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[daveonezero]

Wow. Pathetic. Good thing I didn’t order another adapter. Lost the fist one

edit Airpod pros work fine

 

[Poppyseed]

Wow. Pathetic. Good thing I didn’t order another adapter. Lost the fist one

edit Airpod pros work fine

They don’t work fine at all. Unless you like obvious latency. I’ll stick to wired headsets. Even the navigation clicks as you move between games on the main screen is so obviously lagged by comparison to just the Switch’s speakers.

I’m kind of blown away Nintendo would even want this released this way. It’s clear it’s only for casuals who have no concept of a/v sync.

 

[NotMyProblemAnymoreCunt]

Fucking finally

 

[THE DUCK]

Those praising Nintendo for unlocking a feature that was present in hardware in a mobile game system launched 5 years ago have straight up lost thier minds praising them in any way for this.

Give your head a shake, this should have 1000000000% been included on day one.
This only goes to prove how either arrogant and or disconnected Nintendo is in relation to its customers. Wow.

Gee thanks Nintendo, what's next, a working online gaming system where people can talk to each other? Controllers that don't drift?
N64 games?

Then we can "thank them" for thier help? Pure nonsense.

 

[Corgi1985]

The year when Playstation and Xbox still don't support this.

Well the ps4 supported bluetooth. You know the system that was out the same time the switch launched.

 

[Sean Mirrsen]

Those praising Nintendo for unlocking a feature that was present in hardware in a mobile game system launched 5 years ago have straight up lost thier minds praising them in any way for this.

Look again at the technical limitations the feature imposes. Do you seriously think that enabling this at launch would have been beneficial? Coming off of WiiU that was killed by confusing messaging, you would want to have a feature that conflicts with the local multiplayer aspects of the console, one of the pillars of its marketing? Even now, unlocked, it's not that good. So yes, actually enabling this despite the compromise in player experience it creates, is praiseworthy for Nintendo, who are not known to do these kinds of compromises. It at least gives a vestige of indication that it's something that could be considered in any future consoles.

 

[01011001]

The year when Playstation and Xbox still don't support this.

the bluetooth signal can interfere with controller signals. it's way better to do it like PS and Xbox do it, by using a headphone jack on the controller.
there are still wireless headsets for them that use a dongle, or in the case of Xbox the official Headset that uses a Wifi signal to directly connect.

using the same bluetooth device to track multiple controllers and audio devices is just a bad idea, hence the restrictions even Nintendo makes here. you are limited in how many controller you can have connected while using this, and no microphone support

 

[Hero of Spielberg]

Tried it out on my cheap wireless earbuds and worked nicely. Will come in handy when we're allowed to travel again in Australia

 

[daveonezero]

Those praising Nintendo for unlocking a feature that was present in hardware in a mobile game system launched 5 years ago have straight up lost thier minds praising them in any way for this.

Give your head a shake, this should have 1000000000% been included on day one.
This only goes to prove how either arrogant and or disconnected Nintendo is in relation to its customers. Wow.

Gee thanks Nintendo, what's next, a working online gaming system where people can talk to each other? Controllers that don't drift?
N64 games?

Then we can "thank them" for thier help? Pure nonsense.

Who is praising this? You like fighting windmills?

 

[daveonezero]

They don’t work fine at all. Unless you like obvious latency. I’ll stick to wired headsets. Even the navigation clicks as you move between games on the main screen is so obviously lagged by comparison to just the Switch’s speakers.

I’m kind of blown away Nintendo would even want this released this way. It’s clear it’s only for casuals who have no concept of a/v sync.

Maybe I don’t know it seemed in sync when I tried it. I’ll do that test posted earlier and see.

 

[THE DUCK]

Look again at the technical limitations the feature imposes. Do you seriously think that enabling this at launch would have been beneficial? Coming off of WiiU that was killed by confusing messaging, you would want to have a feature that conflicts with the local multiplayer aspects of the console, one of the pillars of its marketing? Even now, unlocked, it's not that good. So yes, actually enabling this despite the compromise in player experience it creates, is praiseworthy for Nintendo, who are not known to do these kinds of compromises. It at least gives a vestige of indication that it's something that could be considered in any future consoles.

