Bluetooth + WIFI Problems (a pair made in hell?!)

jfortier777 · Jan 2, 2012

I did my due diligence and my searches have come up with no threads that covered this yet.

Here is the screenshot for what I am referring to.

...and here is the story.

I noticed that while streaming data/audio over bluetooth the wifi performance (the already pitiful performance) drops to essentially nothing and often times out.
IE: I first noticed something was wrong and the wheels began turning when I had been watching Netflix and decided to pair with my Bluetooth speaker so I didn't have to keep cupping the side of the tablet for decent audio. Netflix timed out every time I paired.

While testing this I didn't notice any difference with Bluetooth "on" but only while it was transmitting something. For the purpose of my speed tests I was playing white noise over a Bluetooth speaker from an app in the background.

I know slim to nil about the real nitty gritty of hardware in tablets but I can only suspect that they share the antennae or in the worst case I have a lemon and need to RMA.

Has anyone else noticed this?

also obligatory:
"wifi sucks" "SD/Internal Memory writes are absurdly slow" "stock browser is bad, use opera"

Edit: post title clarified and pun-ified

slugbug2010 · Jan 2, 2012

Oh my!

I have bluetooth on about 75% of the time because that is how I text from my tablet (paired with my phone) I haven't noticed any changes in my wifi at all when BT is on/off. However I realize that is NOT the same as streaming audio/data.

Since I do have it on so often, I'll check it out and see what happens with mine.

jfortier777 · Jan 2, 2012

slugbug2010 said:
Oh my!

I have bluetooth on about 75% of the time because that is how I text from my tablet (paired with my phone) I haven't noticed any changes in my wifi at all when BT is on/off. However I realize that is NOT the same as streaming audio/data.

Since I do have it on so often, I'll check it out and see what happens with mine.

I did notice that it only occurs while data is being continuously sent.

While doing my test I had a white noise app sending audio to a bluetooth speaker.
(gonna add that to the OP so other people dont get confused)

jzen · Jan 2, 2012

i just bought a bluetooth keyboard and mouse today, and i can tell you that my wifi signal while these devices are active have dropped greatly... instead of getting half wifi bar in my living room i now get 1 bar.

I have also noticed that my bluetooth mouse has some pretty bad lagg, pretty sure its not the mouse because it works find on all my other tablets. Im guessing its all due to the metal case. GO ASUS!

Semantics · Jan 2, 2012

jzen said:
i just bought a bluetooth keyboard and mouse today, and i can tell you that my wifi signal while these devices are active have dropped greatly... instead of getting half wifi bar in my living room i now get 1 bar.

I have also noticed that my bluetooth mouse has some pretty bad lagg, pretty sure its not the mouse because it works find on all my other tablets. Im guessing its all due to the metal case. GO ASUS!

Good Lord, man, just return it already. You have posted in every single possible bug thread saying that you have that bug. I'm waiting for the guy to post that his tablet is giving him metal splinters so you can post in that thread saying yours is too. Or the my tablet is making me go bald because the metal case is holding all of that radiation in, and you posting mine is too!

Exhausting, I tell ya.

jzen · Jan 2, 2012

Semantics said:
Good Lord, man, just return it already. You have posted in every single possible bug thread saying that you have that bug. I'm waiting for the guy to post that his tablet is giving him metal splinters so you can post in that thread saying yours is too. Or the my tablet is making me go bald because the metal case is holding all of that radiation in, and you posting mine is too!

Exhausting, I tell ya.

Do you even have a prime? I'm guessing not, otherwise you would know that all these issues I speak of are true. I wanted it to be a great tablet but in the end... almost every feature it has is flawed and no miracle version of ICS will fix it. Every problem with the device (except screen bleed) all comes down to one major design flaw (the metal case).

Crap wifi, crap gps, crap bluetooth and deciding to copy apple with a metal case was an epic fail because they did not use their heads.

Now, you can cry, kick and scream like a baby or make fun of me all you want, but I guarantee after you have spent a week or two with the prime you will go back and read my words of wisdom and know that I was not joking, or just making it all up.

If ICS or an update from Asus somehow fixes these issues I will give everyone on the prime xda forum $100 bucks (it will never happen, its a defective device pawned off onto us so Asus could make a quick profit.).

I have only posted in the prime forum to warn others of how bad the Prime really is, its just a shame that most of you are too ignorant or embarrassed to admit the truth. Take the word of someone who knows tablets, the prime is the definition of fail.

If you don't mind having crappy wifi, no gps and bluetooth that makes the crappy wifi even crappier then by all means go out and spend the $500 on the prime (you deserve it for not having a brain.). As for me and other intelligent users, we will either return it or just chuck it on CL or Ebay and wait for the real next gen tablet to comeout from a company that is not looking to screw over their customers for a quick profit.

