how does that work in a crowded space, e.g. public transport, where I'd wager most people are using BT headsets nowadays ?
aka public transit...
On the other hand, this is what mass adoption of wireless headphones will lead to, and it shows how ridiculously bad this is compared to the tried-and-true wire.
There are some BT devices that have poor antenna designs and underpowered transcievers, where the proximity of other humans — or even your own body — can significantly attenuate the signal. But this isn't a problem with the spec itself, and there's plenty of devices that have shown it's possible to do it right.
Considering that WiFi and Bluetooth both run at near 2.4GHz - I’d assume that areas with a lot of wireless networks could (and have in my experience) interfere with BT.
This wasn’t limited to 1 set of devices though. Tried it with my AirPods and a pair of NC Sennheiser headphones. Both cause issues when walking into busy (in terms of WiFi) areas.
Seems like it's possible for bluetooth to handle up to 78 users in 10m space without interference.
(Hint: it starts with an "i" and ends with "Phone".)
The Bluetooth standard is trash; no stack/device [combination] just works as it's supposed to do.
If BT worked, I think accessibility would pose no problem; ultimately, the intended workflow is: 1. turn on BT on the host device (if required); 2. turn on the client device; 3. listen to music.
As the BT committees and implementers keep pushing features rather than taking care of the stability, for a stable BT to ever happen, it would require all of them to be exiled and replaced by a new generation; I don't think this will ever happen.