This would have not affected any aspects of mutiplayer whatsoever, there was none at the time.
It simply would have allowed people to enjoy thier bluetooth headphones on the go.
It's not confusing.

 

[THE DUCK]

Who is praising this? You like fighting windmills?

There are posts in this very topic.......

 

[jufonuk]

Folder options, more avatars, livestreaming to youtube, better eshop, private message system when?

Four more years.

 

[Thesuffering79]

This would have not affected any aspects of mutiplayer whatsoever, there was none at the time.
It simply would have allowed people to enjoy thier bluetooth headphones on the go.
It's not confusing.

It has been confirmed to not work well docked. It is what it is.

 

[Sean Mirrsen]

This would have not affected any aspects of mutiplayer whatsoever, there was none at the time.
It simply would have allowed people to enjoy thier bluetooth headphones on the go.
It's not confusing.

It would not let you connect more than two controllers at a time, so any setup with two sets of joycons would not work with BT audio. Or two sets of joycons plus pro controller. Any game with split-screen or same-screen multiplay would be wired audio only unless you had two pro controllers. And it doesn't work with local multiplayer (presumably due to interference rather than bandwidth, but no idea on that point), so anything like local Mario Kart on a plane with your neighbor would not allow for wireless headphones either.

 

[Panajev2001a]

Look again at the technical limitations the feature imposes. Do you seriously think that enabling this at launch would have been beneficial? Coming off of WiiU that was killed by confusing messaging, you would want to have a feature that conflicts with the local multiplayer aspects of the console, one of the pillars of its marketing? Even now, unlocked, it's not that good. So yes, actually enabling this despite the compromise in player experience it creates, is praiseworthy for Nintendo, who are not known to do these kinds of compromises. It at least gives a vestige of indication that it's something that could be considered in any future consoles.

I would have expected Switch to be designed and customised from day 1 to allow Bluetooth headsets as speakers and mics as well as local multiplayer. The bar is quite low with Nintendo: suddenly in order for an OS to be snappy on modern HW it needs to be barebones, if you want your own proprietary wireless peripherals to work you cannot let people use Bluetooth headphones, you need to use your phone for multiplayer chat, etc…

They make bloody kick ass games, but it does not give the other bits a free pass or should not.

 

[Panajev2001a]

It would not let you connect more than two controllers at a time, so any setup with two sets of joycons would not work with BT audio. Or two sets of joycons plus pro controller. Any game with split-screen or same-screen multiplay would be wired audio only unless you had two pro controllers. And it doesn't work with local multiplayer (presumably due to interference rather than bandwidth, but no idea on that point), so anything like local Mario Kart on a plane with your neighbor would not allow for wireless headphones either.

They own the entire stack end to end and the controllers are proprietary. They did not want to tackle the problem and after years of people shouted they gave them the most barebone but they could… not that the OLED mode will improve on this very likely.
Especially for tabletop mode, wired headphones cannot be something you do not think of at all. Bluetooth for third party peripherals like headphones and custom protocol for proprietary accessories like Joycons?

Again, about the OLED model… they managed to take a horrible design for the original kickstand into a selling feature of the OLED redesign (mentioning it in marketing materials)… that took some balls I have to admit.

 

[Corgi1985]

Look again at the technical limitations the feature imposes. Do you seriously think that enabling this at launch would have been beneficial? Coming off of WiiU that was killed by confusing messaging, you would want to have a feature that conflicts with the local multiplayer aspects of the console, one of the pillars of its marketing? Even now, unlocked, it's not that good. So yes, actually enabling this despite the compromise in player experience it creates, is praiseworthy for Nintendo, who are not known to do these kinds of compromises. It at least gives a vestige of indication that it's something that could be considered in any future consoles.

The console was poorly designed so we should praise nintendo?

 

[THE DUCK]

It has been confirmed to not work well docked. It is what it is.

This is a feature that most people would use on the go anyhow.

