This whole thing started with this tweet from The Economist’s Hal Hodson:

Twitter, a mystery: I’ve been walking around New York a lot the past few days, AirPods in, tunes going, great vibes. Almost every time I cross a street, though, they cut out. Why? Crossing roads is the only time the cut. Can not figure it out

This appears to happen consistently, and to a lot of people. Here’s mystery solved, via a sequence of tweets from The Verge’s Dan Seifert.

First:

I know the exact spot when crossing 5th Ave in front of the library where every pair of Bluetooth headphones will cut out. to the step.

Experience the same in the middle of Grand Central Terminal. to the step.

And then, the answer:

I’ve asked headphones makers why this happens in past and here’s best explanation I’ve received:

BT needs surfaces to bounce off to work efficiently (walls, ceilings, etc). very different from WiFi. in the middle of the street is farthest from large flat surfaces.

Which begs the question, how come my AirPods work in the middle of a field?

You may wonder why this doesn’t happen in an open field?

Bluetooth doesn’t have any other signals to compete with out there, doesn’t need to be at peak efficiency.

Any Bluetooth experts out there want to weigh in here? This is fascinating to me.