How can Bluetooth interfere with WiFi ?

Both WiFi and Bluetooth may work on the same, 2.4 GHz frequency. Bluetooth is designed to work on 2.4 GHz and also most popular WiFi routers (e.g. TL-WR845N which I have) are configured to broadcast their signal on the same frequency by default.

What makes Bluetooth and WiFi different then ? Wireless networks, like BT and WiFi, apart from the frequency, operate on different channels. A channel can be imagined as a swimming lane – the wider the lane is, the more people can swim on it. On the other hand, the more people use the lane, the slower they swim. The same happens with WiFi channels – if there are many WiFi networks in our neighborhood working on the same WiFi channel, our network may work slower.

In most WiFi routers’ settings channel on which the router works can be changed manually. We can also change channel’s width  – it can be either 20MHz or 40MHz. Channel’s width can be imagined as a width of swimming area used by a swimmer. To illustrate: if our router is set to work on channel 1 and the channel’s width is set to 40MHz, it behaves like a swimmer who uses two swimming lanes in the same time – he can either swim on lane (channel) 1 or lane 5 (when lane 1 is too crowded). Consequently, when router’s channel’s width is set to 20MHz, it behaves like a swimmer using only a single swimming lane at a time (lane [channel] 1, in this case).

If there are too many people at the pool, swimming becomes uncomfortable and slow. So let’s see how we can improve it

Bluetooth and WiFi interference problem

I recently noticed that when I’m using my Zenbook working on WiFi having Bluetooth speaker connected in the same time and listening to music, my WiFi speed decreases significantly. To show you the scale of the problem, here is the basic Internet tracert I performed when BT was turned off:

and here is the same tracert, but when listening to music via BT speaker:

35 ms without BT to 2532 ms with BT. Nice! That’s 72 times worse! Plus the request didn’t even complete with BT turned on. Something is wrong here.

The same happened on my Huawei P8, when I had my MiBand 2 connected via Bluetooth.

Reconfiguring WiFi router to not interfere with Bluetooth

As we already know that WiFi and BT may work on the same frequencies and interrupt each other, we should be able fix this issue by changing some basic router’s settings.

Changing router’s WiFi channel

By default, WiFi routers automatically choose channels on which they work. It might be problematic in case there are more networks in our area using the same channels. I’m using TP-LINK WiFi router and the producer on their website advises to switch router to work on channel 1, 6 or 11 in case of interference issues. Those channels are generally not the most occupied ones, however it’s not always the case. Imagine that all your neighbors are WiFi-issues-solving-geeks-using-Bluetooth-devices and they all set their routers to work on channel 11. According to what we’ve said in the previous paragraph, changing our router’s to work on the same channel won’t help much.

I prefer using apps that help detecting what is the less used WiFi channel at our place. I personally recommend using free inSSIDer Home application.  When you install it, you see the list of available WiFi networks. The one you’re connected to will be marked as your favorite (with a blue star), given Link Score (quality of your WiFi signal) and analyzed in terms of router’s configuration improvements. When I launched it, my WiFi network got Link Score 70:

After a while, I also got the recommendation:

With such recommendation, you can go for your router’s settings page (for TP-LINK routers accessible by http://tplinkwifi.net/) and perform the change:

After that, my Link Score improved to 80. I performed a tracert test again with BT speaker working:

288 ms for step 8 – much better than initial 2532 ms, but still far away from 35 ms with Bluetooth turned off. Let’s see what’s more we can do apart from changing the channel.

Changing router’s WiFi Channel Width

After changing my router’s channel to 1, I noticed in inSSIDer app that it’s actually working on channels 1+5:

Why was that ? As I already explained, there is a setting called WiFi Channel Width. This setting may by default be set to 40MHz – which was the case in my router’s settings – making router working on 2 channels in the same time (1 and 5 in my case). This setting can fortunately also be changed manually in router’s settings:

After that change, my router started working on channel 1 only (as recommended) and Link Score became 94:

Tracert also looks much better now with BT speaker working:

187 ms compared to 35 ms with no BT. Apparently, Bluetooth still makes WiFi 5 times slower, but considering that the maximum speed of router’s WiFi transmission in 300MBs/s, even being 5 times reduced it remains around 60MBs/s which should be fair enough.