 

[THE DUCK]

It would not let you connect more than two controllers at a time, so any setup with two sets of joycons would not work with BT audio. Or two sets of joycons plus pro controller. Any game with split-screen or same-screen multiplay would be wired audio only unless you had two pro controllers. And it doesn't work with local multiplayer (presumably due to interference rather than bandwidth, but no idea on that point), so anything like local Mario Kart on a plane with your neighbor would not allow for wireless headphones either.

Again, 99% of the use of this would be single player on the go. Who is sitting next to thier friends playing local multiplayer with Bluetooth headphones on?

 

[Sean Mirrsen]

Again, 99% of the use of this would be single player on the go. Who is sitting next to thier friends playing local multiplayer with Bluetooth headphones on?

People on a plane, or a train, or a bus, or at a busy gathering of people in a club or convention of some kind, to play and actually hear the console without disturbing other people, or at all.

And see, the difference between how you think and how Nintendo thinks, is for them that 1% of compromise on the experience is usually not worth it. They don't usually want to deal with limited experiences, as their primary demographic expects ease of use first and foremost, and having a wireless audio system - something that is expected to 'just work' for mobile devices - that comes with several hefty limitations, is just not a thing they usually contend with doing. So them doing it now, shows a promising change in policy.

 

[THE DUCK]

People on a plane, or a train, or a bus, or at a busy gathering of people in a club or convention of some kind, to play and actually hear the console without disturbing other people, or at all.

And see, the difference between how you think and how Nintendo thinks, is for them that 1% of compromise on the experience is usually not worth it. They don't usually want to deal with limited experiences, as their primary demographic expects ease of use first and foremost, and having a wireless audio system - something that is expected to 'just work' for mobile devices - that comes with several hefty limitations, is just not a thing they usually contend with doing. So them doing it now, shows a promising change in policy.

Yes, and those people can still play on bluetooth, since 99% of them are playing alone. Seriously, when was the last time you saw people playing local multiplayer in public?

It's laughable that you would say Nintendo isn't willing to compromise the experience running on 2015 hardware. Even the update couldn't be bothered to actually improve on the so-so joycons, compromising the overall gaming experience. (Far superior joycon replacements on the market)

They compromise the online experience every day (a separate app for voice chat, it's 2021, this is a massive compromise in experience)

They also comprise the experience for older nes and snes games by offering crappy month after crappy month instead of good ones.

They compromise the controller experience with drift that wasn't fixed for YEARS.
They compromise the e-store by allowing thousands of crap games. I'm sorry but this is by far the wrong arguement for Nintendo of 2021.

 

[DrAspirino]

OK that's a valid excuse but that doesn't make the end result better : no mic

Care to explain how you would do it?

It would not let you connect more than two controllers at a time, so any setup with two sets of joycons would not work with BT audio. Or two sets of joycons plus pro controller. Any game with split-screen or same-screen multiplay would be wired audio only unless you had two pro controllers. And it doesn't work with local multiplayer (presumably due to interference rather than bandwidth, but no idea on that point), so anything like local Mario Kart on a plane with your neighbor would not allow for wireless headphones either.

People here seem quite ignorant on how Bluetooth actually works and why Bluetooth Audio is an "okay" solution for just audio.

Let's clear some things first: Bluetooth protocol.

Bluetooth signal is located in the 2.4 Ghz unlicensed band, particularly between 2.402 and 2.480 GHz, which are exactly the same frequencies as the already oversaturated 2.4 Ghz Wi-Fi. This means that if you use 2.4 Ghz Wi-Fi as well as wireless controllers, you'll inevitably get "hiccups" in bluetooth controllers response because data from both radios would be colliding. That is particularly painful and common in really crowded places.

Next: bluetooth stacks

Bluetooth protocol works with "stacks", which in layman terms, is a bunch of different capabilities grouped under different "sub-protocols". For example, you have the telephony protocol which was designed specifically for real-time audio communication. However, since its nature was to replace wired headsets, the protocol only allows mono audio (both mic and headphone) at only 8 Khz frequency.

You could say "hey, Aspirino... but how come we have almost cd-quality audio via bluetooth?" and you'd be correct. The thing is that CD-quality audio uses another bluetooth protocol: A2DP. However, A2DP has several drawbacks for gaming, as its bandwidth AND interference sensitive, it's laggy (we're talking about more than 100-150 ms using the standard SBC codec) and inevitably recodes every audio that comes out of the device, which inevitably degrades audio quality.

