Since I was asked to report my experiences with my new
Digitus DN-3008M1...
The reason I was after a class 1 dongle is because I have a
pair of
Plantronics 590A headphones, which come with their own
audio-only
dongle, and the range is rather less than I would like.
They probably
reach to around 7 metres, but at that range you have to hold
your head
in exactly the right position to hear anything. I was
hoping that a
class 1 dongle would have a longer range.
Of course, Bluez's A2DP support is still experimental, and
the whole
field of audio under Linux is such a horrible broken mess
anyway, I was
under no illusions that this would be any kind of good
solution. This
was just to future-proof myself. Maybe one day the various
warring
tribes that comprise audio development under Linux will wipe
each other
out in a nuclear holocaust and a new civilisation will arise
from the
ashes, at which point my class 1 USB dongle might start to
be useful.
In the meantime, I was interested to know exactly what range
I could get
out of my headset. Everyone knows that class 2 devices can
talk to each
other over a range of "10 metres" (a
"metre" being a unit of length used
only by radio equipment manufacturers, measuring about a
foot), and that
class 1 devices can talk to each over a range of "100
metres". But
what's the range between a class 2 device and a class 1
device? If my
class 1 device is sending the bulk of the data, should I be
getting
class 1 range? What about the ACK packets? It seemed worth
experimenting.
So, the results. As I say, the dongle that comes with the
Plantronics
590A achieved about 7m (real metres, not
radio-equipment-manufacturer
fluffy pink fantasy metres).
My old DBT-120 (revision B2), of which I had high hopes,
performed
atrociously, getting maybe 3m. I bought two of these
dongles years ago,
back when I thought bluetooth might compete with wifi for
home
networking. I got similar terrible results then as well,
making them
useless for their intended purpose. I now use a DBT-120
with my
bluetooth mouse, which obviously can happily stay within
range.
And my new Digitus DN-3008M1 class 1 dongle got... drum roll
please...
about 10m. That is, the actual distance depended heavily on
how many
intervening walls and things were in the way. Between my
computer and
bedroom, about 9m and a few intervening walls, it performed
OK, although
would still cut out if I had my head facing in the wrong
direction. It
managed to broadcast through two intervening floors, but cut
out when I
went into the cellar.
So the conclusion:
* Don't believe the lies about "10m" and
"100m".
* A class 2 dongle is adequate when the devices are in the
same room.
* A class 1 dongle is adequate when the devices are in the
same house.
Assuming it's a fairly small house.
* Anything more than that, you need the class 0 dongle,
which glows
white-hot during operation and knocks migrating birds out of
the sky.
All in all, I'd consider that a good result. Now if only
there was a
class 1 dongle that supported HID proxy...
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