, I use these on my
| desk: https://www.amazon.com/Alex-Tech-10ft-Protector-
| Sleeving/dp/...
| cjohnson318 wrote:
| Great suggestion. Q: Do these vacuum well? Or should I just
| replace them every couple of years?
| Duologic wrote:
| I've bought them 2 years ago including a few spares, haven't
| replaced them since (not sure what 'vacuum' means in this
| context).
| aheilbut wrote:
| I just have a 50ft ethernet cable running across the floor.. 3
| years and I haven't yet tripped.
| 2143 wrote:
| > For instance, on my Mac's built-in bluetooth, my mouse (a
| Logitech MX Master) displayed noticeable jank--stopping, then
| jumping, instead of moving smoothly.
|
| Anecdata. On my Mac the MX Master 3 works flawlessly via
| Bluetooth. However, it has janks when I use it on my recently
| purchased ThinkPad running Linux.
|
| > Similarly, when connected to Mac bluetooth, my Jabra Evolve 75
| headset would frequently have the mic or sound drop. It (mostly)
| worked fine on its own dongle.
|
| Again, all my bluetooth headphones work fine on my Mac, but on
| some (not all) of my Linux computers it sometimes work and
| sometimes doesn't. I don't know if it's Linux or the hardware.
|
| Also, on the aforementioned ThinkPad, when I connect a new device
| via bluetooth the wifi disconnects and immediately reconnects 40%
| of the time. Don't know what's up with that.
|
| I've been using Linux long enough to take things like these in
| its stride :)
|
| (Btw, it was after I was issued a Mac by my employer that I
| started using Bluetooth devices regularly; before that in Linux
| it was mouse via IR-usb-thing, wired headphones etc.)
|
| I agree with the general sentiment that wired devices are
| inherently more reliable. But I don't know if we should
| collectively move towards wired, or improve the reliability of
| wireless.
| notfed wrote:
| > Again, all my bluetooth headphones work fine on my Mac, but
| on some (not all) of my Linux computers it sometimes work and
| sometimes doesn't.
|
| The issue I'm currently dealing with is that my Bluetooth ZMK
| keyboard works flawlessly on Linux but won't pair with a Mac. I
| guess devices are nuanced.
| [deleted]
| rkangel wrote:
| I work the "Wireless and Digital Systems" division of my company.
| Nobody distrusts wireless products like wireless engineers.
|
| That said, I adore wireless headphones and would never go back.
| Whether it's my earbuds to listen to podcasts while doing the
| washing up, or my BT headset that I use during the day for work.
| My BT headset (a Bose noise cancelling one) is definitely the
| most frequent cause of call issues (now that I've fixed a
| motherboard problem causing wifi dropouts), but it's still worth
| it to be able to move around, still hear what's going on in the
| call while I get a drink etc.again).
| test6554 wrote:
| Wireless is great enhancement as long as you can fall back to a
| wired connection
| mc4ndr3 wrote:
| So use a landline phone.
|
| Work at a desktop computer.
|
| Listen to CD's, not broadcast radio.
|
| Never use GPS.
|
| Never use WiFi.
|
| Never use RFID.
|
| Never use Find my iPhone to recover devices.
|
| Never use automotive remotes.
|
| Never use TV remotes.
|
| Never explore outer space.
|
| Never explore underwater.
|
| All must be wires.
|
| Because wireless is a trap.
| test6554 wrote:
| Should I tether myself to he house when I go out to check the
| mail or just never go outside.
| alkonaut wrote:
| Wi-Fi used to be bad around the 802.11b era. After 802.11n I
| barely even see a need to upgrade. A cheap consumer router easily
| covers my 2-floor house with a half dozen clients without any
| dead spots.
|
| I imagine concrete houses or congestion might be different but I
| can't even find a reason to get a mesh system in my house.
|
| Wireless mice and keyboards also work great. I use them even for
| gaming where many swear by wired.
|
| You can't hide a mouse cable thing like you can hide an internet
| cable. It's literally on your desk no matter what you do, so the
| upside of wireless there beats the downside. Same with wired
| internet to a smartphone...
