Yeah, I thought I was finished with this too but it turned out that it wasn’t as simple a fix as I thought.
All was fine until later evening when Bluetooth problems would start again – I’ve checked Bluetooth signals in the vicinity – nothing kicks in my side at that time but there’s an awful lot of WiFi and Bluetooth coming from my neighbours.
Anyway, you’ll be glad to hear… I’ve found a fix. Properly this time.
So, although the aerial was now external, maybe that metal plate inside the PS4 wasn’t as terrible as I initially thought. It turns out that the aerial I put on didn’t help much more, so local interference and a wall were still claiming their victim.
While I worked it out, I moved to wiring up my controller1 – I’d had the foresight, when setting up the TV on the wall and pushing cables through a tiny hole, to add in a USB extension. It wasn’t in use, so now I could use it to run an additional cable from behind the TV for the controller.
Anyway, here’s the fix – don’t laugh…
It’s literally a new aerial but on a wire, so that I can move it out of the room, past the wall. It’s got a magnetic base and is hanging there from my daughter’s pull-up bar. I can take if off and move it around as I need. But it works. It means my Bluetooth now has direct line-of-site.
The antenna cost me just £6.99 – I chose this one because it offered the most gain. Unfortunately, I didn’t pay enough attention to the connector on it. After much faffing about, this was solved by purchasing an SMA female to RP-SMA male connector. Sadly, that cost another £5.99.
- oddly, I still got audio drop-outs, all of which I’ve blamed on Bluetooth in the past, but I think is down to the PS4 struggling ↩︎
Talk to me!