Why is Windows 10 Bluetooth so so so bad ?

I agree and have no idea what to do.  You'd think the company that really pioneered at home computers would be able to make bluetooth work on their current OS like it does on literally any other company's OS.

I am constantly having to uninstall the Bluetooth drivers in their entirety and reinstall as the drivers seem to degrade over time, just to get it to work somewhat okay for 2-4 weeks.

When it does act up, running the Troubleshooter is absolutely useless, because it claims nothing is wrong, despite the entirety of Bluetooth sometimes downright stopping all audio and video on the computer as it glitches out.

And the fact that this has gone on since the launch of Windows 10, and Microsoft just thinks it's acceptable really is disappointing.  They want so desperately to be macOS by stripping away so much of our freedom for customizing our computers, because evidently all their users are complete idiots, but can't fix one of the most fundamental pieces of an average customer's experience on their products.

It's disappointing.  Here's hoping they bother considering working on it one day.

Having used Bluetooth mice and keyboards on both Apple's Mac's and Windows PC's. I can say that in my experience Apple's implementation of Bluetooth is far better than Windows for whatever reason. You would think that the same technology would work the same on either operating system. But that has not been the case in my experience. Maybe its why I don't see as many Bluetooth Mice and keyboards for Windows PC's? I know when I have used Apple Bluetooth keyboards and mice, or even third party ones they do seem to connect instantly and have zero issues remaining connected. It became such a issue for me that I have abandon all Bluetooth devices for Windows. I can only recommend to those considering a wireless peripheral for Windows to use a wireless solution over a Bluetooth wireless one for a mouse or keyboard. Yeah, it is sort of amazing that as long as Bluetooth has been around that its still has so many problems in Windows.  

I have to agree.

I have some Sony WH-1000XM3 Bluetooth headphones.  If I'm using them on IOS, or Mac OS the connection is totally solid & reconnection is reliable.  The story in Windows 10 however isn't the same.

Whether they decide to connect is totally hit & miss.  Then, if you don't use them immediately, they start randomly disconnecting and re-connecting.  

Also, when gaming - you sometimes get severe sound stuttering, which means you have to exit,  disconnect and re-connect the headphones or remove them and start again.  This fixes the issue for a time.  It's totally random though.

It's also a total pain that when you connect the headphones, you get two different playback options:

1) Headphones Stereo

2) Headphones (Hands Free Audio)

If you want to talk to anyone on teams, skype or whatever, you need to remember to switch your playback device to option 2.  WHY?   also, if you leave it on this setting, this massively reduces sound quality for listening to audio, so you spend most of the day messing about switching between the two settings, which is bad enough, but it's just not reliable.

I have a new PC, fresh install on Windows and all drivers have been updated + have tried removing and adding them back on many times.  Given how many complaints I've read about Bluetooth on Windows, I can only assume there are on-going issues with the stability.

good luck with anyone reading this getting it sorted + if you have any tips to fix this, please share :)

I am about ready to see if bluetooth is better on linux. I have NEVER gotten bluetooth to work reliably with window 10. And that's with two differnt devices, two differnt bluetooth dongles, and two different computers. The OS is the only common denominator. 

I am about ready to see if bluetooth is better on linux.

On the Arch kernel at least, the bluetooth audio works really well with pulseaudio. The computer scans every few seconds for paired devices, so as long as you don't have a bazillion of them, you should be good.

I am about ready to see if bluetooth is better on linux. I have NEVER gotten bluetooth to work reliably with window 10. And that's with two differnt devices, two differnt bluetooth dongles, and two different computers. The OS is the only common denominator. 

I've just done that and it is day and night.  I couldn't believe that natively on Windows my headphone range was 3x shorter than the one I got on Ubuntu(via VIRTUALBOX!!!!!!). The connection was much more stable and compared to Win drivers(Intel device), after returning from poor reception zone, the Bluetooth remained to play well with good audio quality. On Windows it becomes terrible and you have to reconnect to get to the default quality levels.