|
| I still don't trust BT audio though.
| roeles wrote:
| > You might think this could be solved by having routers
| automatically figure out the least interference-prone channel to
| use, but many of them seem to be quite bad at this.
|
| Partly because of the physics involved. The AP can't magically
| sense the best channel for the clients, since it can't sense the
| spectrum at the client's.
| modeless wrote:
| USB-C hubs or monitors with power delivery make this really easy
| these days. One cable gets you everything. Power, display(s),
| mouse/keyboard, Ethernet, and any other peripherals you need.
| It's absolutely worth getting a USB Ethernet adapter. They work
| way better than WiFi.
|
| A wireless mouse is still worth it though. Logitech G305 is
| essentially perfect IMO. Extremely reliable, extremely low
| latency, months of battery life, reasonable price.
| davidelettieri wrote:
| I have MX Keys and MX Master 3 and couldn't be happier.
| Bluetooth works with dongle and with integrated usb.
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| I have a wireless gaming mouse. It's never been anything but
| completely reliable. The dongle is integrated into the charging
| dock, which sits about two feet from the mouse.
|
| I've never heard a single person complain about a wireless
| mouse. The author is just a crank.
|
| I would advise people to not get a Logitech mouse, however.
| Their button switches are poorly made and fail much sooner than
| any other manufacturer.
| betwixthewires wrote:
| What makes a wireless mouse worth it?
|
| Also from what I've read, usb-c has a lot of interoperability
| problems because the connector is a different standard than all
| the different communications standards that it can be used
| with.
| smilekzs wrote:
| My biggest gripe with wired mice is that the wire never seem
| to cooperate --- it would drag on the table, be too stiff,
| tangle, etc. Plus, latency for at least the dongled mice (not
| the bluetooth ones) is low enough for me to notice.
| Pxtl wrote:
| Yeah, I still use a desktop with wired everything except headset.
| I need my wireless headset, I pace in long meetings.
| eafkuor wrote:
| > That means that if I'm chatting with a friend in New York, the
| audio data will take about 50ms to get from them to my computer,
| and, say, 200ms--4x as long--to get from my computer to my ears.
| Since high latency ruins the natural flow of conversations, I'd
| like to eliminate as much of it as I can.
|
| For whatever reason this isn't a problem for me. I work with a
| laptop connected to my WiFi, use bluetooth headphones, and have
| 2-3h of meetings per day. Not a problem whatsoever.
| [deleted]
| test6554 wrote:
| I built my house with this guy's new mindset. There's 2 Ethernet
| jacks in every room. Even the closets, bathrooms, and garage. I
| have 3 wifi routers with matching SSIDs as well, because we're
| not animals... but everything can be wired if I want it to be.
|
| Also, this guy's "cable management", haha.
| causality0 wrote:
| I ran a sixty foot HDMI cable and a powered USB extension cable
| through my crawlspace from my office desktop to my living room
| television. Relaxing on the couch is so much better than sitting
| at a desk.
| jrockway wrote:
| Yeah, I've never really seen the appeal. Wires are just so
| reliable. I am always in meetings with "sorry, my headphones
| died, can you repeat that" or people mysteriously vanishing
| because their laptop can't charge as fast as Zoom draws power and
| their computer just dies. I have a wired mic, headphones, and
| power, and it just never breaks.
|
| Wireless is just temporary, if you have wireless headphones, you
| have to plug in a wire to charge them. If your computer has a
| battery built in, you have to plug it in every day to charge. So
| it's just an extra chore that makes your life worse. Not that
| exciting.
|
| Maybe everyone fantasizes about being a digital nomad. I do not.
| I have a great desk, chair, keyboard, and 3 monitors. I couldn't
| work without them. If I want to see the world, I'll go do that
| without bringing my computer. A vacation with your computer is
| just work.
|
| A question I'm asked is "what if there's a power outage" but we
| have had about 10 total minutes of power outage here in Brooklyn
| in the 10 years I've lived here (during Hurricane Sandy). My
| thought is I just won't do any work if there isn't any power. We
| waste an hour a day dealing with wireless not working, 10 minutes
| every 10 years is no big deal. ("But what if it's the big one!?"
