Low Latency Experience

Digital technologies - in general - have introduced lag. A lot of lag everywhere. This is because of the "layered" architectures, where every layer does its own "processing" and it all keeps adding up to the end-to-end lag.

Lag is against user experience. And we try to fight it wherever possible but it keeps coming back. Gamers, for example (it's not you soldier, it's the lag) not only strive for low latency Internet, but also shop for low latency monitors (yes there is a lag between the video output of a PC and the moment when the screen is physically updated) and select wired mice over wireless ones.

In lighting there had been no lag in the analog times - a switch was closing the circuit and the current was flowing through the bulbs immediately. Then early wireless lighting systems got very bad reputation due to their poor design and poor technology choices - slow radio links and back-and-forth communication with the central controller. Bluetooth mesh has solved this particular problem very elegantly by paying a lot of attention to the radio layer (very fast) and eliminating the back-and-forth flow by decentralizing the controllers and moving them to the end nodes.

Lag is also present in what seems to be much less demanding "office" type of scenarios like editing documents. And it is fascinating like almost invisible difference in the lag translates into net productivity.

I've been using Microsoft Windows for all my life (well, since 1995, to be honest) and even though my curiosity pushed me in 2018 to buy a MacBook, I solely run Bootcamp-supported Windows 10 on this primary machine. And in the office (and the home office) it is hooked to a 4k monitor and a wireless (Logitech) keyboard and mouse. The keyboard and the mouse are Bluetooth, as this allows them to be linked with the computer without any extra dongles. While some gamers consider Bluetooth HID devices too slow, this particular set I have is super efficient for office work.

The MacBook, unfortunately, has some fundamental design flaws (in my case this is the built-in keyboard and the battery), which require visits to authorized Apple service once year for replacements (that is BTW terrible!). This typically takes a week, during which I'm on a backup computer. This time it was a slightly lower specced MacBook with MacOS. As most of the apps nowadays are in the Cloud, it really does not matter whether it is Windows or MacOS anymore, as all the work is done within a web browser.

Or does it?

A lot of what I do requires text manipulation - copying snippets, hyperlinks etc. And that requires precise cursor control. And what a surprise it was to me that it was suddenly so much more difficult on the MacOS. Weird, as it was the same keyboard, the same mouse, the same monitor and even the same web browser (Google Chrome). It was hard to notice, but the cursor was behaving a bit like dragged on a rubber band. That was clearly the OS difference, and in particular how the HID devices are handled over a Bluetooth connection in MacOS vs Windows. It was clearly more difficult to precisely (and quickly) select a piece of text and the difference was way more apparent when I got the Windows machine back, it was like "uff... we're back in the game".

On top of the latency issue, the replacement MacOS computer was configured with one of the latest Apple invention - the dark background - which looks great but is terrible to work with. Or maybe my eyes are getting old... Anyway the white Windows theme seems to be much easier.

The impact of both the latency and the color theme has been a surprise to me. Sometimes you just take things for granted and expect no difference - why would there be one? But as it often happens - the devil is in the details.