In the end of this optimization process, in inSSIDer application we can see our WiFi network placed between other networks in our area:

Changing WiFi’s frequency to 5GHz

If your router supports 5GHz WiFi frequency, the obvious solution for all BT/WiFi interference issues would be changing it to work in 5GHz mode, because as we already said, Bluetooth is using 2.4GHz so they wouldn’t interrupt each other anymore at all in that case. This is however not always acceptable, because some older or simpler devices like WiFi printers may not support WiFi in 5GHz frequency. That’s the reason why I didn’t change it in my router’s settings. If you can afford that, try changing your router to work on 5GHz frequency – it may eliminate all your interference issues.

Summary

Today we’ve seen how to fix interference issues between WiFi network and Bluetooth devices, which may be really frustrating. Especially that Bluetooth is currently coming back in with BT speakers, smartbands and IoT devices in general.

I hope you’ll find those advises useful

The post WiFi and Bluetooth interference – diagnosing and fixing appeared first on CodeJourney.net.

Windows PC apps

Evernote

Evernote allows to store notes and synchronize them across multiple devices. I’d say it’s a very good alternative to OneNote used by many people. I prefer it to OneNote, because it’s simpler.

Saved notes can contain photos, files and be quite rich-formatted. Free basic plan allows to synchronize two devices, which is enough for me. I don’t use Evernote on my mobile, I only use it for longer notes, e.g. meeting minutes, blog posts drafts/ideas etc. As you may know, I use GoogleKeep for storing short notes or something I need to write down quickly on my mobile phone.

SublimeText3

The best and the only right text editor ever. I started using Sublime around 2 years ago and today I can’t imagine my life without it. Even though I almost don’t write code in Sublime, I just love it. It’s very fast and intuitive. Syntax highlighting, text selection and finding text/regex features are fabulous. Nothing to add. Just install and use it.

Total Commander

Actually, I should’ve started from TC. This is absolutely essential part of any files exploring I do on Windows. I’ve already been using it for around 1.5 years, couldn’t get used to it for a long time, but believe me – it’s definitely worth it. It really increases productivity when working with files copying, changing extensions, transferring files between FTP servers, basically anything that requires operations on files or folders. It may take you some time to learn it, but you’ll be pleased after and never willing to use Windows Explorer again.

Greenshot

Greenshot is a screenshot-making application. If you need to make a screenshot more than once per week, than it’s really helpful. It can be integrated into your Print Screen button, allowing to quickly open the screenshot made in image editor in which you can highlight some parts of the screenshot or easily put consecutive numbers (e.g. to present the orders of actions performed):

Nozbe

Nozbe allows to store tasks, group them into projects, set their deadlines etc. You can read more about it in my recent post about productivity. Its desktop client is very useful, especially providing keyboard shortcut (Ctrl+Shift+Space by default) for quick tasks adding.

F.lux

F.lux adjusts the temperature of your screen’s (or screens’) colors with the sky colors changes. Incredibly useful when working with few monitors for many hours, especially at night when it gets darker. For me, it lets my eyes rest and prevent headaches I often used to have before installing F.lux.

Android apps

CamScanner

This one I also described in my last post, in which I proposed few simple habits you can introduce into your everyday life to make your productivity better. CamScanner is a must-have for me, it allows to make a photo of a document using mobile phone’s camera, then it automatically detects the document’s edges, cuts the image (you can adjust it if needed) and transforms it into scanned-looking JPEG/PDF. Since I started using CamScanner, I don’t remember using my printer’s scanner anymore. Scans produced using the app look good even if the picture is done in low-light conditions.

AirDroid

AirDroid allows you to wirelessly connect your smartphone to any PC being in the same WiFi network. You open the web app on your PC, open mobile app, scan QR code and you’re all set. Using web interface you can copy files to/from your phone, as well as send SMS messages, explore photos etc. Very handy.

Listonic

Listonic is a shopping list app. I use it only for that purpose. I share the shopping lists with my girlfriend, so we always know what to buy or what has already been bought by one of us. The only drawback I noticed recently in its Android version is that the app launches a bit long (3-4 seconds) which may be annoying sometimes. Apart from that, I can recommend it as shopping helper.

Podcast Addict

If you’re used to (or addicted to) listening podcasts, Podcast Addict will be a perfect app for you. It allows to search for podcast channels and subscribe them (e.g. you can find DevTalk or Hanselminutes there). As soon as new episode is published, you can get a notification. What’s more, you can download each episode when connected to WiFi and then listen it offline.