| Then my ISP's backup batteries will also be drained and I still
| can't work.)
| mewse wrote:
| > people mysteriously vanishing because their laptop can't
| charge as fast as Zoom draws power and their computer just dies
|
| This doesn't seem to have anything to do with your "wires are
| more reliable" thesis, does it? A laptop with onboard devices
| drawing wall/battery power would be drawing _more_ power than
| if those devices each have their own separate batteries, right?
| CrazyStat wrote:
| >A laptop with onboard devices drawing wall/battery power
| would be drawing more power than if those devices each have
| their own separate batteries, right?
|
| Not necessarily, because the laptop has to do additional work
| transmitting Bluetooth/whatever for the wireless devices. In
| any case, his thesis appears to include preferring a
| permanently wired desktop computer to a laptop, as well as
| preferring wired peripherals to wireless.
|
| Personally I use mostly wired peripherals, but I am a sucker
| for a wireless headset. Being able to stay on a call while I
| walk over to the other side of the room to grab something is
| a great freedom, and plugging the headset in at night is not
| a big deal.
| theshrike79 wrote:
| The "additional work" required to transmit a Bluetooth
| signal is insignificant compared to the amount of power
| needed just for the display being on.
|
| My current setup is two USB-C laptops, one for work, one
| for personal use. When I switch from work mode to My Time
| Mode, I just swap one USB-C cable from one to the other -
| all the peripherals follow. Trackpad is wired, keyboard is
| wired. Headphones wireless - I broke way too many wired
| headphones by snagging them on crap while moving around.
| CrazyStat wrote:
| > The "additional work" required to transmit a Bluetooth
| signal is insignificant compared to the amount of power
| needed just for the display being on.
|
| The relevant comparison would be the power required to
| transmit and receive Bluetooth vs the power required to
| power a wired peripheral (e.g. mouse, keyboard,
| headphones) where the wireless version would have its own
| batteries.
| maccard wrote:
| > I am a sucker for a wireless headset. Being able to stay
| on a call while I walk over to the other side of the room
| to grab something is a great freedom, and plugging the
| headset in at night is not a big deal.
|
| Agreed. My last job had a bi monthly all hands meeting at
| 4pm on a Thursday, I used to just stick my headphones on
| and make dinner during it.
| ziml77 wrote:
| Wireless headsets are something I understand because I'm
| someone who never wants to go back to wired headsets. I always
| hated being tethered to my device by my head. And when they
| were off my head I would always end up snagging on the cord in
| some way and pulling them to the floor. And I am often in calls
| with people where I want to get up and grab something or even
| do something else. It's very nice to be able to just stand up
| and walk away from my PC while still being able to hear and
| talk.
|
| The fact that they need to be charged doesn't matter. My
| current ones have a swappable battery with the battery that's
| not in use able to be charged by slotting it into the wireless
| reciever that sits on the desk. But there's also newer wireless
| headsets that have 30-40 hours of battery life. So you only
| need to plug them in overnight (or every few days depending on
| usage).
| mbeex wrote:
| > Wireless headsets are something I understand because I'm
| someone who never wants to go back to wired headsets.
|
| That's also true for me. Ultimately, I think it's a matter of
| using good judgment. All my major devices - even laptops -
| run on cables by default, tablets/phones wireless of course.
| For keyboards and mouses (OK, not WiFi in a strict sense) it
| depends.
| RajT88 wrote:
| Crimping ethernet is a mandatory tech skill for every geeky
| homeowner. It's not that hard, but there's a few things it
| takes a while to figure out are really important. Once you do
| that, you can do it really consistently.
|
| Wireless is nice and all. Powerline ethernet is great when it
| works out of the box, and a Kafkaesque nightmare when it does
| not.
| toast0 wrote:
| You don't even need to crimp unless you really want to.
| Everything should go to punchdown blocks, either on the room
| jacks or a patch panel. Crimping is for the patch cables, if
| you can find manufactures cables for less, no need to make
| your own.
