To summarize: If you use a Logitech bluetooth device, it creates enough interference that high-bandwidth products like the Airpods will not function correctly.
If you switch the Logitech device to use their "unifying" adapter, which doesn't use bluetooth but a different proprietary wireless protocol, the problem goes away.
Logitech acknowledged the problem about six months ago but thus far have deflected any further questions about a fix.
My favourite part about wires is that there's never interference or poor connectivity. Aux headphones, ethernet cables, wired mouse and keyboard - all so much more painless.
I used to be able to tell I was about to get a GSM text message by the way my (wired) computer speakers would make a distinct quiet staccato crackle sound.
I recently started playing GTA 4 and it has this noise when you're driving in a car with radio on and about to get an sms or call in the game. Made me feel nostalgic.
Haha, came here to post that song... Anyways, I still hear this every now and then (the sound, not the song) with my Ford C-max 2006 sound system and iPhone 12 mini, but nowhere near as often as back in the 90's and 00's. Back then I also had a separate vibrating module I'd put in my cell phone pocket (many pockets available at that time, Nokia 3210 did not vibrate), it would always vibrate before any ringtone (self programmed AirWulf) would start (of course).
Why did that stop happening? I remember back in the early 2000s you might even come across a live concert where an incoming text message got caught in the PA and broadcast to the entire audience.
Because we moved from GSM and its original set of frequencies to 3G and (usually) a new set of frequency bands. The noise was caused by a beat frequency between the ring channel and the call/data channel. Changing either the coding scheme (so you don't get anything like a tone as the beat) or the channel separation (so the beat isn't in audio range) causes it to go away.
Nah, the frequencies are stil around there, they're all too high to hear, but GSM used TDM - time division multiplex.
To simplify, up to 7 users (+1 timeslot for signalling) share the same channel/frequency, but each of them is allowed to transmit only 1/8 of the time (even less, due to guard intervals). This basically means, that your phone transmitted for a bit over 0.5 milliseconds (577us), then waited quietly for 7 more intervals like that for other devices to transmit, then your phone transmitted again, and the affected speakers "buzzed" because of these 577ms bursts of power every 4.616 milliseconds (this causes a buzz in the frequency range we can actually hear).
Wow. I've just for the first time ever realised that you might be able to derive the content of the SMS from the specific pattern of interference you would hear on speakers. Like, it seems plausible that is the case. Is that what you mean here by broadcast - or just the fact there was a message was broadcast?
Not really, speakers just reacted to the bursts of power, because the transmission frequency is way too high for us to hear.
GSM uses time division multiplex, which means it shares the 8-timeslot channel with 6 more devices (7 devices + 1 signalling), meaning your phone transmits for 577us, then waits quietly for all the 7 timeslots that other devices use (so, for 4.039 milliseconds - 7x577us), and again transmits for 577us, and again waits. Bursts of power every ~4.6milliseconds make a noise that we can actually hear at a bit over 200Hz.
It still happens if you lay your phone directly on audio cables with cell data on. You can also see interference happening on high datarate cables or if placed over certain components in a laptop.
That's the beat frequency between the ring channel and the call channel. The channel widths and separation were such that the beat frequency was order 1KHz and therefore audible.
I dunno, if you haven't run into audio or video interference on a wired device, you're lucky or have quality cables. I've definitely picked up radio stations on headphones or had nearby electrical currents induce an annoying buzz in a microphone or distort a video signal.
A bad ground in a USB power brick made Spanish talk radio leak into my video mixer's audio interface. Through the chassis, the BlackMagic SDI card, the SDI card, and the BlackMagic HDMI->SDI converter being powered by the cursed USB brick.
> I've definitely picked up radio stations on headphones
Not exactly the same, but makes me reminisce the days of the iPod nano. It offered FM radio using the headphone cables as an antenna. I haven’t seen that supported anywhere since, which is a shame because I’d really like to get local stations on my phone.
FM radio using headphones/headset as antenna is a common feature in phones. I've seen it on feature phones in 200x, and on some Androids as well. Only you can decide if it's important enough to outweigh other must have features though. There are also lots of apps to stream local radio if you have a consistent data connection (doesn't need to be fast, though)
IIRC, USA pushed for some time for inclusion of radio receiver as mandatory, while GP mentions the need to support DAB if selling to France, resulting in weird situation where it might be software "fuse" involved.
Here in the EU, it tends to be disabled in software even if the hardware has it.
I blame the French. They introduced a law that forbids radio receivers that don't support DAB radio, as a way to make the newer DAB format take off. But globally, DAB never did so phone hardware don't have it.
In the EU, distribution chains often cross borders and it would be too bothersome to have models with special firmware just for France — so instead, nobody gets FM-radio.
My Xiamoi Redmi Note 8 Pro that I bought from Orange (french telephone provider) here in France in 2020 definitely is currently receiving FM Radio (uses the headphones for reception) and it is even documented on their site https://assistance.orange.fr/mobile-tablette/tous-les-mobile...
> It offered FM radio using the headphone cables as an antenna.
That was common on phones in general. Headphones acted as antenna.
If you open the FM radio app without connecting wired headphones, it'll ask you to connect it.
This was common in Android phones as well.
My current Android phone does not have headphone jack. And I can't use FM radio (although there are services that play radio over the internet, but that isn't really the same...).
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About phones which have the capability but which are disabled, I wonder if it's because of security implications.
Where I live, the allowed frequencies were from 87 MHz to 108 MHz or something. Consumer FM radios could only be tuned in this range.
That's because on frequencies outside this range, other transmissions — for example, police transmissions — might be taking place.
The aforementioned allowed range is different in different countries.
Also, in my country long long ago (like, ≈50 years ago) you needed to get the permission of the government (via a license or something) to get a radio. You couldn't just go to a store and buy one. That changed later, however.
Now that I think about it, it might have something to do with semi-secret transmissions happening on frequencies outside the allowed range.
A friend told me it's possible to take apart the radio and tune to non-standard frequencies because in most radios the "dial" to select the allowed range really works by physically jamming the dial with another block. If you remove that block, you could keep turning that dial. Haven't tried this myself, so take that with a pinch of salt.
I know you have a bunch of responses already but I got to say this, every single phone (dumb and smart) that I've used or seen used by my immediate family and friends has had this feature, I'm more susprised by the implication that there are phones that don't!
I actually just built a $4 FM receiver kit that uses the headphones for the antenna.
It was very common in previous decades because it was cheaper and allowed more room in the device (the alternative was the metal “pull to extend” antennas).
It’s been almost 15 years but I do remember always knowing when my pre-smartphone cell phone was about to ring. It’d make my stereo system buzz loudly moments beforehand.
Obviously the phone caused it. The signal from the tower wouldn’t be any different from all the other calls going to all the other phones on your block. They didn’t have beamforming that narrow.
