riverstyx wrote:
I've been away for a week and have been using my new H8's fairly extensively during that time but have not had a single dropout so far - connected via Bluetooth to my phone, an HTC One M8 (which uses AptX).
Okay, I take it all back - I have experienced major dropout issues today 🙁
I couldn't figure out why I hadn't had any dropouts whilst using the H8's on holiday, but walking into town from where I live I had a dropout every few seconds so I looked at what had changed.
Whilst on holiday I was wearing my walking clothes, and my phone was in a pocket on the right sleeve of my coat. Today I wore different clothes.
To confirm this issue I have tried with the phone in a number of different positions and discovered the following:-
- Phone in pocket on right sleeve - no dropouts.
- Phone held in right hand by right hip - very occasional dropouts (less than one per track)
- Phone held in left hand by left hip - occasional dropouts (maybe one every 30 seconds)
- Phone in right front jeans pocket - frequent dropouts (every 10-20 seconds)
- Phone in left front jeans pocket - dropouts average every 5-10 seconds
- Phone in left front jeans pocket with my head turned to right constant dropouts (more silence than music)
So it would appear to me that this is a bluetooth signal strength / antenna efficiency issue.
I don't know enough about the bluetooth protocol to know whether this is the case but I suspect there maybe some feedback between paired devices regarding their received signal strength such that transmission strength (and hence device power usage) can be adapted on the fly, so it might be possible for B&O to resolve this issue in firmware, but equally it may require a redesign of the antenna in the H8's.
I will contact beocare with my findings, but perhaps it would help if others could experiment and see if they can reproduce / confirm my findings.
Martin.