although I agree that powerline networking is garbage, I have encountered older construction houses that create an environment that is just about impossible to conquer without specialist wireless equipment.
passive blocking via exotic wall materials, older drywall and fairing compounds that contained metallic particulate, various metallic accoutrements -- and accidental active jamming from poor wiring.
>Which is why professional musicians and broadcasters would never use wireless microphones and pickups. (sarcasm)
eh -- this is just an effective and allowed compromise. A performer will usually prefer not to drag wires around a stage just from the sheer physical discomfort from the additional weight and the worry of a trip hazard on an already hazardous stage.
That said , many performers opt to avoid such conveniences due to a perceived difference in quality. [0]
[0]: https://www.quora.com/Why-are-wireless-rigs-not-the-standard...
eh — this is not a “purely” aesthetic or superficial difference, which was the foolishness I was replying to: “Wired is ALWAYS the objectively superior option in all metrics except for superficial & subjective "aesthetics", all else equal.”
I've never seen it go beyond 200mbps for any real run I've had. Often the link in these shitty big row-houses I've lived in has resulted in more like ~40mbps. Those numbers sound awful. But I'll take it any day, in these wifi noisey spaces. Having reliable <2ms latency with absolutely no drop outs has been an absolutely killer advantage. The powerline networking has so much less variability, so much less jitter & chaos than wifi, even very complex multi-drop wifi. I might get more throughput over wifi, but it comes with far far higher base latency, and will fall to shit multiple times a day. Powerline's reliability has been one of the best upgrades I've ever made.
Also griefing about battery seem like horseshit too. I have a travel mouse with a single rechargeable AA battery in it. I have a variety of gaming mice, including a Razer Naga Epic from ~2010 that I've literally worn the buttons through to unreliability on. These mice all have li-ion batteries and they all work fine. Maybe in aggregate I've worn through like a single rechargable AA cells worth of use over a decade. The rate of attrition on rechargeable batteries is tiny.
It's just incredible what the cables-or-die undead-alliance goes through to justify their fanatical anti-cause.
Let's stop the charades - team wireless has chosen their position because deep inside, whether they want to admit it or not, they have a squeamish, neurotic aversion to the sight of cables, nothing more.
Slower? Not really, not according to the links already shared. Less bandwidth? My headphones, my mouse, my keyboard are nowhere near their practical limits over wireless. Higher latency? I just cited 0.2ms, which seems absurd to grumble over. Higher error rate? This is not a problem I've ever experienced. More prone to interference? Literally never seen an issue. There's just no real solid reports on this being an issue. It's not seen with any statistical significance in real reviews.
Higher power requirements? Yes, having some awareness of batteries is required, but if you set things up (slash most devices are set up) to not be caught unprepared it's a remarkable low-toil system. Most devices can charge themselves. Most will operate for a week without charge. The only problem is being a total newb who doesn't have any handle at all, who gets caught out unprepared in the cold, by having absolutely no indicators & no warning. Once you actually start trying to use these devices, once you actually start looking at the battery level, the power concern is remarkably low issue.
I never said that. I never said I made any trade-offs. Wireless is strictly better, with as good real performance. I kept reviewing the rtings table, and it turns out most of the best performances from mice are only on wireless. I haven't seen a single wired mouse that goes <2ms. But a number of mice (which are wired capable) can go <2 ms wireless. This doesn't seem worth quibbling about, but you're not playing this fair or square, you're not being in any way reasonable, you're being a lopsided mean person, so I'll cite some small fine-grained nitty-gritty shit to tell this denialist attitude off.
> Personal incredulity is a logical fallacy, not an argument
Show me the evidence. Your anger & pissancy is not an argument either. You have not a shred more than I do. You lean on fear uncertainty & doubt. You have nothing.
> From a usability standpoint, sure. That electricity still has an excess economic cost, and the lithium-ion battery produced from rare earth minerals that, statistically speaking, have a solid chance of having been mined with slave or child labor, have both environmental and humanitarian costs that my wired mouse, requiring no rare earth minerals, simply does not incur.
Get out of town. This zeal is ridiculous; you show your colors. Call me again when you're willing to come back to earth. Otherwise this is a flamewar & discussion is impossible. We're talking about batteries that weigh 10~20g. The level of shaming you've attempted to go through to condemn these batteries is stratospheric & utterly absurd. Let's say lithium makes up 50% the weight... is 5g of lithium that lasts well over a decade worth freaking out about? This seems unhinged & deranged to me. There seems to be no desire on your part to come-to-level, to actually discuss & have discourse: it's all extremes, bias, selling your position. I'm not interested in flamewars like this. The protests against wireless gear seem so ill-defined, so emotionally biased, so lacking in evidence. If you need both reliable AND cheap, yes, go wired, do it, it's easy, but for pretty mild costs, the wireless kit we can get today is surpassing. I have yet to hear a single reasoned cause not just in this thread but in any thread that genuinely backs up or supports the wired-mafia.
