I cannot think of a single way in which Bluetooth has changed my life. Of the Bluetooth devices I have, I do exactly the same things I've always done, just with slightly more annoyance.
My smartphone let me answer emails and burning questions on the go, while also letting me give up my car. My VR headset is making me completely rethink what User Experience means to the point of making the current usage of the term UX just downright laughable.
But that's actually beside the point. I don't actually need Bluetooth to change my life. I need it to get rid of the wires in my life.
And if it worked as advertised, I could do that. But Bluetooth devices... they're just always a tad sucky. And the ways in which they just feel bad is in the secret society handshake of doom you have to do every time you want to use the device because it's 2016 and for some reason my devices still can't reliably pair with multiple other devices.
And then once they are connected, the latency in the communication almost makes them useless. I can't use Bluetooth headphones to play games, which is usually when I want to wear headphones. I can't use Bluetooth in any of my motion tracking wearable hardware prototypes, which is ostensibly the sort of thing Bluetooth wants to cover.
Something that might work for me: decouple the Bluetooth pairing from the host computer. Make it a part of the dongle. Make a dongle that is basically the wireless equivalent of a USB hub, and it's to that that I pair my devices. I'd be happy to bring that dongle with me everywhere I bring my Bluetooth devices. That might actually let me use my Bluetooth mouse on my home PC, on my laptop, and on my work PC.
Finally, would someone please design a decent, full-sized keyboard, with Bluetooth support.
BLE devices actually tend to work quite well. If you try a Logitech MX Master Mouse, or an Apple Pencil, or a Microsoft mobile keyboard, you will find that they all perform very well. And most importantly, the dreaded "pairing" is only done once, ever.
My Apple Pencil has to be repaired sometimes, though I haven't figured out what triggers it. Since all that means is plugging it into the iPad's lightning port for about a second, I haven't cared enough to look into it.
Much less annoying than headphones/earbuds where the process is something like 1) Turn off earbuds. 2) Turn on earbuds. 3) Keep holding the power button for another 5 seconds to go into pairing mode. 4) Open settings app, go to bluetooth page, reconnect to device
My MX master needs to be paired at least a few times per week. It also doesn't wake up my Macbook Pro reliably. It sucks because other than that I love both devices.
I would check the software (as others have suggested) on the MBP side of things. I'm on Win 10 on a Dell M3800, and I haven't had to pair my MX Master since the first time I did it, over a year ago.
Sure, if I can get the damn things to pair. But if my phone has paired to something else, or my wife has paired her phone to the car again, then it's ALL BETS OFF!!!
Don't get me started on this: "or my wife has paired her phone to the car again"
Why is it that with my car, while it presumably supports having like 8 phones paired to it, I have to re-pair everytime someone else pairs?
If I'm in the car, but my wife isn't use my phone. If my wife is in the car, but I'm not use hers. If we're both in the car, pick one phone (I don't really care how). How hard is that? Rather it just seems to want to pair to whoever paired last even if that phone isn't around anymore.
It's not really all bluetooth what you're describing there. Almost all of it is implementation-specific: many vendors do a sad job at implementing bluetooth, or if they buy a module as-is, they do a bad job at integrating that module.
Even if the SIG would pay implementors to do it right, it would be done wrong. Some vendors just don't care. Same goes for USB3 cables for example. It's not that hard to do it right, but many just don't care or don't want to.
My smartphone let me answer emails and burning questions on the go, while also letting me give up my car. My VR headset is making me completely rethink what User Experience means to the point of making the current usage of the term UX just downright laughable.
But that's actually beside the point. I don't actually need Bluetooth to change my life. I need it to get rid of the wires in my life.
And if it worked as advertised, I could do that. But Bluetooth devices... they're just always a tad sucky. And the ways in which they just feel bad is in the secret society handshake of doom you have to do every time you want to use the device because it's 2016 and for some reason my devices still can't reliably pair with multiple other devices.
And then once they are connected, the latency in the communication almost makes them useless. I can't use Bluetooth headphones to play games, which is usually when I want to wear headphones. I can't use Bluetooth in any of my motion tracking wearable hardware prototypes, which is ostensibly the sort of thing Bluetooth wants to cover.
Something that might work for me: decouple the Bluetooth pairing from the host computer. Make it a part of the dongle. Make a dongle that is basically the wireless equivalent of a USB hub, and it's to that that I pair my devices. I'd be happy to bring that dongle with me everywhere I bring my Bluetooth devices. That might actually let me use my Bluetooth mouse on my home PC, on my laptop, and on my work PC.
Finally, would someone please design a decent, full-sized keyboard, with Bluetooth support.