This forum is filled with all kinds of problems the transformer prime has. And most of them cannot be fixed with a simple software update. These people are not trying to ruin your day, they are just trying to warn you of the many problems you will face if you decide to get this device now.

jfortier777 · Jan 2, 2012

jzen said:
Do you even have a prime? I'm guessing not, otherwise you would know that all these issues I speak of are true. I wanted it to be a great tablet but in the end... almost every feature it has is flawed and no miracle version of ICS will fix it. Every problem with the device (except screen bleed) all comes down to one major design flaw (the metal case).

Crap wifi, crap gps, crap bluetooth and deciding to copy apple with a metal case was an epic fail because they did not use their heads.

Now, you can cry, kick and scream like a baby or make fun of me all you want, but I guarantee after you have spent a week or two with the prime you will go back and read my words of wisdom and know that I was not joking, or just making it all up.

If ICS or an update from Asus somehow fixes these issues I will give everyone on the prime xda forum $100 bucks (it will never happen, its a defective device pawned off onto us so Asus could make a quick profit.).

I have only posted in the prime forum to warn others of how bad the Prime really is, its just a shame that most of you are too ignorant or embarrassed to admit the truth. Take the word of someone who knows tablets, the prime is the definition of fail.

If you don't mind having crappy wifi, no gps and bluetooth that makes the crappy wifi even crappier then by all means go out and spend the $500 on the prime (you deserve it for not having a brain.). As for me and other intelligent users, we will either return it or just chuck it on CL or Ebay and wait for the real next gen tablet to comeout from a company that is not looking to screw over their customers for a quick profit.

This forum is filled with all kinds of problems the transformer prime has. And most of them cannot be fixed with a simple software update. These people are not trying to ruin your day, they are just trying to warn you of the many problems you will face if you decide to get this device now.

Go make another thread for your personal vendetta.

For all its faults, the prime is still fantastic. It works great with a few minor quirks that will likely be ironed out with ICS or a patch down the road.

I made the thread to clarify this bug in particular so I could determine if it was my device that was acting up, or a reproducible problem with other primes as well.

That being said, I would not recommend the prime, as it is, to anyone without moderate-advanced android knowledge because they would not understand the difference between potential and current iteration.

Good day sir.

dabbill · Jan 2, 2012

I really wish people would only post if they know what they are talking about. 90% of the problems with the tablet are software related. Hardware pretty much works or it doesn't. Software is what has random results with stuff not working, or working poorly. Just like the update that came out fixed GPS.

Updates dont fix hardware issues, so that means the GPS issue was software.

the_game_master · Jan 2, 2012

I will be able to test this tomorrow when my Prime finally arrives, I plan on using my tried and trusty Bluetooth Rocketfish headphones with my Prime while I test out it's Youtube/Netflix functionality.

BarryH_GEG · Jan 2, 2012

dabbill said:
I really wish people would only post if they know what they are talking about. 90% of the problems with the tablet are software related. Hardware pretty much works or it doesn't. Software is what has random results with stuff not working, or working poorly. Just like the update that came out fixed GPS. Updates dont fix hardware issues, so that means the GPS issue was software.

Uhm, last time I checked radio interference wasn't a s/w problem. With all the threads on Wi-Fi and GPS I was kind of wondering how BT would perform. With everyone's conditions being so different, it would be intersting to see if others streaming to external speakers or moving data had similar issues. OP, does moving the position of the BT device relative to the Prime have any impact?

jfortier777 · Jan 2, 2012

BarryH_GEG said:
Uhm, last time I checked radio interference wasn't a s/w problem. With all the threads on Wi-Fi and GPS I was kind of wondering how BT would perform. With everyone's conditions being so different, it would be intersting to see if others streaming to external speakers or moving data had similar issues. OP, does moving the position of the BT device relative to the Prime have any impact?

No sir.

I tested this in multiple locations in my home with 3 different devices at varying distances with consistent results. +-10%

Logitech bluetooth speakers
Belkin x51 bluetooth receiver
Jawbone earpiece

BiggerH · Jan 2, 2012

jfortier777 said:
No sir.

I tested this in multiple locations in my home with 3 different devices at varying distances with consistent results. +-10%

Logitech bluetooth speakers
Belkin x51 bluetooth receiver
Jawbone earpiece

if BT & Wifi don't work well together (as with my current Android tablet), then I think this will be the 'final' thing that is going to get me to cancel pre-order (I'm in the UK) until things are sorted

A shame

wynand32 · Jan 2, 2012

Verified here. My experience with a set of Motorola S9-HD Bluetooth headphones is:

1. Run Speedtest, strong 24Mb/s speeds.
2. Connect headphones and play music.
3. Wifi drops to about 4Mb/s for a few seconds.
4. Wifi stays connected but stops transmitting/receiving.
5. Any app that tries to connect to the Internet fails.
6. Turn off Bluetooth and connection is restored.