There were even led accessories you can attach to your phone that will light up when the phone is transmitting a signal. Basically just some leds attached to some coils to harvest energy transmitted by the phone.
Got any tips for eliminating or mitigating the interference? Recently some retiree in my area got himself a new, illegally-high-powered CB radio so he can talk to truckers from his house. It comes through on the wired headphones I wear while working from home.
Find a HAM in your area and ask them to do a "Fox Hunt". Many enjoy hunting people violating the laws and giving a detailed report the the FCC, which has some rather impressive fines that they DO levy.
First, HAM is not an acronym. It’s ham, a friendly joke referring to amateur radio operator.
Second, hams are not vindictive people, and most interference issues are sorted out locally, possibly with support from the ARRL. Some sources of interference can be very hard to find.
The FCC only levies massive fines when their instructions are being ignored. They don’t play games, that’s true.
The only incidence of wired interference I have personally experienced was a ground loop in a car (car cigarette lighter-usb adaptor-usb cable-phone-aux cable-aux input on car stereo). I seem to recall fixing it with a <$5 component that isolated the signal, this was about 10 years ago and other vehicles I've owned haven't had the same issue.
Living in a country where ground wires are not installed as standard, oh you are so wrong. Anything that has a wall plug carries crazy levels of background hum to any audio equipment I plug into it. I'm sure there is something I could buy to fix that (I can't fix the electrics though as I'm renting).
On the other hand, instead of doing loads of research and buying new equipment, I can just connect my headphones or speakers by Bluetooth and the noise is gone.
Now I have to deal with the annoyances of Bluetooth which are not zero either. But it's a great tradeoff for me.
I have a pair of wireless RF headphones. They’re awesome - the base connects via optical, so no interference of any sort, the signal range is fantastic, the lag is minuscule, the pairing with the base is always automatic and perfect, and they take rechargeable AAA batteries that can recharge within the headphones when they’re on the base, or can be easily replaced.
I'm in Vietnam. Possibly it's something else with the power grid causing interference? Any device with metal sides (like a mac laptop) also constantly gives tiny electric shocks to people.
I have a pair of desktop speakers that have both a USB input (to an onboard DAC) and an analog input; originally, I had the USB input connected to an iMac and used the analog input to plug into my work laptop. Recently, I swapped the iMac for a Mac Studio and a Studio Display, and figured that I could just unplug the Thunderbolt cable to the display from the computer and plug it into the laptop. I kept using the analog cable, though, because I wanted to keep the speakers directly plugged into the computer rather than the hub on the display, probably due to irrational audiophile-esque superstition that this would make the sound laggy or the highs less chocolaty or whatever. (More seriously, I've heard of DACs having stuttering issues when they're run through hubs, and hey, I had the cable, right.)
And the first time I plugged the analog cable into the same laptop that I'd been using, the only difference being that the Thunderbolt cable was also plugged into it, it was terrible.
Despite the audiophile joke above, I don't mean terrible in some kind of "this cable is making the sound subjectively worse" fashion, I mean terrible in a "when no sound is playing, I can hear grinding electrical noise going BZZZZZbzzzzGRRRFTTTTgrrnkFFFFNK constantly" fashion. The problem was clearly the Thunderbolt cable, even though it wasn't involved in the audio circuit at all. It's like it had turned into its own little RF interference generator. While I only had the one Thunderbolt cable so I couldn't swap it, the interference went through two different analog cables.
(This is not as weird as hearing RF interference over one specific pair of headphones from a headphone amp when nothing was playing but only when I was using a specific USB cable running to the same outboard DAC, which also happened to me years ago.)
Sounds to me like a ground loop. so you're right, I have had that issue once in my car (different grounding potential between the cigarette lighter output and the stereo aux input)
I have terrible connectivity and interference with wires!
As soon as I stand up my headphones become violently disconnected from my computer. Cables also interfere with each other and all the other items on my desk.
Did those headphones cost more or less than AirPods? Somehow, musicians and producers have worked for decades with wired headphones just fine. Beyerdynamic headphones can go for less than $200 and have a long straight cord or a coiled cord that stays out of the way.
Musicians work with wired headphones because they largely have to, not because it's intrinsically better. You don't even need to be a musician or producer to experience the drawbacks being attached to a cable can have.
It is intrinsically better though. Wired sound infinitely nicer sounding, and with much lower latency. Will we ever have a day when wireless will be sufficiently low latency?
I'm not sure how you arrive at the conclusion that it is intrinsically better when both of the things you mention are tradeoffs you make, one of which isn't really true and the other which is an engineering issue.
> Wired sound infinitely nicer sounding
There are good sounding wireless headphones and terrible sounding wired headphones. The drawbacks is that with wireless headphones you can't control the sound stack and are dependent on the manufacturer to provide high quality drivers, amplification,
and digital to analog conversion all built into the device.
> much lower latency
...is an engineering problem.
> Will we ever have a day when wireless will be sufficiently low latency?
A company already markets their wireless headphones directly to musicians, which is basically the threshold of low latency you need to meet; realtime monitoring [1]. Does it accomplish what it set out to do? Not sure, but seems like it's good enough for some people.
Ultimately it comes down to exactly what I said, which is that there are tradeoffs to using wired vs. wireless headphones and one is not intrinsically better than the other. You thinking that something sounds "infinitely better" doesn't make the rest of those tradeoffs not meaningful to other people.
There are some headsets (such as Audeze Penrose) that use 2,4GHz wireless instead of Bluetooth. Penrose's latency is reported to be 16ms. At least for games, that's good enough and noticeably better than anything over BT I've tested.
Of course, it has the dongle issue which limits the usage to certain devices (Xbox and Windows in my case, I haven't tested the dongle on my Mac or Linux).
The flow of electrons in a copper wire is much slower than a wireless or fiber optic signal, so over longer distances, theoretically it could be lower latency. I suppose the challenge is in building a fast enough encoder/decoder and dealing with interference
> The flow of electrons in a copper wire is much slower than a wireless or fiber optic signal, so over longer distances, theoretically it could be lower latency
"flow of electrons in a copper wire" has little to do with the speed of a signal transmitted via electrons in a copper wire - what we care about here is propogation delay[1]. Assuming that the speed is about c in air (a bit less but whatever) and at least 0.6c in copper, and assuming a minimum threshold of say 1ms of delay being noticeable to an audiophile, then you would need a headphone cable about 450km in length to noticed the difference.
Not always true. The USB-C port is already loose on my Android phone after only 1 year of use. I cannot use it with a DAC on the go for music, as the slightest wobble will cause a disconnect. I never had this issue with headphone jacks, but even so, wireless has some advantages.
