[HN Gopher] Fixing the volume on my Bluetooth earbuds
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Fixing the volume on my Bluetooth earbuds
Author : rain1
Score : 90 points
Date : 2023-10-28 17:06 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (blog.ornx.net)
(TXT) w3m dump (blog.ornx.net)
| ravenstine wrote:
| This is the one thing I dislike about Apple Airpods. I also don't
| like the connection sound effect because it adds a needless 2
| second delay. Would love to get rid of both sound effects.
| playingalong wrote:
| Likely the delay is not because of the sound effect. But the
| other way around - they added the jingle to mask the delay.
| jjoonathan wrote:
| NICE! Way to stick with it OP!
|
| Speaking of loud earbuds, I might have the opposite problem. I
| use Bose exercise earbuds on the treadmill at what I believe is a
| comfortable and conservative volume, but my iPhone gives me a
| notification that the volume is too high and I am wrecking my
| hearing.
|
| Is the phone correct? If so, I'd be willing to sacrifice a bit of
| enjoyment for a bit of ear health. However, there's a compelling
| alternative hypothesis: these earbuds have a distinctively lower
| physical volume at a given volume setting than others I have
| used, so lazy modeling on Apple's part could be expected to
| generate a false notification like the one I receive. I want to
| commend Apple if they did the right thing and built a database
| mapping (model,volume_setting)->physical_volume. Unfortunately,
| the complete lack of details in the notification and feature
| description do not inspire confidence and I do not want to make
| my workouts shittier just because Apple put a college homework
| quality model into production.
|
| Does anyone here know if the data science backing these
| notifications is competent?
| chrismorgan wrote:
| My phone (Android 5, and I barely use it, frankly, so until it
| stops working I don't need anything newer) does the same thing
| when connecting it to my car over Bluetooth, the first time
| after every reboot. It's simply and flatly a stupid feature. If
| I could root the device I could turn off that switch 'cos it's
| in a config file somewhere, but I've never succeeded (Samsung
| Galaxy J1 (2016)).
| jjoonathan wrote:
| Yeah, that's what I'm afraid of lol.
|
| It all depends on the implementation. A $2.6 trillion dollar
| company could probably rummage up the spare change to buy and
| measure the most popular earbuds/phones -- but why do that
| when you can if (volume>14) alert("You're
| killing your hearing!")
| coffeebeqn wrote:
| I don't think the OS knows how many dB's come out of the other
| end. My Boses act differently with different Bluetooth
| chipsets. On Linux I have to do 150% volume to hear much of
| anything
| jjoonathan wrote:
| The computer knows what it's sending to Bluetooth and it
| knows some model identifiers from Bluetooth. This _could_ be
| implemented well. But I agree, it probably isn 't.
| mrob wrote:
| What if the manufacturer changes the sensitivity but keeps
| the Bluetooth identifier the same? I assume Apple would
| rather set a conservative limit for everything than risk
| getting sued for allowing hearing damage with an incorrect
| custom limit.
| jjoonathan wrote:
| If not raising an alert is "allowing hearing damage" then
| they already do plenty of that, as does everyone else.
| It's not a reason to do a poor job. Maybe an excuse, but
| not a reason.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| It'd have to set up their own audiolab and produce a long
| list of models and what the output levels are per volume
| setting. OTOH, these things should be standardized.
| Swizec wrote:
| > Is the phone correct? If so, I'd be willing to sacrifice a
| bit of enjoyment for a bit of ear health.
|
| Noise cancelling headphones/earbuds solved this problem for me.
| With noise cancelling I can keep volume below 20% and have a
| comfortable listening experience that doesn't blow up my ears.
|
| For me, I know the Apple notification is probably right because
| I started noticing ear aches after long workout sessions a few
| years ago. This has completely gone away after noise
| cancelling.
| hedora wrote:
| I miss exactly two things from android on iOS. Both involve
| Bluetooth not sucking.
|
| The first one is that the minimum volume on my Bluetooth
| earbuds is too damn loud on iOS. This is true for every third
| party set of headphones I have tried. People have been
| complaining about this online for a decade. The EU even passed
| a law to make them fix it (spoiler alert: it did not work).
|
| FFS, min volume in the UI should map to hardware volume level
| integer one!
|
| The second issue is that third party apps can't expose music or
| podcasts via the car bluetooth media browsing menu. They can on
| android.
|
| That means I can listen to podcasts and stream tidal using the
| jogwheel on my car with android, but not ios.
|
| Other Bluetooth complaints:
|
| Why does my Apple Watch blacklist car stereos?
|
| Bluetooth is really buggy in iOS version N and N-1.
| crazygringo wrote:
| > _The first one is that the minimum volume on my Bluetooth
| earbuds is too damn loud on iOS. This is true for every third
| party set of headphones I have tried._
|
| That's wild. I've never experienced anything like that -- not
| with AirPods or Bose or a cheap brand TOZO.
|
| Are you sure it's not a problem with the earbuds themselves,
| that their minimum level is higher than it should be?
|
| If you've dug into it, what is the range/steps of Bluetooth
| volume levels, and which are the range/steps that iOS
| supports?
|
| Also, have you ever tried dragging the volume slider in iOS?
| That lets you set volume smoothly, not restricted to
| increments. Does that not let you set the smallest volume?
| toast0 wrote:
| > That's wild. I've never experienced anything like that --
| not with AirPods or Bose or a cheap brand TOZO.
|
| I had something similar with a usb 'sound card' I was using
| with a mac. I had to use some DSP software to artificially
| reduce the sound level to about 1%, and then it was usable.