Here's a website that explains in great detail everything about Bluetooth audio.

Now, why I mention the standard SBC codec and not LL-APTx? simple: licenses.

LL-APTx (Low-Latency APTx) is a proprietary codec from CSR (now owned by Qualcomm) and it's license is granted on a PER-DEVICE basis. This means that if you buy a headset that has the LL-APTx codec in it, the manufacturer had to pay the license for each and every device it made that used said codec. That is why Apple doesn't include support for APTx on iPhones and probably never will.

Having said that, does it make any sense at all to have Bluetooth audio in gaming-focused machines, where latency is critical? Probably not. That's why Microsoft uses WiFi-direct to communicate with the controllers (and does the audio via proprietary protocol) and Sony uses its own wireless audio solution (again, proprietary and incompatible with anything else).

 

[rofif]

Good. Better than nothing.
But I understand why it was not there. BT audio sucks. YOu either have lag and stutter. Or just stutter.... at least I cannot get it to be good enough on my oneplus 7t android phone.
In HD mode, the sound is delayed and stutters a lot as soon as I am starting to ride my bike (with phone in my backpack). IN "HD" unchecked mode it sounds worse but stutters less.

I think BT might actually suck ass but better than nothing.

I am surprised how good sony pulse 3d is actually. Absolutely 0 wireless lag, stutter or hiss. As perfect as wired. Quality is fantastic

 

[TheGrat1]

Why is this so hard for these companies? The PS3 supported Bluetooth audio, why do these new consoles lag behind?

I mean yea.. you remember the offer to chat on this device?

 

[Sean Mirrsen]

Yes, and those people can still play on bluetooth, since 99% of them are playing alone. Seriously, when was the last time you saw people playing local multiplayer in public?

When was the last time you saw people doing anything in public?

It's laughable that you would say Nintendo isn't willing to compromise the experience running on 2015 hardware. Even the update couldn't be bothered to actually improve on the so-so joycons, compromising the overall gaming experience. (Far superior joycon replacements on the market)

They compromise the online experience every day (a separate app for voice chat, it's 2021, this is a massive compromise in experience)

They also comprise the experience for older nes and snes games by offering crappy month after crappy month instead of good ones.

They compromise the controller experience with drift that wasn't fixed for YEARS.
They compromise the e-store by allowing thousands of crap games. I'm sorry but this is by far the wrong arguement for Nintendo of 2021.

Nintendo does not compromise on those things. Compromising on something would mean intentionally undermining their intended design in order to accommodate another feature. The joycons, such as they are, deliver the exact experience Nintendo wanted. The "superior" replacements are the ones compromising, losing some of the joycons' features, or compact profile, in order to be more ergonomic or cheaper or otherwise 'better'. Same with the online experience - voice chat was intentionally made difficult to obstruct the emergence of the usual toxic online culture (and save money on other things, obviously), the limited availability of classic games is also intentional (though I suspect they've run into publishing issues by now, since they've slowed the rollout far too much). The drift thing is a technical fault that was proven to be a side effect of the specific joycon design, and there don't seem to be easy solutions for it since the joycon backplate can't be reinforced enough to stop it from happening with regular sticks, and sticks that are immune to the drift cause are much less compact vertically.

I won't even dignify the e-store thing with a verbose comment. "Crap" game makers need to eat too, and not all people's tastes are the same.

In light of that, what happened here was a compromise of the intended experience of the Switch, which was a no-nonsense hybrid console that plays games. BT audio, here, is 'nonsense'. It's plagued by limits that, to laypeople, are completely arbitrary, and limit the ways in which the Switch can be used with it. There isn't even any reason for it to exist, now that dedicated BT dongles of all kinds are widespread. The only reason why I can image it was added now, is that the new Switch - "a" new Switch, perhaps one of the near future ones rather than the imminent OLED - will indeed support BT audio in a less compromised manner.

 

[THE DUCK]

When was the last time you saw people doing anything in public?


