Bluetooth range problems

[13brv3]

Greetings,

I previously had an S7 phone, and the Gear S3 watch. The biggest complaint I have about that combination was the poor bluetooth range. I would like to leave the phone on the desk at home, and be able to roam around the house without losing connection. Despite how small our house is, I could never do that, so I ended up carrying the phone around, which largely defeats the purpose of the watch.

Recently I managed to kill the Gear S3 watch, and bought an Active 2, which I like so far. One of the things that made me choose it over the Galaxy Watch was the fact that it has version 5.0 of bluetooth, which is supposed to have a much greater range than the older v 4.2. Of course the phone has to be on the new version as well, so I bought a new S10e, which also has v 5.0.

Unfortunately, my range is exactly the same as it was. As far as I can tell, there's absolutely no improvement in range, even though the new v5.0 hardware is supposed to be far superior. I'm super disappointed about this. Are there any bluetooth power settings I haven't found?

Thanks,
Rusty

 

[SpookDroid]

Just because the range is improved doesn't mean that your home layout/construction materials or external signals don't 'kill' BT no matter what, unfortunately. The way the range on BT is tested is in open environments with line-of-sight between both devices and with no external signals (i.e. microwaves, routers, radio emitters, other BT devices, etc.) introducing external 'noise' into the signal.

Also, if you're home, you might want to try switching/enabling WiFi connection for the watch...that way you could still roam about without the phone and not having to worry about BT range.

 

[13brv3]

I understand attenuation, and issues with other RF devices, but there should still be some improvement.

Turning the wifi on would be in interesting test. It's set to auto now. I fear it would be hard on the battery life though, which was always my second biggest complaint.

 

[SpookDroid]

Still depends on the environment... For instance (sure, different devices but serves as a comparison), I use headphones at the pool all the time. If I leave the phone on the same edge of the pool, headphones model A (which died) only got me so far into the pool. Model B now get me from edge to edge of the pool. Now, same phone, same headphones, if there are more people at the pool (and I'm assuming all with BT transmitters on), will start to fail at the far end. If the pool pump comes on, however, I have to be steps away from the phone, no matter which headphones I use (and the same ones that used to take me all the way across the pool).

 

[13brv3]

But I'm not changing the environment in general. I am changing interface specs, from old to new, which is supposed to be far better. It's like replacing your 100 hp engine with a 500 hp engine, but finding out the car isn't any faster. It would have been interesting to test it out in the open, but it's too much trouble to pair the watch back to the old phone to test it now.

 

[SpookDroid]

Yeah, but that still doesn't mean that YOUR environment is ideal for BT, no matter the hardware or signal improvements on your devices. Replacing a car's engine won't do you any good if you're in the middle of the ocean.

 

[13brv3]

I just found this, which is a fantastic video describing the difference between BT 4 and 5. Bottom line is that they somewhat mislead us by saying it's faster, and has longer range. It CAN be faster at short ranges, up to the same range as BT 4. It also CAN be much longer range, but at a fraction of the speed. Neither the faster rate, nor the longer range protocol are mandatory in BT 5. In fact, it seems BT 5 can be effectively the same as BT 4 and still be called BT 5.

It also sounds like we're probably using a "low energy" version of BT, so that's not helping, except for battery life.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=756lbLk3Aqw&feature=emb_title

Rusty (fooled by the hype)

 

[melbon88]

According to Wiki: Bluetooth 5 provides, for BLE, options that can double the speed (2 Mbit/s burst) at the expense of range, or up to fourfold the range at the expense of data rate. The increase in transmissions could be important for Internet of Things devices, where many nodes connect throughout a whole house.

It means that devices negotiate range and data rate. Probably in case your S7 phone there is no need to increase range. Especially in the case of smartwatche which first of all has to save battery life. You can't control that.

 

[msm0511]

I'm not sure if it's an Android thing or a Samsung thing, but bluetooth range isn't great. I have both the S3 Frontier and the Active 2 paired with my Note 10+. I also have an Apple Watch 5 and an iPhone XS Max. The iPhone/Apple Watch combo has far less trouble staying connected doing the same things at my house than either of the Samsung watches/Note 10+.

 

[scrondar]

My Active 2 will vibrate twice quickly (which, I assume, is notification of...something) if I I so much a leave the room my phone is in. Not a biggie, as the watch has only once alerted me with "Bluetooth connection lost" message, but it seems as thought the watch needs to be near my Galaxy 9+ as a matter of course.

 

[BrianLightManBruce]

Have you tried Developer Options —> WiFi Extend features... Give those settings a shot & shoot me down.

 

[mustang7757]

Also maybe your case if too thick or material might cause interference

 

[Michael1000]

Signal strength is logarithmic. So even if the power were doubled on Bluetooth, it would only increase your signal to noise ratio by 3 dB. That's not a lot. Not only that, unless your phone transmits higher power than your watch, your phone would also have to put out double power, too Each device listens AND transmits. I tested the watch, and if I have my phone near my WiFi router, it cuts the range in half. Too much interference. Best thing you can do is put your phone in the center of the house. I can get up to 60 feet that way.