| RajT88 wrote:
| I guess I included punchdowns in that. Both punchdowns and
| crimping have subtle things to do which are important to
| make it consistent.
| vonseel wrote:
| I suspect the biggest barrier to most homeowners running
| Ethernet besides not knowing that it's not that difficult is
| insulated walls. Running some cables through walls without
| insulation to the attic and making some drops is not problem,
| but if you have insulation in the way the job is a lot more
| difficult.
| RajT88 wrote:
| I do acknowledge that there are many small (big) barriers.
|
| I am on my second home, the first was a condo where I had
| no access to the "above" or the "below", only the "within".
|
| Phone lines had been run, so I thought I could attach Cat5
| to the phone lines and pull them through -- but the
| previous owner had decided to wall up the phone jacks. No
| idea where they were, and no access to the "above" part.
|
| Let's just say - I tried a lot of things to figure out
| where the walled up phone lines were, but never could get
| to the level of confidence you would want before you start
| knocking random holes in the wall in a property you own.
|
| Powerline Ethernet was a godsend - for a while. Then one
| day (7ish years) it started struggling, and eventually
| couldn't stay connected. To untangle that was going to be
| hundreds of dollars of hardware and research and/or
| contractors (side note: have you tried asking an
| electrician to assess Powerline Ethernet issues?) -- I went
| wireless at that point.
|
| New house maybe a year back after getting married (yay!).
| Ran ethernet. Used these guys:
|
| https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00404UATS
|
| Yeah, I drilled some holes in the wood floor. I am not that
| rich, nor is my neighborhood, it's a non-issue. Game
| consoles, NAS devices and work computers have ethernet.
| Everything else less hungry (or important) like a tablet or
| mobile has wireless. Life is good.
| ajmurmann wrote:
| I absolutely love the idea of working for a month from one
| place and a month from another. But the problems you call out
| are very real and I'm honestly shocked that nobody had solved
| them to take advantage of the fact that relatively wealthy
| techies can now work from everywhere. Airbnbs will advertise
| Wi-Fi and maybe a tiny desk with a kitchen chair. I'd pay a
| premium for a place with Ethernet, a real desk, a real desk
| chair and a proper, external screen. I worked for a few weeks
| from my parent's house in Germany, but even that required need
| to ship them a long Ethernet cable, a screen and keyboard ahead
| of time. I don't want to buy all this every time I want to work
| a few weeks remotely.
| 112233 wrote:
| > Wires are just so reliable.
|
| Not in my experience. Ethernet cables have bern reliable, but
| most have connector latches that self destruct.
|
| HDMI cables are a lottery, and the prize is in no way related
| to the ticket price.
|
| mini/micro USB connectors go out in about year, depending on
| use.
|
| All 3.5 mm audio cables seem to have half-life of around 4
| months, regardless of price. The only survivour cable came as
| an extension with old Sennheiser earbuds.
|
| In comparison, I have yet to experience those bad bluetooth
| earbuds just stopping to work.
|
| [edit] not to mention all the equipment with soldered-in cables
| that are either too long or too short and cannot be replaced.
| Hi, homepod mini!
| kuschku wrote:
| I've got ethernet cables that I've been using since 2011
| without them breaking. My headphones are in fact from 2008,
| all I've got to do is replace the leather pads every 5 years.
|
| I'm still using the USB-C cables from my Nexus 5X today, no
| problem with them.
|
| With HDMI cables I just buy them, connect them to my GPU and
| wait for the AMD driver to tell me the maximum bandwidth they
| support. Super easy way to measure what they'll support and
| what not. So now I've got a dozen that work at 4K 60Hz HDR
| just fine.
|
| On the other hand, I've never been able to get a single
| bluetooth device to sync reliably for more than 5 minutes.
| 112233 wrote:
| > I've got ethernet cables that I've been using since 2011
| without them breaking.
|
| Me too. My problem is going to store and finding such
| cables, that will last 10 years.