Nintendo does not compromise on those things. Compromising on something would mean intentionally undermining their intended design in order to accommodate another feature. The joycons, such as they are, deliver the exact experience Nintendo wanted. The "superior" replacements are the ones compromising, losing some of the joycons' features, or compact profile, in order to be more ergonomic or cheaper or otherwise 'better'. Same with the online experience - voice chat was intentionally made difficult to obstruct the emergence of the usual toxic online culture (and save money on other things, obviously), the limited availability of classic games is also intentional (though I suspect they've run into publishing issues by now, since they've slowed the rollout far too much). The drift thing is a technical fault that was proven to be a side effect of the specific joycon design, and there don't seem to be easy solutions for it since the joycon backplate can't be reinforced enough to stop it from happening with regular sticks, and sticks that are immune to the drift cause are much less compact vertically.

I won't even dignify the e-store thing with a verbose comment. "Crap" game makers need to eat too, and not all people's tastes are the same.

In light of that, what happened here was a compromise of the intended experience of the Switch, which was a no-nonsense hybrid console that plays games. BT audio, here, is 'nonsense'. It's plagued by limits that, to laypeople, are completely arbitrary, and limit the ways in which the Switch can be used with it. There isn't even any reason for it to exist, now that dedicated BT dongles of all kinds are widespread. The only reason why I can image it was added now, is that the new Switch - "a" new Switch, perhaps one of the near future ones rather than the imminent OLED - will indeed support BT audio in a less compromised manner.

Compromise: To accept standards that are lower than is desirable.
This is exactly what Nintendo did with Joycons (the very definition of lower than desirable - plus you can't tell me they couldn't have redesigned the whole thing 50 times over, stop apologizing for Nintendo
Their online service - yep same thing here, it's a cop out to say that can't police this or leave options for parents in 2021, plus the virtual games are 50% of what they could be, again, lower than desirable
The Estore comment, you can ignore the problem, it's not just indy game makers, it's pure unadulterated garbage on the store, pretty much every crap steam gave ever made is on there now. 6271 games, 200-300 of which might be worth playing and you think this is a good thing? Again, lower than desirable.
Lets face it, Nintendo, is very willing to compromise in almost ever area except one - the quality of their in house AAA games. Their hardware is compromised, their online service is compromised, their store is compromised. It's time you saw reality instead of a gleaming beacon of Nintendo goodness.
Doesn't change the fact that they have been successful do to their AAA games and being the only handheld on the market for years.

 

[clem84]

I just tried it for the first time. It's very laggy, so much so that it's not fun to use. I don't know much about the bluetooth protocol so I'm not sure what's causing this. Is it at the driver level? Could this be fixed in time? The audio doesn't lag like that when I'm using these earbuds on my android phone.

 

[DrAspirino]

I just tried it for the first time. It's very laggy, so much so that it's not fun to use. I don't know much about the bluetooth protocol so I'm not sure what's causing this. Is it at the driver level? Could this be fixed in time? The audio doesn't lag like that when I'm using these earbuds on my android phone.

It's a problem with the codec: Switch probably uses SBC (which is laggy), while your android phone uses APTx or LL-APTx, both of which are licensed by Qualcomm on a per-device basis and both of which have a lot less latency than SBC (though they still have more latency than wired headsets).

To fix the issue, Nintendo would have to license the LL-APTx codec for each and every single unit sold, while also warn people that to have the best "lag-free" experience, they should use LL-APTx compatible headsets.


...but we all know that's as likely as Apple licensing APTx or another bluetooth codec on their iPhones: no chance in hell.

 

[Yselacrey00]

Wow. 13 whole revisions and 4.5 years to add bluetooth audio support to a system that is portable and has bluetooth hardware.

Tell that to Sony and their PS5

 

[NeoIkaruGAF]

Just chiming in to say, I’m glad this feature exists now.

 

[Boy bawang]

I'm also glad this feature was finally implemented. I'm using a Jabra Move headset, and I didn't have a single stutter so far. I haven't made any measurement in terms of lag, but if there's is some, it is not enough to disturb me so far, even when playing Furi.