I don't know if that's enough, there wouldn't be much airflow at the bottom of the port. I've used a needle to clear out the compressed lint stuck at the bottom, and that made it hold the plug much better. But I suppose it could be mechanical, though that hasn't been my experience.
I had the same experience. I thought the USB-C plug was terrible and I was cursing it for being so badly designed. I tried different cables but even the better ones (better in terms of not falling out) eventually would fall out. I then used a pin to mechanically remove the lint from the port and I was amazed at how much came out! After that the plugs went in so much further and are completely secure. Nowadays I don't get so much lint build up, probably because I work from home.
Compressed air will never get it out. It gets really compacted in there. Don't be afraid of using a needle, the port is quite rugged. Just avoid the contacts in the middle.
Ah that's fair - I am not a fan of how manufacturers have removed aux ports on phones for exactly this reason. A phone without an aux port is a dealbreaker for me (currently looking for a phone to replace my 4 year old galaxy a8, it's tough to find one as good!)
The reason some ethernet cable and audio cables don't have ferrite beads is because they have internal metal mesh EMI shielding. But not all cables have that.
Both, I believe. Had ground-loop from my setup involving a very cheap passive mixer and a an asortment of other cheap crappy usb dacs, and there was definitely some EMI involvement as you could hear it change as I moved my cables around the tangled mess of other high speed data cabling.
Don't have the equipment to test or diagnose, but empirically, having moved to using balanced cabling from point of analog conversion all the way to amp input, there's no sounds coming out of my headphones that shouldn't be.
> My favourite part about wires is that there's never interference or poor connectivity. [...]
What a happy world. There's enough interference in cabling, but most time it's not enough to cause any issues. Had a case once where an AP with PoE did not work properly (started, then died, repeat) and the issue was that we had to much cable somewhere and rolled it. Interference caused issues, despite using STP and Cat. 6...
I've also found that if I used the Logitech "unifying" adapter, I _still_ had significant 2.4Ghz spectrum interference -- the Logitech adapter was causing my bluetooth headset (also in the 2.4Ghz spectrum) to have significant connectivity issues, and was also causing interference with some game controllers that operated on the 2.4Ghz spectrum in the same room. The Logitech devices connected to that dongle (an MX Master 2S and a K780) both also had frequent lag/stutter issues.
You might ask, "how do you know that the Logitech devices were to blame and not one of those other devices?"
Because I tested one-by-one removing each of the culprits and observing the results:
- Just removing the game controllers from the room made no change
- Just switching to a wired headset made no change
- Switching the Logitech devices to bluetooth changed how _often_ the problems surfaced, but didn't remove the problems
- Swapping the Logitech devices out for wired replacements solved the problem -- no more interference issues.
I've gone all wired and dumped my Logitech wireless peripherals and not looked back. It was actually what got me into mechanical keyboards anyways, and that's a fun rabbit-hole I've been enjoying.
I don't understand how Logitech mice are so popular given how frequently they fail due to switch problems.
Everyone I know, from casual users to gamers, has had problems with logitech mouse button failures. Sometimes within months of purchase, even on their high end gaming mice that cost well north of $100, the buttons will stop working or start double-clicking.
I've had multiple buttons fail on my Logitech mice. It is an issue, even if not everyone experiences it. (And yet I still buy them because they have some of the best ergonomics and buttons layouts I've found in wireless mice.)
The switches "plague" is a very well known issue [0] and it's not reassuring for any potential buyer as you have to return affected devices eventually, DIY replace the switches or hope contact cleaning spray keeps the problem at bay. Despite knowing this I still got an Ergo because, like another poster said, there really wasn't anything like it I found as comfortable (and the many 3D-printable ad hoc designs for further, extreme inclinations were a big incentive).
That's the cheaper Chinese Omron switches.
They are complete rubbish for the price point, in a Logitech mouse, as you can't easily swap them out.
Asus are now selling mice with hot swappable switches. I made the (sorry) switch myself after my G903 died, ie I couldn't hold the buttons steady.
I see now that I should be able to source Japanese Omron switches that might be a bit better; the replacement in the G903 requires some patience and (to be developed in my case) skill, but it's not like I can break it any further. Will grab extra spares for my Chakram X at the same time.
I have not had button trouble, but they do just drop dead about every year or two. Corpses are piling up. I even try changing out the battery before I give up on it. That worked, once!
Their Unify dongle usually has to be at the end of a USB extension cable for it to work at all, for me. I don't even try it without, anymore.
Do their failure rates reflect some sort of massive deviation from the rest of the mice on the market? Given that most of the high end mice use the same switch manufacturers I'd guess it's more likely that you see more instances of people complaining about it online because they're vastly more popular than other mice manufacturers.
Interesting. This isn't to argue against that experience, but I still have and regularly use a wireless Logitech mouse that's at least around a decade old. I had my previous one for years in daily use as well, although I can't remember how it failed or why I replaced it.
I wonder if they've changed something about the buttons.
personally it's because logitech is the only mouse that can store their custom mouse bindings and DPI onboard. every other mouse needs to have a daemon running constantly on the computer in the background for some reason, and that's a no-go for esports
Is this a flaw/weakness in the Bluetooth spec, or is one of these products misbehaving in a way that means it should have its Bluetooth qualification revoked?
It's pretty suspicious that people can't reproduce the problem with other products; I kind of wonder if Logitech have been upping the power on their devices to overcome 2.4 Ghz congestion.
I suspect it's physics, airpods don't have a high power transmitter and can't handle the congestion of another closer (closer to computer and maybe higher powered) bluetooth device using the same band.
They're probably staying silent because here in Canada at least, this could be violating federal laws. I must assume this is also true of the USA, which is usually quite comparable in these areas.
I think he's referring to some Canadian equivalent to the "this device may not cause harmful interference" FCC warning label we have on wireless devices.
Harm in the spec specifically means personal injury or leading to personal injury. Headphones not working is an inconvenience. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves here.
No. The FCC definition of harmful is easily searchable but it is basically the same as the Canadian (Industry Canada) definition - the FCC definition is more specific about safety-related systems including radio navigation systems:
"endangers the use or functioning of a safety-related radiocommunications system, or
significantly degrades or obstructs, or repeatedly interrupts, the use or functioning of radio apparatus or radio-sensitive equipment."
The whole reason that these systems (Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and unifying) use 2.4GHz is because it’s unregulated.
So if one Bluetooth device interferes with another, but not other bands, then it won’t be breaking any laws. But it might be breaking a contract about the use of the Bluetooth or Wi-Fi logos.
Important distinction: the 2.4 GHz spectrum is _unlicensed_, not unregulated. E.g. ETSI EN 300 328 regulates bandwidth usage, duty cycle, output power and so on in the EU. Products carrying the CE mark should adhere to these standards.
The whole point of 2.4GHz band is to be a "dump" band due to interference from microwave ovens, and happens to be a global band because of microwave ovens on airliners.