And don't get me started about the mic. It is hard to believe how bad is the Bluetooth management on Win.

Even on mobile phones, it is working around 100x better.

I'm so sick and tired of Windows that I'm finally thinking about switching to Mac

After updating itself. I have lost my Bluetooth entirely. As above it's disappointing when a supposedly top company can't seem to make a programme that works efficiently. I was much better with Vista, at least things worked. They bring out these new operating systems and they seem to get worse.

I've yet to come across a more drastic failure by a technology company than this. Period. Beyond frustrating.

I've yet to come across a more drastic failure by a technology company than this. Period. Beyond frustrating.

What's "beyond frustrating" is actually the Bluetooth part, not the Windows part. The Windows part is drop-dead easy.

This is the Windows part: Your PC either shipped with a Bluetooth adapter (i.e., installed by the factory) or it did not. If it did not, you can buy a Bluetooth adapter (aka Bluetooth dongle) and plug it into a USB port on the computer.

If your PC shipped with a Bluetooth adapter, the manufacturer installed the driver at the factory. If you bought an adapter, the driver either came in the box or (more likely) you downloaded it from the manufacturer's website and installed it yourself.

Now, all you have to do is to go into the Settings app and turn the Bluetooth adapter on. Ta da, you're done. Presuming that you're not the type who messes around in Device Manager, the Windows registry or other internal settings, you've done everything you need to do to get Bluetooth up and running on Windows. That was easy!

Now we come to the frustrating part: dealing with the Bluetooth technology, which is completely separate from Windows. Here's where you need to deal with pairing and connecting, master and slave, multi-point and choosing profiles. And if you think that all Bluetooth headphones or earbuds or keyboards, etc. work the same way ... guess what? You'll need to do a lot of hit and miss and phone calls to the Bluetooth device's manufacturer before you finally get your device to work properly and reliably.

It shouldn't be that hard. But to make everything easier, competing hardware manufacturers would have to actually cooperate to synchronize their technologies. Like that's gonna happen. Do you remember the frustration that came with burning CDs years ago? Bluetooth is not any better.

Bluetooth devices can work great, but to get there you have to come up with the proper settings and sequences of how you use the devices and then do not change a thing - nothing.

As a 20 year Windows user, I can tell that you have no idea what you are talking about.

- yes, we know that BT protocol is a mess 

- you can take whichever phone you like - most expensive apple phones or the cheapest Android phones you can find on the market - they will work more or less flawlessly. The range is great! It automatically switches between the call and music(?) modes without user intervention. The quality is good. ...and they are working with the same protocol and somehow managed it to work great!!! 

- Nothing from it you will find on Windows - just google the BT horror stories on Win.

- As I already wrote, I've tested the same hardware on Win 10 with Intel drivers and on Ubuntu with some generic drivers and it is like comparing a bicycle to a Ferrari.

- I've spent two days troubleshooting why on my Windows it is not possible to get the audio and mic functionality AT THE SAME TIME. I can get one of them to work, but if I've selected Handsfree mode for audio AND mic, only one will work. I know that there are some lucky people who have this working, but after searching countless forums, testing many drivers and various BS Win settings, this is yet another day where good old clean Win install is required. (On my work PC I need to do that around 3x a year after some Win updates it gets to a state, where even my guru coworker who used to be an MS sysadmin, gives up)

- last but not least - the user interface! If I need to troubleshoot why again my audio/BT is not working, from the Desktop I will open the corresponding menu (the new UI which in best M$ traditions will only include 5% of the functionality) and if I actually need to fix something, I have to find one of 1000 links on that UI which will open the old config panel, where the actual configuration can be done.

- This also explains why everything that MS migrated to the new UI is a disaster. The Mail app, the UI, the Appstore support, we can go on forever. They migrated 20% and called it a day. Visually I think the new look is good, I like the minimalistic design, bet the UX is beyond frustrating. 

"I've yet to come across a more drastic failure by a technology company than this. Period. Beyond frustrating." - 100%