|
| > My headphones are in fact from 2008
|
| That reminds me. When I was complaining about 3.5 mm cables
| in one music store, how my only good cable is from
| earphones I bought ~20 years ago, the store person went,
| like, "of course it won't break if it was made back then!
| why do you expect to buy something like that now, they
| ain't now making any"
| maccard wrote:
| > On the other hand, I've never been able to get a single
| bluetooth device to sync reliably for more than 5 minutes.
|
| That sounds pretty unbelievable to me - even the cheapest
| crappiest Bluetooth devices can pair with the cheapest
| crappiest USB Bluetooth adapter reliably for more than 5
| minute's.
|
| Headphones snag, the jacks get wobbly, theyre fixed lengths
| (standing desks mean they need to be long enough to move
| now so they're messy unless you do a bunch of extra work).
| Ive got problems with interference with my wired mouse that
| seems to cause stuttering if I use a specific usb port, but
| maybe once every 2-3 weeks or so the port I do use just
| doesn't recognize the device so I have to un plug it and
| plug it back in. Bluetooth may not be perfect but it's
| tidy, easy to use, well supported, reasonably reliable, and
| good enough quality for 98% of my use cases.
| kuschku wrote:
| I'm not sure what's causing it, but I just can't get a
| DualShock 4 to sync reliably. Or the WH1000MX3 from my
| partner. And with the Jabra headphones I had for work, I
| always had to use their dongle because it would never
| sync reliably.
|
| I'm intentionally already using https://ark.intel.com/con
| tent/www/de/de/ark/products/189347/... as WiFi/Bluetooth
| card on all my computers, but I still can't get anything
| to sync reliably.
|
| In the end I just gave up and now I use the dualshock 4
| with cables. And for headphones, I'll continue using my
| wired sennheisers from 2008 (I checked and updated the
| year in the previous post as well).
|
| The Dualshock 4 gets about a minute at best before I get
| suddenly random input from it and it stops working.
| That's with a genuine Sony DS4, second version.
|
| I actually still use wireless mice, but only the ones
| with custom dongles.
| gmueckl wrote:
| This post makes me wonder what I do differently. I've some
| cables wired up here that are easily 5+ years old and I've
| had micro USB charging ports survive daily plug/unplug cycles
| for 4 years. My number one cause for cable-related
| malfunction is when I don't plug something in correctly.
|
| I think the mouse that feasted on cable insulation in my
| backpack may actually have made it to second place. That's an
| entirely different story...
| can16358p wrote:
| I like spending time around my house, sometimes in garden,
| sometimes around a coffee shop, some work/some socializing/free
| time.
|
| This can't be possible (at least practically) with a wired
| setup. I've almost never ran out of battery on my laptop or
| headphones and never have issues with Wi-Fi (worst case I have
| wireless hotspot on phone anyway).
|
| I don't see any problem with a wireless setup other than
| convenience, where the extra capacity/reliability of wires
| isn't needed 99.9% of the time anyway.
| varajelle wrote:
| It's not all black and white. Wireless sure has its uses.
|
| > I don't see any problem with a wireless
|
| One of the problem explained in the article is that you may
| not realize the problems.
|
| ---
|
| So the idea would be to use wires by default (when sitting at
| your desk), and switch to wireless when you want mobility.
| can16358p wrote:
| I know the potential "problems" in the article but I've
| never encountered them.
|
| Literally never.
|
| I'm actually quite surprised that people still have
| problems with wireless devices in this age.
|
| Even if I had a desk, I'd probably only plug my laptop to
| prevent battery cycles (and to keep ready for when I wanted
| to move) but would never bother with Ethernet, or a wired
| mouse, or headphone jack for example. Any additional
| latency/performance problem is imperceivable for daily
| tasks (unless I am a professional esports gamer or trying
| to download a huge blob over a gigabit connection as fast
| as possible, which is probably not 99.9% of people do).
| xeyownt wrote:
| Strange analysis.
|
| You basically say that you don't care about
| latency/performance loss, but are surprised that people
| still have problems. Maybe because these persons do care?
