Bluetooth still flaky with external USB dongle

sad_muso

Hi there,

I recently purchased a Plugable Bluetooth 4.0 USB dongle as the onboard wasn't working well in my Flirc case. It's connected to a 0.3m extension cable so that I can Velcro it underneath my TV for direct line of sight. I'm no more than 2 metres away, yet I am still experiencing occasional input lag on the ES menu which seems to improve if I kind of hold the controller slightly higher.

Am I just expecting too much from Bluetooth, or is something amiss here? Controller is 8bitdo SFC30. Wired isn't really an option due to the room setup, but my Xbox One controller is Bluetooth and that works flawlessly on the Xbox One. Is that a 'better' standard of BT or something?

Thanks,

sad_muso

Unknown

@sad_muso The pi 4 has built in bluetooth. I don't think you need a dongle.

mitu

@sad_muso Do you still have issues if you just get the Pi of the box and leave it in front of your TV ?

sad_muso

@Unknown See comment above about being in a Flirc (aluminium) case. Seen countless posts about the onboard Bluetooth being a bit rubbish too

sad_muso

@mitu Hmm, I can try that tomorrow, but it's weird because generally with the dongle it's much better than before with onboard, however I do still occasionally get this weird little issue

sad_muso

So, this is still proving to be a huge issue - seems to work fine when literally right next to the Bluetooth dongle, but if I sit 2-3m away it's really flaky and often misses inputs altogether, only to catch up a few seconds later (so you get things like continuing to scroll through games once you've let go of down on the dpad). I've disabled the WiFi and moved to Ethernet to take that out of the equation, so right now I am thinking that it could be related to my USB 3.0 SSD drive, either the USB 3.0 actually blocking the BT connection (it's been known to do this with the onboard WiFi so could it in theory kill the external BT dongle by causing interference at the wire/plugs?), or under-powering issues caused by the SSD.

If anyone can enlighten me I'd really appreciate it. Wired controllers aren't an option for me, so right now the only thing I can think to try is to abandon the SSD and try with SD card only again for a few days. That sucks though because I've just spent money on an SSD for this project and purchasing an equivalent SD card (around 300GB) won't be cheap!

I'd be interested to know what you guys do with your BT setups. SSD or just go with massive SD cards?

sad_muso

UPDATE: Just tried a different USB 3.0 dock and Bluetooth is now working flawlessly. This is a rather cumbersome powered dock though, so I guess the next step is to identify the root cause - is the SSD demanding too much power or is the USB cable of poorer quality and so causing interference? Can anybody please assist me with the diagnosis?

EDIT: Or if anyone already knows of a decent passive USB caddy that works with Bluetooth that'd be handy too :)

marine88

I use a fake ps3 controller and have the same problems any whay you share the dongle you use to fix it?

sad_muso

@marine88 I use the Plugable 4.0 BT dongle, but run it on a short USB extension cable so I can get line of sight. I use this old docking station, but I expect another of good quality should work (if I were you I'd get a powered one so you can at least take power drain out of the equation): link

Basically, get that Plugable dongle as it's amazing and get a decent USB caddy!