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MS Sculpt Comfort BT mouse + Bose Soundlink Mini issue

Sven

Member
Hi All

I've been using my MS Scuplt Comfort BT mouse since I got my SP3 weeks back, without any issues whatsoever. No disconnects, smooth as butter.

Cue yesterday when I purchased a Bose Soundlink Mini Bluetooth speaker.

While the speaker paired and works flawlessly, now the mouse is prone to lag, and stops responding randomly many times.

Disconnecting the Bose BT speaker, and all is fine again.

Any ideas ?

Edit: sometimes when the BT speaker is connected and system sounds occur (obviously channelled to the speaker) the mouse will hang/pause/lag.

Perhaps a bandwidth limitation on the built-in BT chip ?
 
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sparkydave1981

New Member
I also have the same Bose speaker and when connected to my SP3, my bluetooth mouse stops working completely (cheap ebay BT mouse from china...)

I'm hoping that if I buy a decent BT mouse I wont have such trouble with it stopping while using the Bose speaker, but given that you are having trouble with a Microsoft mouse, it dosent fill me with confidence. I currently also have mouse jittering whenever my BT keyboard is connected.

sorry my reply doesnt help but at least you know that you arent alone with the Bose issue / mouse!
 

GreyFox7

Super Moderator
Staff member
So what are we playing on the Bose Soundlink. Trying to figure how much bandwidth will be needed. So I'm looking for details about the audio stream in order to determine if this would be within the capabilities of BT.
Bitrate, sampling, encoding, quality, etc. File types, size or any other details you may have.

Ref: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj688118.aspx
http://www.bandwidthplace.com/what-...spotify-itunes-radio-and-beats-music-article/
http://soundrolling.com/terminology-2/a/definition-audio-bandwidth/
http://soundrolling.com/sound-recordist-knowledge/sampling-theorem/

BT info https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/bluetooth-basics/common-versions

ETA BT 4.0 doesn't speed anything up, it adds a low energy mode so the theoretical max speed of BT is still 24mpbs with a somewhat lower practical limit TBD and multiplexing that may yield suboptimal results.
 
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GreyFox7

Super Moderator
Staff member
An additional factor is the 2.4 ghz WiFi and BT share one antenna. For receiving this may not be so much of a problem as the incoming signal could be split. Sending would seem to create much more of a problem ala transmitting/streaming to BT speaker or wifi transmits. Then there's the actual hardware configuration of the Marvell chip which will have some impact on capabilities of multiplexing the signals.

Switching to 5ghz on WiFi might help but there may still be an issue with BT Speakers and other devices simultaneously. TBD.
 

GreyFox7

Super Moderator
Staff member
So far regarding the devices mentioned I'm not finding anything that indicates what the specific Bluetooth spec used for data transfer is which would indicate some bandwidth range. Nothing for requirements etc. just Bluetooth :) as if...
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BT 2 EDR max is 3 Mbps with practical limit at about 2.1 Mbps. In reality this may be where most Bluetooth devices end up.

Bluetooth v3.0 + HS
Version 3.0 + HS of the Bluetooth Core Specification[42] was adopted by the Bluetooth SIG on 21 April 2009. Bluetooth 3.0+HS provides theoretical data transfer speeds of up to 24 Mbit/s, though not over the Bluetooth link itself. Instead, the Bluetooth link is used for negotiation and establishment, and the high data rate traffic is carried over a collocated 802.11 link.

The main new feature is AMP (Alternative MAC/PHY), the addition of 802.11 as a high speed transport. The High-Speed part of the specification is not mandatory, and hence only devices that display the "+HS" logo actually support Bluetooth over 802.11 high-speed data transfer. A Bluetooth 3.0 device without the "+HS" suffix is only required to support features introduced in Core Specification Version 3.0[45] or earlier Core Specification Addendum 1.[46]

4.x Is mostly about low energy devices and max speed is not improved.
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I'm guessing at this point we have exceeded the limits of the technology/implementation.
 

GreyFox7

Super Moderator
Staff member
Bluetooth background:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bluetooth#Bluetooth_v3.0_.2B_HS
At any given time, data can be transferred between the master and one other device. The master chooses which slave device to address; typically, it switches rapidly from one device to another in a round-robin fashion.

Bluetooth is a packet-based protocol with a master-slave structure. One master may communicate with up to seven slaves in a piconet. All devices share the master's clock. Packet exchange is based on the basic clock, defined by the master, which ticks at 312.5 µs intervals. Two clock ticks make up a slot of 625 µs, and two slots make up a slot pair of 1250 µs. In the simple case of single-slot packets the master transmits in even slots and receives in odd slots. The slave, conversely, receives in even slots and transmits in odd slots. Packets may be 1, 3 or 5 slots long, but in all cases the master's transmission begins in even slots and the slave's in odd slots.
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With this arrangement limits abound in Bluetooth and any 24mbps rates are really using 2.4ghz WiFi as the transport with Bluetooth setup, otherwise it's still 3Mbps/2.1Mbps and it still has to share the 2.4ghz antenna and dodge 2.4ghz congestion/interference from other devices.

Herky and jerky seems unavoidable with anything more than minimal bursty traffic.
 
OP
S

Sven

Member
Some really good info in this thread now - my problem persists - it must definitely be bandwidth related. All things being equal ...
 

GreyFox7

Super Moderator
Staff member
I did some testing on a Surface 2 with a cheap Bluetooth receiver I plugged into the "Aux In" on a speaker I already had, BT keyboard, BT mouse (Logitech t630). Surprisingly that all worked well*. I didn't notice but maybe a hint of less than completely smoothness on the mouse, on the keyboard I tried to type the lyrics of the song as it played... the only issue there was my typing skills.

*The first keyboard I tried failed miserably though but it may have not been charged up enough, I'll try that again later.

I had my WiFi configured for 5ghz at the time so I will try it on 2.4ghz. Then I'll try the SP3.

Note the Surface 2 has about a third to lees than half of the processing power of an SP3 and the same older Marvell chip as the SP2 so any issue would *seem* to be driver related or implementation specific. Unfortunately there doesn't appear to be any performance metrics being reported for Bluetooth so we're flying blind on this and totally relying on the senses.

Do make sure all BT devices are fully charged.
 

GreyFox7

Super Moderator
Staff member
Tested with SP3 and it was all good. 2.4ghz WiFi, BT speaker, keyboard, mouse. Mostly... got an occasional sound blip though.
I used an Aluratek portable Bluetooth Audio Receiver which says is uses A2DP protocol and Bluetooth v2.1 + EDR

SO ... perhaps a SoundLink issue... I checked their web site for possible driver updates but didn't see any. You may need to chat with their support.
 

sparkydave1981

New Member
Given that my miuse completely stops working as soon as the Bose is connected (without playing any audio), I wouldnt be too quick to say its bandwidth related
 
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