Air Link Tip - TomC

[TomCgcmfc]

Just a quick tip that may help some that are having stuttering problems with Air Link, even with the best settings for your particular system. 

I've recently found that turning OFF Bluetooth on my PC (win10/11 Bluetooth settings) seems to improve my Air Link results (= smoother, and slightly better fps performance). 

Of course this is only applicable if you do not have BT devices like a keyboard/mouse installed.  For me, the only BT device I have that I occasionally use is an Xbox S wireless gamepad and it's easy to turn BT back on later when I need it.  Also, I do not have any BT devices paired to my Quest headsets.

Anyway, this may or may not help others but I thought I'd pass this on.  Cheers.

[DaftnDirect]

mmm yeah. I've always tended to have my BT switched off unless needed, but I have a logitech unifying receiver for KB&M which I think uses the ubiquitous 2.4 GHz band too.

I'd always assumed that if the Quest is using 5Ghz wifi (I have no control over that with my router), there's minimal chance of disturbance but not done any tests to see if a wired KB for example has an impact.

My MB now has 6E wifi and a large unified antenna compared with my other PC's dual small individual rods, not sure which contributes the most to Air Link performance but even my Quest 2 now has rock solid Air Link when in direct line of sight, the Pro already had that for me but now also has it in adjoining rooms.

[kojack]

Oddly enough, USB 3 devices can also cause 2.4GHz interference. Even flash drives. The frequency of each data line in USB 3.0 is 2.5GHz, which causes noise that bleeds over into the 2.4GHz band if it's not shielded well enough.

https://www.rshtech.com/blog/how-to-avoid-the-usb30-and-24-ghz-devices-interference-2

Plus microwave ovens.

But 5GHz should be safe from it. Although then you have to worry about line of sight, since 5GHz is worse at going through walls than 2.4GHz.

Of course Rift CV1, Rift-S, Quest 1 and Quest 2 use 2.4GHz non-standard bluetooth for their controllers, so its hard to avoid it altogether. The Go uses standard bluetooth for its controller. The Quest Pro uses Wifi for controllers, which causes other issues (using up some of your wifi bandwidth that Airlink might want).

Plus get a wifi analyzer app and check which channels your neighbors are using.

[DaftnDirect]

That explains problems I was having with my mouse when transferring a load of stuff from my old PC to new using a flash drive in the adjacent port to my logitech dongle.