| Worked fine on windows as I recall. I had a similar issue
| with a set of logitech usb speakers; one pair worked great,
| so I ordered a second pair, where (on windows) the lowest
| output volume is tremendously loud, I couldn't get the DSP
| software to stick though, and ended up replacing them.
|
| In conclusion, computers are awful.
| crazygringo wrote:
| > _I want to commend Apple if they did the right thing and
| built a database mapping (model,volume_setting)-
| >physical_volume_
|
| Even if they did, it would be out of date the moment it
| shipped.
|
| But no, there's no reason to believe they'd do anything like
| that. It _would_ be interesting if headphone manufacturers
| reported the dB range when connecting with Bluetooth to enable
| something like that, but I 've never heard of such a thing.
| (That is an area where Bluetooth could enable something like
| that, in a way that the 3.5mm jack couldn't.)
| jjoonathan wrote:
| Software updates aren't just for distributing first party
| malware, you know -- they could also conceivably be used to
| update a device database. We have the technology.
|
| This is probably an "all of the above" situation. Implement
| on AirPods _and_ push for a standard _and_ make measurements
| of popular old models _and_ have a fallback that assumes
| industry averages. On the scale of Apple, this is not much to
| ask.
| Eisenstein wrote:
| The volume which comes out of speakers and into your ears is
| dependent on many different things. Some that come to mind are
| the sensitivity and impedance of the speaker drivers, the
| amplifier in the earbuds and the fit over/in the ear.
|
| They are most likely just setting a toggle at a percentage of
| maximum volume level. The phone has no way of knowing what the
| sound pressure is at your eardrums.
|
| You can rest easy knowing that you can ignore the warning if
| you think it isn't loud enough with the caveat that you could
| be damaging your hearing over time.
| Vicinity9635 wrote:
| Man I wish someone would do this for my bluetooth sleep mask.
|
| It's pretty great except for one thing: When the battery is low
| or it's going to power off it announces it to you at full volume.
|
| _On a sleep mask._
| twelvechairs wrote:
| What does it do? Why do you want a bluetooth connection when
| you are trying to sleep?
| zoky wrote:
| For listening to music/white noise/droning YouTube videos
| while falling asleep.
| astura wrote:
| Plenty of people use audio to fall asleep - be it relaxing
| music, white noise, nature sounds, podcasts, talk radio,
| boring speeches, or whateverelse. Not everyone likes the same
| sleeping audio as others sleeping in the same room.
| Vicinity9635 wrote:
| You can use it to play music, I go with audio books.
|
| it's actually better at pairing with my iphone and ipad than
| my apple devices, which is wild.
|
| Product page: https://www.amazon.com/MUSICOZY-Headphones-
| Bluetooth-Everyth...
| baz00 wrote:
| That's actually pretty funny. I imagine you were very pissed
| off when you first discovered that one.
|
| I had a similarly flawed one. I had an alarm clock which had a
| MSF radio sync thing built in. But every time it resync'ed with
| the MSF time signal it'd make the same sound as the alarm for
| 2-3 seconds. You couldn't turn it off. This was invariably at
| 3AM or some horrible time. I eventually opened it up and cut
| the MSF antenna out and slept better knowing the clock was
| always slightly wrong.
| tux3 wrote:
| My Sony headset (wh-1000xm4) has the exact same problem, but they
| apparently encrypt the firmware payloads and decrypt them on
| device.
|
| I've come this close to taking it apart and trying to dump and
| probe everything, but my shaky hands are too likely to break it.
|
| I would pay very good money for a hackable noice-cancelling
| headset.
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| > I would pay very good money for a hackable noice-cancelling
| headset.
|
| https://pine64.com/product/pinebuds-pro-open-firmware-capabl...
| ?
| tux3 wrote:
| Thank you. I normally like over ear headphones, but I'll
| definitely consider going that route
| lightedman wrote:
| I'd like a way for phones to know if the headset that is
| connected is a speaker set, IEMs, bone conduction, etc. The
| "Volume is too loud" notification is annoying when I'm using my
| regular speaker set and WANT the volume cranked so I can hear it
| across the house, and doubly-annoying when I'm using bone
| conduction headphones as they need to be at an appreciable volume
| for you to hear them well.
| solarkraft wrote:
| I love this stuff. All of a sudden this model of earphones is
| quite interesting to me.
|
| Side note: The system sounds a bluetooth device makes are among
| the strongest differentiating factors (with some being completely
| awful; see https://youtu.be/J2wPsH64JEM). Yet I have never seen a
| review or product page which tells you about what sound (which
| you will have to hear multiple times per day, with no way to opt
| out!) the product will make.
|
| The ability to change them also seems like a pretty easy
| differentiator.
| msrenee wrote:
| I really wish I could turn down the play/pause beep on my
| aftershokz. It's perfect in a loud shop with earplugs in.
| Sitting in a quiet office with my music down low to
| concentrate, it's uncomfortable and startling. I don't
| understand why the system sounds don't respond to the volume
| level.
| abdullahkhalids wrote:
| Why do the earbuds have the sound files in mp3 format rather than
| some raw uncompressed format? Doesn't this mean that the earbuds
| must now have a mp3 decoder?
|
| Is there a resource-usage argument for preferring mp3?
| toast0 wrote:
| I dunno how big the sound files are, but mp3 is going to use a
| lot less storage than uncompressed PCM. Using a smaller flash
| chip saves money on the BOM.
|
| Bluetooth headphones already need to manage several formats to
| decode, and the chipset that does that may also decode mp3, and
| mp3 is easy to work with to prepare the files.
| causality0 wrote:
| I kept a pair of Tozo T6's in my pocket for several years.
| Honestly... buy better buds. You don't even have to spend more
| money. I haven't touched my Tozos since I got a pair of Comfobuds
| Mini.
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