I'd love to hear the history of it, because my understanding was that the 2.4 GHz band would be useless for long-distance communication even without microwave ovens, due to atmospheric attenuation. That is, 2.4 GHz is useful for microwave ovens and useless for long-distance radio for the same reason, because they are easily absorbed by water.
Essentially when microwaves were introduced the 2.4GHz spectrum wasn't allocated from my understanding, and USA proposed the current allocation as global one so that nobody would try to depend on it and then suddenly face interference from airliner's microwave oven (for example while on the ground) - this move preempted various legal issues of including the devices in airplane equipment and probably made for easier spread of microwave ovens in general as they got cheaper (because less certification etc.)
Thank you, and I hadn't known that part of the history. I knew that microwave ovens could cause issues, especially for older models with poor shielding or if the door is opened prematurely, but hadn't realized that was the reason it stayed unlicensed.
Also annoying that the unifying receiver doesn't work with a Thunderbolt dock. I tried using it for a while and got a lot of lag and stuttering. It was really bad. So now I have a Thunderbolt dock that everything else uses, and a single USB-C to USB-A adapter hanging off the laptop just for the precious unifying receiver. I'd be less annoyed if it was USB-C plugged in directly, but still not happy.
Previously I used a wired mouse, plugged into the dock, which worked great. However, I needed a new mouse as that one started to fail and the only options available through my company were wireless.
This is the most infuriating thing about my MX Master 3 mouse. I mean, it’s fine now. But for months I’d have mouse stuttering/completely unresponsive and have no idea why.
That's the dock I have. Someone else posted a link to a white paper from Intel that mentions this is a USB 3 issue, not one specific to the dock, but it is good to see Caldigit offers the same solution on their site that is mentioned by Intel. That gives me a reasonable amount of confidence that it will work.
Was it the fact that it was connected to your dock that caused the lagging and stuttering issue or was it the location of the receiver when it is plugged into the dock?
The reason I ask is I have noticed this issue too when too many things are placed between the receiver and the device.
From the other comments here it sounds like an issue with USB 3 that can be resolved with a USB extension cable.
I didn't have anything other than the laptop between the receiver and the mouse. I was going to try and move it closer to see if it helped, but with some of the other cables plugged into it, I can't really move it much.
Yeah, I have had the same issue with my jabra headset for years on a cal digit TS3. It goes away if I plug it into a separate USB port on the MacBook. My guess as to the problem is the bandwidth allocation and prioritization on the thunderbolt.
Check out some of the other comment in the thread here. It sounds like it's an issue with USB 3 and can be resolved with a USB extension cable to move the receiver away from the rest of the ports.
It seems to be situational. I use an MX Master 3 with AirPods semi-regularly with Bluetooth. I won't say I never have Bluetooth peculiarities on that computer--but I have transitory Bluetooth issues on other computers as well. It's not a general incompatibility problem in my experience. (Doesn't mean it's not an issue.)
I found that I also had terrible problems when using any bluetooth headset in voice mode on zoom calls along with MX keys. The entire computer would stutter, keys would lag, the mouse would lag, and I'd sound like a robot on calls. The headset would also get stuck in voice mode after calls, and I'd have to forcibly restart bluetoothaudiod.
The unifying receiver is unusable through a hub or connected monitor, and I don't have enough USB-A ports on the dongle to keep the unifying receiver connected all the time.
Switched to an apple keyboard, and never experienced the problem with the MX mouse connected.
I suspect I have a similar problem with my WH-1000XM4, the wifi hotspot on my Pixel 4a. Whenever I was listening to music from my phone connected while also using it as a hotspot for the laptop I would start losing tons of packets and couldn't reliably connect to a work VPN, and turning the headphones off would fix those issues. I'm not sure if it was interference or if they share the same antenna on the phone or something like that though.
Yes, in many devices Wi-Fi and Bluetooth share the same antenna. It's one of the reasons why bluetooth mice haven't really caught on, because in a lot of laptops the mouse would start jumping around as soon as you used wifi at all.
This is good to know. I was just thinking of buying a new MX keyboard. Was planning to use it with a USB anyway but if it's gonna cause trouble for my Airpods it's gonna be a pass.
Well, my Bose QC35 and EarBuds both work via bluetooth while also using a Logitech MX Anywhere 3 also via bluetooth. So, I'd conclude that Apple is the culprit here.
I encourage only US owners of both the defective Logitech products and of AirPods, to write a complaint to the FCC reporting the problem as you experience it and asking the FCC to respond.
Complaining won't do anything because each individual product has already passed thru fcc certifications. All devices operating on the 2.4 ghz band must accept interference as it's not a licensed band.
Thank you ! A lot of people mistake how this band seems to work. Its not that the device can't create interference, its that it must ACCEPT interferance.
It means a vendor cannot get the FCC to take action against another vendor for this.
Any vendor can make a device using that band (there are many conditions, but in principle it is open to anyone). One vendors signal is another vendors noise. Each vendor needs to live with that fact. That could, for example, mean accepting that their device will sometimes simply not work.
Compare with licensed bands such as the ones used for LTE. These are (basically) allocated to individual parties for their exclusive use (ie, nobody else can interfere). If a device interferes with those bands, the FCC can take enforcement action (eventually).
Essentially ISM band rules are that "this band is garbage and you do not get to complain if the noise is so high you cannot put a signal through even at max allowed transmit power"
What do you assume that will accomplish? It’s your own Part 15 devices interfering with each other because of some shitty spec (Bluetooth) - I don’t think there’s any FCC rule breaking involved here.
I’m all for using the federal agency complaint process but this is dumb.
I assume it will accomplish helping the FCC realize that some people are upset about interference in the unlicensed bands between popular consumer products from a large company (Logitech) and a larger company (Apple).
I'm not confident in making any accurate predictions beyond that, but it's not my job to predict what they'll do — it's my job as a consumer to report problems to them, and let them act or not as they see fit. Refusing to report a problem just because (made up example) I think they don't care about Bluetooth has a non-zero probability of being a variant of the Bystander Problem. And however likely or unlikely that may be to any of us, it's got better odds than if we don't report it at all. So I say:
Report the issue as perceived, and give them a chance to surprise you with a useful outcome from that.
> I assume it will accomplish helping the FCC realize that some people are upset about interference in the unlicensed bands
Trust me - they are very well aware of this - and Part 15 is already written with this in mind. No one is surprised that all the junk in the ISM band interferes - as I said elsewhere I think many of us are constantly amazed it works as well as it does.
This is also not enforceable interference - it does not meet the definition of “harmful interference”
> Report the issue as perceived, and give them a chance to surprise you with a useful outcome from that.
My question still remains - what do you think or hope this will accomplish?
