Does Wireless Technology Actually Provide a Better User Experience?

Something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately is wireless technology. Here I’m thinking everything from wireless bluetooth speakers, keyboards, headphones and so on - the reason being that I’m actually not sure that I like the user experience that they provide at all…

~~~~~~Wireless~~~~~~

It obvious that it provides at lot of agency to the user, like being able to do all sorts of other things while using the technology, providing a greater distance at which the technology can be used, and potentially pairing them up with multiple devices at the same time.

However, actually understanding how to setup some of these elements and the fragility of the connection itself sometimes, at least for me, becomes a huge point of frustration.

With wired technology, I plug it in and it works… every. single. time. That’s not the case with wireless. Some of the problems I’ve experienced are; they might not connect, might connect to something completely different, the device I’m connecting to will behave super weirdly (like not playing sound or freezing), with headphones specifically one side might lose battery or not charge at all while the other side is fine etc. etc.

This was never a problem with wired technology.

And sure, new technologies new problems. But the amount of problems you are asking the user to deal with is exponentially larger with wireless.

I still have a lot of wired technology, and what problems do I experience with those? Almost none. I plug it in, it works. I cognitively understand what happens when I plug it in, I can physically see the connection between two devices. Sure, wires can break - but that’s a rare occurrence.

I guess what I’m getting at here, is that not all technological progress provides a better user experience. Even years after they have become normalized.