Nozbe

I’ll repeat myself here Nozbe is also available on most popular mobile platforms, including Android one which I use.  It’s important to have it installed on the mobile phone, because it comes with notifications panel’s widget allowing to quickly add a new task:

May become useful when no PC available to quickly note something down.

UpNext

UpNext allows to add a widget on Android’s screen, which displays the list of incoming calendar events:

It’s very handy for me and I’m using it all the time. It also allows to easily add new calendar event or open calendar app.

Summary

The list I presented contains apps that I use every day and can’t imagine my computer/mobile life without them. I think they make activities I perform on my PC or smartphone simple and painless. If I find some more must-have apps, I’ll try to keep this list updated.

What are your favourite apps you couldn’t live without ? Let me know!

The post My list of must-have apps appeared first on CodeJourney.net.

It’s been a loooonger while since the last post. I hope to get this blog into motion in the next few weeks/months (Daj Się Poznać 2017 is coming…), however to begin with I’m writing not strictly technical/programming post today.

Need for a new laptop

Few months ago I started to look for a new laptop. Previously I’ve had Lenovo Y580 with Intel Quad-Core, SSD drive and additional graphics card, which was very performant and enough to what I use the computer for. It had one disadvantage – size (15″) and weight (~3kg with battery inside). I’ve started my Master’s degree studies on weekends, so it was unhandy to carry it the whole day. I needed a computer to be light, packable into backpack and strong enough for my programming tasks. Then I found ASUS Zenbook UX310UA with the following specs:

Intel Core i5-6200U, 8 GBs of RAM (SO-DIMM DDR4, 2133MHz), 480 GB SSD, LED mat 13,3″ screen (Full HD), Intel HD Graphics 520, 1x USB 3.1, 2x USB 2.0, 1x USB-C, HDMI, 4240 mAh, Li-Ion battery, Windows 10 Home.

Note: In this review, I won’t give you benchmarks, drive speed measurements or performance graphs – instead, I want to tell you how this model fits for .NET Programmer and student in the same time.

Overview

Zenbook UX310UA offered the best value for money. It costed 4000 PLN (~920 EUR). Honestly, it was the cheapest PC from ultrabooks category which satisfied my requirements. Nonetheless, at a glance it seemed to me that it has almost the same parameters as my Y580 bought 3 years ago for 2/3 of that price. However, when I got into details it turned out that many components are simply newer, faster or produced using newest technologies.

Laptop is very thin and smooth. Its weight is only ~1.3kg with battery inside! It may be put into attached etui:

and easily put into a backpack, taking no more space then average-sized notebook.

Quality of the materials used to manufacture this PC is also very good. It’s mainly made from aluminium, with limited plastic parts. Hinges seem to be well-built as well.

Inputs and connectivity

I’d like to start with input and connectivity possibilities of Zenbook, because many people when thinking about ultrabooks imagine this:

Luckily, this is not Apple ZenBook UX310UA doesn’t follow those politics. It is fitted with 1 x USB 3.1, 2 x USB 2.0, 1 x USB-C ports. Apart from that, is has HDMI port, SD cards slot and headphones input. All of those ports occupy rather small, thicker sides of the laptop:

Zenbook UX310UA and external screens

For me, the only problematic thing about graphics/external monitors ports is that ZenBook’s built-in Intel HD graphics card handles only one external screen at the time. It means that I’m not able to connect my two external monitors – even though one is HDMI, and the other one is VGA, which I could plug using USB-C <-> VGA adapter. I can either work on laptop’s build-in screen, or connect one external monitor and use build-in screen and that single external screen. This is quite acceptable, however not so comfortable – resolution on device’s screen is totally different than external monitor’s.

In order to solve that issue, docking station needs to be bought. ASUS provides really nice one and it’s possible to buy it for ~80 EUR. Having it, various external devices can be connected to ZenBook, e.g. Ethernet cable, additional USB devices, but the most important is that it can have connected two external monitors – it means you can work on laptop’s built-in screen and two additional screens in the same time. Cool. I’ll give it a try one day.