Are you hoping they will carve out a slice of new spectrum for AirPods and give it to Apple for free?
> Refusing to report a problem just because (made up example) I think they don't care about Bluetooth
It’s not that they don’t care - it’s that this is getting really outside the scope of their regulations.
You do you, but the point of the federal complaint process is, well …“By filing a consumer complaint and telling your story, you contribute to federal enforcement and consumer protection efforts”
Consumer protection meaning scams and fraud over telecommunication or provision of services - its not a place to vent because your shitty electronics don’t work all the time - which is not fraud even though you may feel cheated. And there are no rules broken to enforce. Having read complaints I know that yours won’t nearly be the dumbest by far but it’s still dumb.
> It was their choice to invite consumer complaints about radio interference in unlicensed bands using a crafted UI.
When I go to the FCC link you posted, I don't even see what you're talking about. I see a menu of: TV, Phone, Internet, Radio, Access for People with Disabilities, and Emergency Communications, Affordable Connectivity Program and "Tell us Your Story". None of those initial menu options would even apply - this isn't disrupting your TV, Phone, Internet or broadcast radio services. "Tell us your story" is just a free text entry form - nothing about radio interference/unlicensed.
So maybe you can clarify.
>> Are you hoping they will carve out a slice of new spectrum for AirPods and give it to Apple for free?
> No.
Well then what, really? Why not just call the police then?
If each company is selling an FCC certified device that is running within the parameters of its certification (which is likely the case) - the FCC has nothing to act on. You are asking the feds to intervene on no actual rule breaking. Devices sharing the "trash" ISM band are often going to interfere even when operating within specification. You might have a better bet with the FTC or a civil case.
Yes, it would be nice if Logitech or Apple did something to play nice, but it's not a federal communications regulations issue.
Also you asked for the FCC to respond. If you look at the FAQ, the FCC does not directly respond to consumer complaints - it would totally overwhelm them with the terrible signal to noise ratio. They indirectly respond insofar as demanding a response from the provider for service related issues https://consumercomplaints.fcc.gov/hc/en-us/articles/2050828...
You're right it's possible they haven't done anything but it's not for certain.
Options that are what's wrong:
They are breaking the rules of the ISM band (the free 2.4GHz band). Transmitting too strongly or with too much leakage. This is the easiest way to cause the problems listed and would get them in the most trouble (because it's trouble with the FCC), but is unlikely.
In spec Bluetooth implementation and in spec ISM band, but logitech are using Bluetooth in a way that's causing a problem for airpods. If this were the case it would be arguably an airpod problem, but it's unlikely because no other device manages to achieve this.
Out of spec Bluetooth implementation, close enough in protocol to do Bluetooth like things (and get a link through) but something like to wide a rolloff on the Bluetooth channels so it interferes with other BT devices in a way it shouldn't. Without getting out a spectrum analyser this is to me the most likely explanation of how you could achieve the described behaviour. Interestingly this doesn't get you in trouble with the FCC, it gets you in trouble with the Bluetooth SIG. The way Bluetooth IP works is that you are only allowed to use it if you use it correctly and are certified. Presumably Logitech fudged some radio tests.
> This is the easiest way to cause the problems listed and would get them in the most trouble.
The devices both run in the 2.4 GHz band so, no, leakage outside the band or even excess power is not the “easiest way” this is causing problems - it’s probably much more mundane.
My Airpods also caused me lose wifi connectivity on my Macbook when using 2.4Ghz wifi (802.11n to an old Buffalo WZR-HP-AG300H/WZR-600DHP running OpenWRT [1]). The issue only happened when using the airpods, and only when using the 2.4Ghz network. Switching to 5ghz solved the issue, and I've since switched to wired.
I was kind of stunned that Apple's own wifi was incompatible with Apple's own bluetooth.
[1] while I'm at it, anyone have a recommendation for a modern access point that can run OpenWRT with Wifi 5 (ac) or Wifi 6 (ax)?
Extra rant: I can't find my favorite keyboard, the MS Sculpt, in wired version, and have already had to replace it once due to, I suspect, wireless issues.
I like its ergo layout, key feel, and key travel distance [1]. I just bought a new one after the last one would become unreliable on keypresses, and I can't shake the feeling that it was just wireless performance issue, not actual key detection issue.
There appear to be no other keyboard with similar features, but wired (and I'm not up to modding it, as some have done).
I feel frustrated that Apple's keyboards have great wired/wireless connectivity and horrendous ergonomics, and ergonomic keyboards have terrible connectivity options.
(lol: just as I was typing this comment I've started having key issues on this new keyboard too, adding evidence that the previous one just had wireless issues.)
[1] don't get me started on mechanical devices! I actually tried a couple, and even got a Cherry Key sampler, and decided that they really weren't for me.
Believe it or not, it's a known issue that USB-3/USB-C devices can interfere with the 2.4ghz frequency, which is what the Microsoft dongle uses: https://www.usb.org/sites/default/files/327216.pdf. As another answer stated, plugging the dongle into a hub positioned away from the USB-3/USB-C connection usually sorts the problem.
Another thing you might want to check is that your mobile phone is not near the keyboard or dongle, I find this can also cause key dropping/sluggishness.
It's a shame they insist on using this proprietary dongle, as like you say, it's a great keyboard otherwise – another bad thing about it is that if you lose the dongle, you have to replace the entire set as they are paired in the factory. I'm on my third Sculpt because keys eventually fall off, but it gets pretty heavy usage so I don't feel too hard done to and the last one was replaced under the 3 year warranty.
I had similar issues with the MS Sculpt. I solved them by putting the USB dongle on an extension cord and locating it closer to the keyboard. I think it just has a weak radio.
Same thing here--I love this keyboard, and have exactly the same issues. I resort to plugging the receiver into the monitor's built-in USB hub which is 8" away. Would love a wired version too, though.
I had that issue as well. Wish I had a good solution for you but I ended up replacing it with a logitech K860. If they offered this in a tenkeyless variety it would be perfect, but I do really like that it can do bluetooth with my tablet so I don't have to use the on-screen keyboard if I'm at my desk.
and I haven't had ANY of the latency or key repeating that I had with the Sculpt.
Same here. I had both Microsoft Sculpt (black, proprietary dongle) and Surface Sculpt (grey, Bluetooth) and ended up replacing them because of wireless issues. Currently using a ERGO K860.
The Surface Sculpt uses Bluetooth and in my office I'd regularly have the keyboard lagging, like I'd type a word and a few seconds later it would appear. At home it worked fine, but it was unusable in the office.
The Sculpt uses a proprietary dongle, which I still use at home, but macOS on my M1 MacBook Pro has a weird issue where it often does not connect. I need to remove and reinsert the keyboard's dongle from the USB-C dongle - removing and reinserting the USB-C dongle from the laptop does not fix it. I have no issues using it on my Linux laptop with USB-C, so it seems to be an Apple bug.