| can16358p wrote:
| While downloading/uploading something there will be no
| practical difference between Wi-Fi and Ethernet unless
| you are on a superfast Gigabit fiber.
|
| While on a Zoom meeting the latency introduced by
| Bluetooth, while slightly perceivable, isn't of an issue
| over the latency of being connected over the web itself.
|
| Any wireless system would have more or less be less
| performant than a wired equivalent. What I'm saying is
| that for 99% of the people in 99% of daily use cases,
| that difference wouldn't matter.
| mintyten wrote:
| I have about a 300 Mbps connection with my ISP. The
| gateway/AP provided by the ISP is located on the second
| floor of the house. On the first floor, the connection is
| degraded to the point streaming will occasionally
| stutter.
|
| On the second floor the difference in speed tests going
| through cable vs 10 ft. away through one thin wall on my
| gaming pc is 250 Mbps -> 24 Mbps. There can absolutely be
| a practical difference in daily use.
|
| Most people do not have multiple APs, most people are not
| getting APs other than what is provided by the ISP.
| can16358p wrote:
| Multi stories have that problem (probably because of the
| shape of antennas designed), it can be easily solved by a
| gigabit ethernet cable and another AP.
|
| While definitely not ideal, it's a solve-once-and-forget
| problem.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| Well the problem is your access point, not a vague
| 'wireless'. I can max out my internet connection through
| a couple walls. And while I had to get my own AP, I would
| have had to get my own cable if I wasn't doing wireless.
| They didn't include any that can reach between rooms.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| You misread. They specifically don't care about
| _imperceivable_ problems.
| turtlebits wrote:
| The ability to not be tethered to your computer desk/office is
| a big one reason to use a laptop. Your computer isn't just for
| doing work.
|
| I think a good balance is a laptop with a single wire to
| USB-C/Thunderbolt dock, with external monitors and wired
| peripherals, ethernet.
|
| If you move around, wired headphones are a PITA, Airpods have
| pretty much solved wireless audio for me (especially consistent
| device switching).
| throwawayboise wrote:
| I don't have too many issues with WiFi, but my house is sort of
| isolated. I don't have much if any interference from neighbors.
| If I lived in an apartment complex with 10 or more different
| WiFi networks in the same airspace it might be different.
|
| Bluetooth on the other hand is an absolute no-go. I have had
| uniformly bad experiences with it, and refuse to use any device
| that depends on a bluetooth connection.
| Gigachad wrote:
| I live in a high rise and it still isn't an issue. The floors
| and walls block out almost all wireless signals. I can see a
| handful of networks but they are all on 1 bar strength. On
| speed tests I can reasonably get 600mbps on wifi.
| bbarnett wrote:
| I think your building was in the original ghostbusters
| movie.
| Gigachad wrote:
| Maybe.. interestingly I was sitting on the balcony and
| noticed the video call cutting out. Did a speed test,
| 6Mbps, I open up the glass sliding door and suddenly it's
| full speed again. Kinda shocked a pane of glass was
| enough to completely cripple wifi.
| gonzo wrote:
| (Metallic) tint.
| Gigachad wrote:
| Interesting. I think you are right. That would explain
| why buildings look a lot like walls of mirrors.
| AussieWog93 wrote:
| >I am always in meetings with "sorry, my headphones died, can
| you repeat that" or people mysteriously vanishing because their
| laptop can't charge as fast as Zoom draws power and their
| computer just dies.
|
| You're missing the point. Wireless technology failing is a
| fantastic excuse to get out of Zoom meetings!
| [deleted]
| recursive wrote:
| For me the appeal is that I don't need to figure out how to run
| wires all over my house, or have them stapled to the walls or
| something. Wifi works well enough that I would never get to a
| net positive after considering the ethernet wrangling project
| inconvenience.
| Gigachad wrote:
| Wireless makes cleaning and vacuuming so much easier. Also
| means I can walk around while in calls. And it just works
| well enough that the times it doesn't are more than made up
| for the times it does work.
| vonseel wrote:
| WiFi is fine for most consumers, it's only really a problem
| if you have a big enough of a house to need multiple APs with
| wired backhaul, but the cabling isn't there so you go with
| wireless backhaul / meshing. Wired backhaul always works
| better in my experience.