By this you mean that the highest quality wireless mice can have less latency than the lowest quality wired mice, which is not abiding by the "all else equal" clause.
For ANY given wireless mouse, I will guarantee, with so much certainty that I'd place a wager on it, that I can find a wired mouse that is either cheaper with equal latency, the same price with lower latency, or cheaper and with lower latency.
It is very well possible that your cherry-picked, expensive, enthusiast-grade wireless mouse with extremely high wireless polling/sampling rates has lower latency than most wired mice, given most wired mice (not cherry picked) are far cheaper.
Again, it's less about not needing a wire and more about you not wanting a wire, because you're prejudiced against the superficial, subjective "aesthetics" of cables, isn't it?
This also completely neglects to address freedom from interference, the environment cost of batteries (disposable or rechargable), the economic cost of batteries (disposable or rechargeable), or the hassle(s) of changing or recharging batteries.
Admit it - deep down, you just have a hatred of cables for strictly aesthetic reasons, don't you?
Ethernet over powerline is not the most efficient medium, and has additional externalities, relative to an actual ethernet cable. Again, wireless can be superior, but only when you are deliberately cherry-picking the least efficient wired setup to compare to the most efficient wireless setup, just like your argument for mice.
Show me a wireless 802.11 network with faster speeds, lower latency, and less packet loss than 10G fiber.
Last time I checked, recording studios (where quality matters) use gold-plated wires from manufacturers that diligently work to remove air from their metallurgical process.
The "professional" musicians aren't using wireless because it's better, they're using wireless because it's "good enough" and because ultimately, like you, they don't really care about the quality, right?
Nobody said you can’t use your damn wired mouse if it makes you happy - but latency is not an actual reason to prefer a wired mouse.
> Again, wireless can be superior, but only when you are deliberately cherry-picking the least efficient wired setup to compare to the most efficient wireless setup, just like your argument for mice.
But earlier I thought you said it was a law of physics that conductive mediums were always superior to air. Also that the speed of light in air is slower than a “conductive” medium.
You don’t seem well.
I want the solution with the absolute lowest latency, not the "low enough" latency. Wired wins at every price point.
It's also not the only reason to prefer wired, it's one of the half dozen I've outlined above.
Wireless anything is an affront to engineering, physics, and peak performance.
The preference for wireless comes strictly from a neurotic aversion to cables, nothing more.
Just to be clear, your wireless mouse, keyboard, headset, and network connection are not making use of light through air, and your wireless network connection cannot make use of light through air even a fraction as efficiently as light through fiber optic cable, due to a guaranteed minimum amount of light interference in air that a fiber optic cable will never have, right?
Yes they are. “The terms light, electromagnetic waves, and radiation all refer to the same physical phenomenon: electromagnetic energy.”
https://science.nasa.gov/ems/02_anatomy
Light and radio are both electromagnetic energy. Radio waves and light both propagate at the speed of light. The speed of light in a vacuum is a universal constant. The speed of light in various mediums is always slower. Among copper, air and glass, light/EM waves will propagate the slowest in glass and the fastest in air.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_of_light
> cannot make use of light through air even a fraction as efficiently as light through fiber optic cable, due to a guaranteed minimum amount of light interference in air that a fiber optic cable will never have, right?
No, not right. As someone else pointed out a point to point link through the air will have lower latency than fiber (glass or plastic).
Whether or not a signal can be carried accurately and error free through any medium involves concepts beyond a basic understanding of the speed of light. But in the real world one will encounter reliable well designed wireless links and poorly performing wired links.
There's a clear misunderstanding here.
Light and wireless signals used by mice etc are the same thing though, just at a different frequency. They propagate at the same speed, the speed of light, which ironically is slower in glass.
Wireless signals in air travel faster than light in a fiber optic cable (and faster than electricity in copper).
It's very well possible my wireless mouse setup has lower latency than most wired setups.
That’s why I said essentially no lag. A good gaming wireless mouse will do better than many wired mice. In those cases it’s better but it’s still not enough difference to matter to anyone.
The advantage of wired is not just aesthetics. This thread started because of any accessory to deal with the wire. I don't need to bother at all with a damn wire in the way.
> This might as be considered a law of physics - electromagnetic energy will always travel faster, more accurately, with less interference, with less required current through a conductive medium than through air.
I mean you might want to go back and read a high school physics textbook - because you’ve got the speed of light exactly backwards.
The reason digital wireless signals may have additional latency has nothing to do with the propagation which is faster in air.
Also I’ve never seen a networking over powerline system that worked better than Wi-Fi. Not all conductive paths are effective for signals.
> Wired is ALWAYS the objectively superior option in all metrics except for superficial & subjective "aesthetics", all else equal.
Which is why professional musicians and broadcasters would never use wireless microphones and pickups. (sarcasm)