UPDATE 12/06/2017:

What I wrote above turned out to not be true. Fortunately I’ve bought the cheapest USB-C -> VGA adapter and connected the second monitor to it – graphic card properly recognized it and I’m now able to work on 3 screens (built-in one and two external ones):

The USB-C -> VGA adapter I bought is produced by Renkforce (no idea what is this company ) and costed ~$13. Works perfectly.

Thanks to Alberto who recommended trying this approach in the comments – cheers

Screen

ZenBook’s screen is mat, LED with FullHD resolution (1920 x 1080). Its diagonal is 13,3″. Working on such screen with such high resolution is a pure pleasure – colors are very deep and clear, all the fonts are clear also, not blurry as it might be if the resolution is lower or not properly adjusted to screen’s size. The fact the screen is mat makes is possible to work on it outside or in very sunny rooms.

Moreover, the computer is fitted with light sensor, so it – if you enable it to do so – adjusts screen’s lighting level automatically according to illuminance in the room you are currently in.

Keyboard

This is what we use the most – keyboard. ZenBook’s one is silent, the buttons are not very high, but also not flat – each one is easily “feelable”. What is very, very handy is that the keyboard is backlit. What is more, this LED keyboard’s backlighting is controlled by the same light sensor which takes care of built-in screen’s lighting level. So convenient working at night.

Touchpad

Laptop’s touchpad – this is the one I couldn’t get used to. In the beginning I got a feeling that the touch panel is “not sensitive enough” – when trying to move mouse cursor from point A to point B, I expected it to stop at point B, however it was stopping “two millimeters” before point B, which used to make me frustrated. Yet after few days of working without external mouse I quickly got used to ZenBook’s touchpad. Now I have nothing to reproach.

Hard drive

I’d like to mention hard drive separately, as this model contains 480 GB SSD drive, which is ADATA SP550. Read is up to 560 MB/s, whilst write up to 510 MB/s. I was also looking for as big SSD as possible, as in my opinion SSD drive is essential in each PC. My feelings are very good – I’ve never felt any slowdowns concerning files reading or writing. I’d definitely resign from a better processor or reduce some RAM amount if I could get SSD instead. I noticed huge overall performance improvement as soon as I changed HDD to SSD in my former Lenovo Y580. This is a must-have.

Battery

Here’s the most exciting one. Being fully charged, ZenBook tells me it can work for ~8.5 hours with no need to plug it in (Balanced power plan). And surprisingly this is… true. I took it several times for the whole day spent on the university and it was fine for it to work for that long on its battery only. Apparently this small guy doesn’t need much power

Sound

Laptop has self-built stereo speakers, that are quite fine for such kind of device. They do very well for Skype, movies or listening to music. Not a rocket science (as JBLs in Lenovo Y580), but quite well speakers for basic tasks. ZenBook has Bluetooth, so external speakers may be connected using it.

Programming

Finally we are here. I don’t use laptop for gaming or graphics-advanced tasks. The most complex tasks I use if for is programming. For that kind of works it fits me perfectly. On Windows 10, with two instances of Visual Studio 2015 opened, SQL Server running, Sublime, Evernote, Total Commander and Chrome running, resources usage is as follows:

As you can see, it actually consumed most of RAM available. Processor gets to 70-80% when executing more complex tasks like compiling code. I’ve never met any slowdowns however, so for me this is enough. If you use more apps in the same time (10 instances of Visual Studio? ) then maybe some more RAM would be necessary to have.

Summary

(+) Pros:

• weight – light and handy
• great quality screen
• very good battery life
• built-in light sensor for the screen and backlit keyboard lighting adjustment
• 480 GBs SSD drive
• never overheats
• best value for money

(-) Cons:

• without docking station, no possibility to connect more than single external display
  UPDATE 12/06/2017: it’s possible, see Zenbook UX310UA and external screens section above
• touchpad’s precision may be too low for some users

For me, as .NET programmer and student in the same time, who doesn’t play any PC games, ASUS ZenBook UX310UA was a great choice. It’s light, very handy – can be put into the backpack as average-sized notebook, battery is really good. Resources are fair enough for programming tasks, as well as for university works or just exploring the web. Honestly, I even found it pretty hard to list abovementioned cons

I would definitely recommend ASUS ZenBook to everyone looking for a convenient, very good quality ultrabook, on which you don’t want to spend amount of money equaling your few salaries.

The post ASUS Zenbook UX310UA – .NET programmer’s review appeared first on CodeJourney.net.