| recursive wrote:
| If my house were that big, I would seriously consider only
| having connectivity in half the house. But fortunately (?)
| that's a first world problem I don't have.
| notacoward wrote:
| Reliable, yes. Easy to implement? Not necessarily. If you don't
| own the property, you might not be _allowed_ to run your own
| wires. Even if you do own it, some houses make it more
| difficult /expensive than others to run wires everywhere they
| need to be (e.g. consider formerly-external walls full of
| obstructions in an older house). Let's not make the classic HN
| mistake of assuming everyone's overpaid, able/willing to pay
| for the privilege of owning the right kind of property. My
| family does pretty well with a combination of Ethernet, G.hn
| powerline, and wireless. Then again, we don't subscribe to the
| Apple groupthink either so MacOS's misbehavior is not an issue
| for us.
| olyjohn wrote:
| Please. It's not a privilege to run Ethernet any more than
| having Internet and a laptop is a privilege. A spool is like
| $100, and you don't need to drill gigantic holes and run 60
| wires back to a central drop to a 10 gig switch. I have run
| Ethernet cables in all my rentals (even when I was working
| minimum wage), usually only need 1 or 2 at the most. It's not
| rocket science either. You can go around the outside of your
| house, just like how a cable TV or phone installer will do
| it.
|
| Landlords never notice or care. Just don't make it look
| shitty, they will just think it's a phone jack anyways.
| RajT88 wrote:
| > A spool is like $100
|
| For the good stuff! Half or less for the last gen 5e. This
| is Menard's retail pricing too.
| notacoward wrote:
| So, your argument is that you casually violated your rental
| agreements? And you don't see how that reeks of
| entitlement? It might play well to this particular
| audience, but people who are less technical and less
| libertarian than the average HNer might find it less
| convincing.
| theshrike79 wrote:
| I you're really paranoid you can use that fancy 3M tape
| that pulls off cleanly to install some clean cord
| covers[0] wherever you want. Most come with their own
| adhesive, that might leave some marks, but it'll come off
| with a slight scrub.
|
| When you move, just remove them and install them in the
| next place - or have a chat with your landlord and leave
| them for the next tenant.
|
| [0] https://www.amazon.com/s?k=cord+cover
| jethro_tell wrote:
| idk, man, I rented for 15 years and just used thumb tacks
| to hold the cable in the corner of the ceiling, wall,
| floor/wall to push them around to where I needed to be.
| The hole that levees is quit difficult to see, you just
| pull the pins and coil the cable and walk away. Renters
| have been doing stuff like that with cable before
| internet too. Living in an apartment means you probably
| can't/don't want to run cables in the walls for someone
| else, but people have been running cables around
| apartments for years because you just have to do your
| thing.
|
| I still find wired Ethernet to be a better experience all
| around though I do have a pretty decent wireless setup
| and I do roam quite a bit as well.
| Chris2048 wrote:
| He didn't say he violated rental agreements, in fact he
| explicitly said the landlord doesn't care. It seems it's
| _you_ who has a chip on your shoulder about HN that you
| have to cram entitlement into the situation.
| notacoward wrote:
| You say chip on the shoulder. I say low tolerance for
| entirely predictable BS.
|
| When I was poorer, even the "minor" cost of cables would
| have meant even more missed meals. (Fortunately that
| wasn't an issue because residential internet wasn't a
| thing back then, but you get the idea.) Losing a security
| deposit would have been an absolute disaster. I went to
| court twice to avoid exactly that, and could well have
| ended up homeless had I not prevailed. Not every landlord
| is forgiving, and not everyone has the option to
| prioritize freedom to make modifications over things like
| location, price, square footage, etc. Being able to shrug
| off costs and risks that loom larger for others is
| practically the definition of privilege.