I had to reject the K860 because of its builtin number-pad. Part of the value of the Sculpt is that it's narrow without the number pad, meaning I can fit it on my keyboard tray with room for a mouse or trackpad.
If in the US, "OpenWrt WiFi 6" options are largely the Linksys/Belkin E8450/RT3200, the TPLink EAP615 In Wall, the Unifi U6 Lite, and U6 LR. Both U6s and the Belkin/Linksys units are AX on 5GHz spectrum, and N on 2.4GHz. TPLink's EAP615 is AX on both.
Amazon US has it shipped and sold by Amazon as the first search result, at $150.
The Belkin can be found for ~<$100 on Walmart.com, shipped and sold by Walmart.
I was unable to find the the opposite combination.
That being said, I think I should have listed it as:
Linksys E8450 and Belkin RT3200. Only difference is the Linksys is black and the Belkin is white. Internal HW is (so far) identical.
Unrelated to this issue, I bought a Bluetooth audio-to-analog out dongle to stream to my speakers, only to find out that I could not disconnect any paired device from it. It automatically connected to any paired device if the other device's Bluetooth is on. The moment I forcefully disconnect it forcefully connected again. I searched the web to see others' exact same issue and Logitech was shamelessly marketing this stupid bug as a "feature" that "keeps devices connected" with no way to disable it.
I've quit using it, and never, ever recommended any Logitech product again to anybody.
From what I've seen, Logitech devices seem to have the transmit power set very high. Like use-it-from-multiple-rooms-away high. I have no idea why they do this, but it tends to make my PCs take a bit longer to detect other Bluetooth devices in the area. But not to the point that they won't connect or function. This includes pretty janky stuff like my hand-built keyboard that uses nice!nano boards.
It seems that combining this with the AirPods' existing issues in 2.4GHz-heavy environments and you've got a recipe for connectivity problems.
I see. But there is a maximum tx power that Bluetooth devices can transmit legally, is it just high tx power or something else?
Regardless, my issue can be solved via software: it's not "always connecting because of high tx power". I have other Bluetooth devices paired and none of them try to connect to other peers when I forcibly disconnect them until I explicitly hit connect or do a power cycle. On the other hand, the Logitech one does, which is literally the single reason for me to ditch it and never recommend a Logitech device to anyone again.
There's a maximum transmit power for the 2.4GHz band (without an operator license). If that maximum isn't exceeded, I don't necessarily see a problem here, unless Logitech is doing something really really sketchy on the EM spectrum. Implementing broken Bluetooth without calling it Bluetooth isn't forbidden as far as I know, for example, though it'd be quite a shitty thing to do.
If this notice is specially written for Airpods and not just any Bluetooth headset then it might as well be an Airpods problem.
I've never had issues with the dongles that come with Logitech on any of my devices. Bluetooth is terrible for high-frequency input and audio streaming anyway, so the in my experience the dongles are a much better solution.
All bluetooth audio dongles work like that, from all manufacturers. They'll automatically connect to the first open audio devices they see, so you shouldn't leave the dongle plugged when not used. It is very infuriating when you have a neighbor that plugs their dongle all the time and it constantly connect to your bluetooth headphone the moment you put it to pairing mode.
Just why? I get it if it connects when first powered on or the other device is first detected within range, yet why does it immediately reconnect when I disconnect?
My headphones don't have this behavior, my home Bluetooth speakers (not dongle, speakers themselves have BT) don't do it, my Bluetooth audio enabled TV doesn't do it, then why does the dongle do?
Of all the years I've been reading HackerNews, this is the one that moved me to actually sign up.
So I have three Intel-based MacBook Pros but of different model years - 2017 (15in), early-2019 (13in), and mid-2019 (16in).
The mid-2019 16in MacBook Pro in combination with Logitech MX Mouse (Mac version) and AirPod Pros cause significant interference on the microphone.
The result? I sound like a "robot" on Zoom calls. It drives me crazy - enough to revert back to my early-2019 laptop to handle calls.
I'm not really sure what to do here other than remove one of those factors from the equation... and I'm not sure the dongle is compatible with the Mac-version of the MX Master mouse.
I also sound like a dalek - or so I'm told - when I use my AirPods while also using the MX Master 3 mouse and MX Keys via Bluetooth on my MacBook Pro 2019 16" model. I had a hunch it was Bluetooth interference in some form, but I didn't know exactly what was causing it...turns out it's my Logitech stuff!
To add on here: Same issues. Then it started impacting other items I had.
In the beginning, I only had the MX (Mac Specific) mouse, and the problem did not happen very often. On occasion, but not too bad. After one of the OS updates, it was a non-stop issue. Disabling the auto switching (between Apple devices) helped a little.
Later, I also bought the MX Keys (Mac Specific) keyboard. I started having issues with a non-Apple headset on/off out of the blue. I could never use my AirPods with my laptop for anything other than listening to music. I tried everything from killing Bluetooth pref, to resetting my AirPods.
What finally solved it? I deleted all Logitech Devices from my laptop. Reset all Bluetooth settings. Re-paired my AirPods. I have not had a single problem in audio quality for 3 months now.
My Logitech devices are just sitting off to the side collecting dust now.
> MacBook Pro in combination with Logitech MX Mouse (Mac version) and AirPod Pros cause significant interference
This might be a silly question, but I'm assuming the AirPods are connected to the same MBP? I'm finding this entire conversation fascinating because I routinely use a Logitech MX (anywhere 3) for Mac mouse and Airpods (Pro). However, the mouse is connected to a Mac Mini and my Airpods to my iphone. I take all of my Zoom calls from my iPhone and dual connect to Zoom if I need to share my screen.
I don't think I've ever had massive amounts of interference between the AirPods and my mouse. I'm wondering if this is a case where connecting to two different devices is somehow mitigating this issue.
The dongle is compatible with Macs too. Only issue is that you experience some interference if you plug it into a usb-c multi adapter. I resolved this by using a usb extender cable. I've had zero interference since I started using this setup.
To clarify, Logitech makes two MX Master mice - one generic and one "Mac specific" which bundles a USB-C cable and no dongle adapter. On their website, they do not reference the Mac-version compatible with the optional dongle.
I have the same MacBook. I use a Magic Mouse, no Logitech devices. A PLT headset connected over Bluetooth causes the mouse and keyboard to lag severely. Using the same headset with it's bundled dongle or connected to my phone will not interfere with my mouse.
The Bluetooth and USB experience with this machine has been nothing but trouble for me.
I don’t remember if there was a first step in a setting changes because I’ve changed so much troubleshooting, but I’ve had the same issues on 16” since updating to Monterey.