Definitely a problem. However, I don't know of any reason to assume it's not fixable in a firmware update, so I'm not going to knee-jerk react to it.

BUYMECAR · Jan 2, 2012

Hmmm....

Very interesting, I thought it was just my phone's mobile hotspot acting up yesterday when I took the 3 year old to the park. My Prime was connected to my phone running relatively smooth and after I connected my bluetooth headset to my Prime, my Prime's ability to load images on forum boards was very inconsistent. Didn't pay it much mind.

On a somewhat related note, the bluetooth range for prime seems to be pretty damn good.

BarryH_GEG · Jan 2, 2012

wynand32 said:
I'm not going to knee-jerk react to it.

There's no sport in that.

Sokonomi · Jan 2, 2012

BUYMECAR said:
On a somewhat related note, the bluetooth range for prime seems to be pretty damn good.

Sounds like a software update needs to take the BT radio strength down a peg.

BUYMECAR · Jan 2, 2012

You think? I was pushing the kid on the tire wheel which was like 20 steps away from where the prime was sitting on a table with my roomie and was still getting stable playback from the Prime.

I also noticed when first pairing the headset, there was a listing for "Ken's phone" but the closest person to us was a family sitting about 4 tables away and each table probably had 4 feet between.

Sokonomi · Jan 2, 2012

BUYMECAR said:
You think? I was pushing the kid on the tire wheel which was like 20 steps away from where the prime was sitting on a table with my roomie and was still getting stable playback from the Prime.

I also noticed when first pairing the headset, there was a listing for "Ken's phone" but the closest person to us was a family sitting about 4 tables away and each table probably had 4 feet between.

Thats what I mean, do you really need bluetooth to reach 30 feet and thereby killing your wifi.
I was thinking maybe tune the BT's power down to half and perhaps give Wifi a lil breathingroom?
Just a thought.

jfortier777 · Jan 2, 2012

wynand32 said:
Verified here. My experience with a set of Motorola S9-HD Bluetooth headphones is:

1. Run Speedtest, strong 24Mb/s speeds.
2. Connect headphones and play music.
3. Wifi drops to about 4Mb/s for a few seconds.
4. Wifi stays connected but stops transmitting/receiving.
5. Any app that tries to connect to the Internet fails.
6. Turn off Bluetooth and connection is restored.

Definitely a problem. However, I don't know of any reason to assume it's not fixable in a firmware update, so I'm not going to knee-jerk react to it.

Certainly no knee jerking planned, but now that I know it's universal I can comfortably await an update that fixes it... and an unlocked bootloader.

setite · Jan 2, 2012

I'll test this and respond. I have been having problems with my prime, while tethered to a Galaxy Nexus, failing to stream after 2-3 minutes. I did a side by side with the OG Transformer without fail. Thanks for pointing out bluetooth

EDIT: First let me point out my current testing. Transformer and Transformer Prime, side by side tethered to a Galaxy Nexus. Streamed an episode of Farscape via Netflix for 20 minutes without a problem. Pressed Home, opened Subsonic and tried to stream an episode of One Tree Hill. The Prime doesn't resolve the page with the flash video at all, while the OG Transformer loads the page just fine. I disabled the bluetooth, which was enabled but not connected to any devices. I disabled and enabled WiFi on the Prime, still no dice. Then I connected the Prime to my home WiFi, and it works. Connected the Prime to the Galaxy Nexus again, and no dice, but the OG Transformer is still surfing the net. Bluetooth is disabled right now, but it wasn't disabled when the prime's WiFi to GN broke.

Now as I write I toggled tethering on the GN off and on. Disabled wifi on the prime and re-enabled. Connected Prime to GN and internet is working again. I am commencing a stream of One Tree Hill. BT Disabled. In 5 Minutes I'll enable Bluetooth and see what happens.

---------- Post added at 03:57 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:20 PM ----------

Looks like I can confirm this. Was streaming just fine, speedtests and all that fun stuff. Not more than 4 minutes after enabling BT the internet went kaput. Interestingly.. I enabled bluetooth in the middle of a speedtest upload, and the speedtest immediately stopped.. at about 150kbps as opposed to the 5000 it should have reached. The second speed test recovered though. I went back to streaming video though, and the problems came back. I need bluetooth, so this is unacceptable.

Bluetooth + WIFI Problems (a pair made in hell?!)

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