This. Bluetooth just sucks. I recently tried out 3 of the top rated bluetooth headsets on Amazon after giving up a couple years ago. It still just sucks and is not reliable. Battery life is terrible if you want headphones you can use all day while at work or commuting (won't even come close to making it through the day with smaller headphones).

This is just a terrible decision IMO. OTOH I'm a diehard Nexus guy so I guess I really don't care :)

Which bluetooth headphones did you try? I have the following two and they work perfectly.

- Plantronics Backbeat Go

- Jabra Pulse

Both worked perfectly paired with my Surface Pro as well as my Nexus 6P. I also had a Nexus 6 prior to that and it paired to that device with no issues whatsoever as well.

Plantronics seem to have simply mastered bluetooth. The backbeat pro pairs easily with everything I've tried, long enough range to leave my phone at my desk all day, connects to work + personal at the same time, and are pretty good headphones to boot.

Given that headphones are purely analog devices, I'm not sure an all-digital solution really makes sense. You have to put the DAC+amplifier somewhere, and it seems just wasteful to incorporate it into each and every pair of headphones.

That, and you'll wind up with at best, something that performs equally well to the traditional analog output jack. Is that really worth mangling years of standards and backwards compatibility for?

They're pricey (~ 450 USD), but I recommend the Sennheiser Momentum bluetooth wireless [1]. Great sound for music (aptX) and phone calls, comfortable, solid noise cancellation. You can still use them corded if you want too.

[1] https://en-us.sennheiser.com/momentum-wireless-headphones-wi...

But they're not bluetooth, right?

I suspect they are, they've said that the AirPods work with Macs and iPads, which as far as we know don't have any special radio hardware except the standard Bluetooth and Wi-Fi.