My solution is:
1. Connect headphones, assuming mouse is already connected.
2. Turn off mouse.
3. Join call.
4. Turn mouse back on.
Since then, Zoom works mostly, google meets requires it every time.
What about using a different microphone? In my experience, listeners prefer the built-in MacBook Pro microphone over the AirPods Pro microphones. Or if you have a USB microphone, you can try that as well.
It’s not clear whether Logitech is the only party at fault here. WiMax could be conflicting with BT, and since WiMax is proprietary, the blame for that rests on Apple.
“as Mac OS Monterey was recently released so all the features may not work currently”
This kind of response makes me very angry. Apple release betas of their OS a good four months in advance of full release. It is unacceptable for big vendors to not have their products working when the final release drops. Does Logitech really want people to walk into a store and buy a brand new device that doesn’t work with the majority of theoretically supported Apple devices?
Wow, that forum is terrible. I’m on a slow connection and as I scroll the text blanks out though the chrome (lines between posts) remains. Then after a moment the text pops back in.
They could just have displayed the text but no, they need some gratuitous js.
I had a similar problem with my desktop, via a USB Bluetooth adapter. In my case I have both a Logitech Bluetooth keyboard and mouse, while the desktop sound was connected via Bluetooth to an Amazon Echo device.
The way to solve this was to replace my old Bluetooth 4.0 USB adapter with a newer Bluetooth 5.0 USB adapter. The problem disappeared and never came back.
Bluetooth 5.0 has a wider bandwidth and can more easily work with Audio and HID devices.
In that thread people are using built-in Bluetooth adapters so I am afraid they will never completely solve their problems.
And by the way, the numbers "1 2 3" on the Logitech mouse are not "bands" as some on that thread believe. They are just different pairing profiles.
I bought an MX Master 3 for Mac mouse for my Silicon Mac Mini about a year and a half ago but quickly shelved it because the cursor would frequently make irritating little jumps. I replaced it with an Apple Magic Touchpad (I don't love the Magic Mouse) because, at least at the time, I was under the impression that the jumpiness was due to a OS-level bug affecting all non-Apple mice. I did have Airpods at the time but I don't recall if I ever attempted to use them alongside the Logitech mouse.
The timing is fortuitous because, on a whim last night, I got my MX Master 3 out of storage and put it on a charger. I figured that, with ~18 months of macOS updates, perhaps it'll work with my Mac Mini on bluetooth or using the Logi Bolt USB adapter, which I don't own yet (I guess the Bolt is different from the Unifying Receiver... although irritatingly neither comes in USB-C).
I'm intrigued by the hypothesis that Logitech is remaining quiet because their products may be violating FCC rules, specifically, part 15 of the FCC rules: "this device may not cause harmful interference". If I can replicate the AirPods issue, or if I see some other weird behavior with the Logitech mouse, I might just break out my HackRF, YARD Stick One, or Ubertooth One. I'm a total noob at radiofrequency stuff, and I'm only slightly less of a noob with running specialty software, but I wonder if I can spot some unexpected RF emissions.
> specifically, part 15 of the FCC rules: "this device may not cause harmful interference".
I think you misunderstand what harmful interference means - it has a specific regulatory meaning - and the fact that it causes you grief with your other Part 15 devices doesn’t apply. If that were the case the FCC would be spending all their time just dealing with everyone’s shitty stereo equipment not working.
> but I wonder if I can spot some unexpected RF emissions.
I highly doubt it - this stuff was already certified. On the other hand it’s not surprising that devices physically near running in the same frequency band will have some undesired operation - this is why safety critical communications don’t operate in an unlicensed band. Spread spectrum isn’t completely magic (as an EE I’m still sometimes amazed any of this shit works at all) —- or maybe I should say it is magic but it still has to come to terms with physical realities.
Logitech Unifying and Logi Bolt are incompatible. Both them, classic Bluetooth, Bluetooth Low Energy and almost all other input-devices with dongles all use the 2.4 GHz band, and all these types of devices can interfere with one-another — but there are no rules against that!
Logi Bolt is actually a proprietary layer on top of Bluetooth Low Energy.
Logitech claims that it should suffer less in face of congestion on the band compared to regular BLE, but they have not revealed how: I wonder if they make it worse for other devices by transmitting on more BLE channels.
Bluetooth is a mess anyway. When I connect my (generic chinese) mouse before the (Sony) headset, everything works fine. However, if I don't use the mouse for a while but the headset stays connected (listening to something), when the mouse reconnects it's choppy to the point of being unusable. Solution: turn off mouse and headset, turn on the mouse first, then the headset, and everything works fine again.
This forum software is an exemplary demonstration of the poor technology at Logitech. Given the issue expressed and the reading experience, nobody should ever buy their products.
If you buy a bluetooth mouse (and seemingly keyboard) from a company known for their bluetooth peripherals they will not be compatible with the single most popular peripheral in the world. I'm shocked this has gone on this long.
Is logitech known for their bluetooth peripherals? I know them for their remotes (which was an acquisition and recently shut down, boo) and for input devices, but they do wired and propreitary wireless and bluetooth. After several attempts at using bluetooth, I only use it where necessary, which is interacting between phones and cars. No mouse could be good enough that I would suffer through bluetooth to use it; I'd rather get a wifi mouse (which sounds amazingly stupid! but exists and i'd bet works better than bluetooth)
There is a non zero percentage who simply dont buy apple gear to start with. The apple airpods userlist is a sub percentage of the apple users, so its probably not eating their bottom line as hard as HN users make it out to be.
The quality of Logitech products has gone downhill. I bought a couple of them to try to upgrade my dated MX Master 2s and I had to send them all back and got the new 2s which is passable.
I would go with different brands, but apparently Logitech has a patent for fast scrolling, so there is no other mice on the market that has a flywheel.
I don't get how do you get something so obvious and basic patented, but there you go.
Now thanks to Logitech I have to suffer with poor quality equipment.
Why can't they get their act together and go back to making quality stuff?
Is there an actual statement here from Logitech to this effect? While the regulatory rules for the 2.4 GHz band state that you must play nice with some sort of medium access control scheme, it of course doesn't guarantee something like AirPods will always have the RF environment that allows their unimpeded use.
Aside: If there's anybody on here who can get me in touch with somebody who works with the software driving Logtitech's Mevo camera products I'd really love to talk to them.
I've run into a bug that continues to exist in the most recent version of the iOS app for these cameras that I have to work around using Mitmproxy. The app won't "go live" because whatever it's doing to detect an "Internet connection" is failing on a network I use. Adding Mitmproxy to the mix, paradoxically, solves the problem.
I'd love to pull packet traces, run debug builds of the app, etc, to help fix the problem. I can't be the only one having the problem. The devices suit my purposes well but I hate having to stick one more moving part into the mix just to get them to work.