|
| Even among the more affluent, not everyone would put up
| with visible wires in every room and on every side of the
| exterior, _or_ with the effort /expense of "doing it
| right" by fishing through walls with multiple
| obstructions. They might well prefer the tradeoffs
| represented by wireless, even if it's not perfect. Do you
| use landline phones because you never have to worry about
| being in a dead zone? Different people, different
| choices. That's all I'm saying, but somehow people who
| _can 't conceptualize_ that other people aren't exactly
| like them think that any choice other than their own
| deserves an inquisition.
| nso95 wrote:
| >We waste an hour a day dealing with wireless not working
|
| seems unlikely
| chazeon wrote:
| I agree very much with what Ben have said. In my experience, I
| elect to use my once Bluetooth noice-cancelling overhead phone
| with a 3.5mm cable plugged, and voice from webcam. Life with Zoom
| are much improved than using it as wireless headset.
| zzo38computer wrote:
| I prefer all wired connections. Many things are wireless but I
| use wired as much as possible. I have a wired internet
| connection, keyboard, mouse, display, telephone, etc. We can
| clearly know what it is connected to without needing
| configuration, there is less wireless interference, spying, etc.
|
| The radio is wireless, but that is public broadcast and is not a
| connection to a specific device. Sometimes it is unreliable, but
| that is not much of a problem in this case.
| cjohnson318 wrote:
| There's a tradeoff with wired headphones. Sometimes they act like
| their own antenna, and if you live in an area with _very_ poor
| reception, then that becomes a huge problem. In that scenario,
| bluetooth earbuds are actually preferable, until they run out of
| battery mid-call.
| salawat wrote:
| That would be a problem... Why? You're wired.
| BenjiWiebe wrote:
| Not saying this is impossible, but it doesn't make sense to me.
|
| The phone antenna isn't a straight piece of wire entwined with
| your cable (probably not even parallel with it), and your cable
| isn't connected to the antenna port.
|
| How would the cable block the signal?
| betwixthewires wrote:
| So they do share ground, which is where the interference
| comes from. You might find sometimes even stereo sound
| speakers pick up a ticking noise right when you receive a
| phone call. This is pretty common with speaker systems, wired
| headphones being a type of speaker system.
|
| Also, a lot of SoCs with FM antennas use the 3.5mm ground as
| the antenna, so they are wired into the SoC in such a way
| that they can receive undesired interference.
| cyral wrote:
| Maybe they mean the noise you can hear from the phone as it
| communicates. I wonder if it is more pronounced when
| reception is bad as it searches for other towers? I had wired
| headphones + mic with an amplifier for a while and if I put
| my phone anywhere near it you'd hear the classic GSM buzz.
| anonu wrote:
| Yet were moving quickly to millimeter wave 5G tech... which
| apparently doesn't have the same congestion issues that WiFi or
| other older cell technologies do.
| kazinator wrote:
| > _Most Bluetooth headsets introduce around 150-300ms of latency
| (the time between my computer receiving the audio from the
| Internet, and the sound coming out of the headphones)_
|
| I must have an incredible $10 BT speaker (used for quiet TV
| listening at night). I don't see any delay versus the regular
| audio (plan old 1/8" audio jack out of Android box, to stereo).
| You would notice 150-300 ms as serious lip synch issue.
| lxgr wrote:
| Modern Bluetooth devices can communicate their internal
| latency, and modern AV stacks use that figure plus known
| physical layer latencies to delay the video just enough to
| compensate for that.
|
| For interactive audio like games or video conferencing, this
| doesn't work of course.
| can16358p wrote:
| And recording music.
|
| Working on Logic (just hobbyist here) and gaming are the only
| two activities that I connect my wireless headset via USB C.
| The latency (because of Bluetooth protocol itself) is too
| much.
|
| For Zoom calls it doesn't affect me much.
| boolemancer wrote:
| If you're watching non-interactive content, the device can just
| play the audio a little ahead of the video to keep things
| synchronized.
|
| I've noticed this with YouTube where sometimes the audio gets
| out of sync when listening on bluetooth headphones and I have
| to pause and re-play to force it to sync again.
| timando wrote:
| It might be that your device is also delaying the video by
| 150-300ms so it matches with the delayed BT audio.
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