One counterpoint... on my M1 MBP, I use Logitech MX keyboard and MX mouse, and I also use AirPods Pro as my every day meeting microphone and speakers... no issues. I'm not denying anyone else has problems, but it's not a definitive "it does not work."
Just to add another datapoint, I've happily used a Logitech MX Master 2 alongside Airpod Pros, both connected using Bluetooth, to either an M1 MacBook Air or a Microsoft Surface.
Is it an issue with just AirPods rather than Pros?
If you read the OP, the Logitech devices also ruin the sound for Sony headphones. They're likely creating a large amount of interference, beyond what headphones can accept while still delivering acceptable audio quality.
I've had this problem! I didn't realise it was the mouse interfering with my AirPods Pro and another set of BT headphones I have, but indeed if I turn the mouse off it's fine!
Tangentially related: I’ve found that if I use a specific USB type C extension cable with my USB/DP dock, my MX Master 3 stops working reliably over BT or Logitech's Unified receiver - even on other computers. I think the extension cable throws off interference in the 2.4GHz range. Other 2.4 GHz devices seem to have some issues too when I do that, but the mouse in particular is unusable. Has anyone experienced something like that?
USB3 operating at certain speeds causes 2.4GHz interference. If your cable isn't sufficiently shielded (or the shielding is sufficiently damaged) you may just turn it into an antenna for that inherent interference.
I've seen this problem cause people with WiFi dongles to lose 2.4GHz connectivity. The solution was often to use a USB 2.0 port, but these days you won't find as many of those.
I have frequently had to put the Logi dongle at the end of a USB extension cord to get it to work at all. So much so I don't bother to try without, anymore.
Apparently their RF protocol is incompatible with having a USB 3 transceiver too close by, and it cannot be fixed.
So, wondering if problems resolve with an extension. If so, it would be odd for Logi not to know about it. They were the source of the original suggestion.
USB3 ports operating at high speeds can cause signal interference on the 2.4GHz band. This can be a problem for WiFi dongles, though Bluetooth dongles are often more sensitive to this.
It's just a side effect of the frequency some devices operate at. It's a physics problem that's difficult to solve. Theoretically you could limit the bandwidth if your USB ports to USB2 but that's probably not what you want either.
Anecdata, but I’ve had a terrible experience with Logitech mice on all sorts of Macs over the years - both Intel and Apple Silicon. Bluetooth is almost always a non-starter. The Unifying dongle works, but you’ll need to keep it physically close to the mouse. Unfortunately, Logitech also makes my favourite mouse - the light-weight G Pro X wireless.
Their software is atrocious, too. Steermouse to the rescue, thankfully.
More anecdata, but I think this is a more general Apple problem rather than Logitech, I always had very poor performance with non-Apple BT devices with Macs - devices that work fine with a range of other computers.
I think the experiences with this might vary wildly. Not mentioning Apple bt devices, I tried using sony wh-1000xm1 (or whatever the first gen of them was called, because they only solidified a consistent naming scheme for that line around gen 2 or 3 iirc) bt headphones, hhkb2 pro bt keyboard, ps4/ps5/nintendo switch gamepads (all in bt mode), and a TE OB-4 bt speaker. No issues whatsoever with any of them.
Disclaimer: sony headphones, hhkb2 keyboard, and nintendo switch gamepad were tested on non-M1/Intel macbooks. The rest were tested on both intel and M1.
Yeah, I’d bet that’s equally possible. I wire most of my peripherals because Bluetooth just seems perennially flaky. Mouse and AirPods are the exception.
I’ve had a terrible experience with (wireless) mice of every brand I’ve tried on my Macs. I very much dislike wired mice, so my solution was to abandon mice and switch to wired trackballs.
I would like someone who is having this problem to look at the 2.4 ghz band with an SDR. My initial untested hypothesis is the transmit power of the airpods can't handle the frequency competition of a peripheral device that is most likely way closer to the computer than the airpods.
With the conflicting experiences in these threads I wonder if there's an unknown third component that's influencing this problem. Some other interference causing Logitech hardware to switch bands or causing Bluetooth devices to use different connection properties, for example.
It doesn't take all that much interference to get a multi device Bluetooth piconet to see disturbance, perhaps a combination of interference sources is causing the Bluetooth performance on some Bluetooth adapter to fall back to lower speeds, ruining the experience for devices relying on high throughput Bluetooth.
A lot of comments here seem to miss the detail in the OP that this doesn't only affect Apple AirPods, but also Sony headphones (and likely others). Which is understandable considering that the submitted post title singles out AirPods for improved clicks/karma.
I've got this issue also. Through elimination I found out that the bad audio only occurred when I had my MX Master 3 / MX Keys connected via Bluetooth.
I worked around this through using the unified receiver, but it's pretty crap that this is necessary.
I wonder if this is why I have some intermittent issues with my jabra headset. Since I'm using a mx anywhere in Bluetooth at the same time. It's not often and usually solved by power cycling the headset.
sounds more like this is on Apple which systematically designs their bluetooth devices such that they exhibit uncooperative interfacing. f.x. my airpods won't connect to my Linux notebook (Sony, Bose - all work). my iPhone won't connect to my TomTom navi (various Android smartphones - no problem). same for hotspot settings which refuse connection from Android. Apple is a digital bully.
furthermore I am using a Logitech MX Anywhere 3 mouse via bluetooth and at the same time use either Bose QC35 or EarBuds also via bluetooth. no problem. so that's that ...
You know, this might explain why sometimes when on google meets (using my airpods) my mouse / keyboard act up a lot. I'd use their unifying adapter but I've found that's even worse overall.
My Max Keys for Mac and both AirPods and AirPods Pro work at the same time, I use them for work. Not sure why it doesn’t work for others. I was looking at an MX mouse but I’m not sure if I’ll get one now.
I tried using the MX Master 3 mouse on Bluetooth when I got it with my MBP and it was disaster - so I just use the lot little dongle thing. Works fine, but annoying to use up a port.
There is similar issue with Intel NUC. Wireless interference between Bluetooth, USB 3.0, Wi-Fi, and Logitech USB dongle. Neither of them works reliably, if works at all.
For a company working with RF products (even if it is through a 3rd party FCC approved board), I would assume Automatic Gain Control (AGC) to be a standard.
Huh. It might be my own experience, but I've rarely had any problems with my AirPods Pro connected to a MacBook Air M1 with my Logitech MX Keys keyboard.
Wow, I’ve been wondering why my AirPods doesn’t work with my work MacBook anymore. I restarted my AirPods twice before giving up and using my Jabra only.
If you switch the Logitech device to use their "unifying" adapter, which doesn't use bluetooth but a different proprietary wireless protocol, the problem goes away.
Logitech acknowledged the problem about six months ago but thus far have deflected any further questions about a fix.