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Ask HN: Does your microwave interfere with Bluetooth? Mine does

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11–20 of 182 posts

Re: Ask HN: Does your microwave interfere with Bluetooth? Mine does

#11
What happens when you place your phone in the microwave (don't turn the oven on, obviously) and walk away with your speaker? I'm curious what kind of range you're getting.

For reference: I just tried this with iPhone 13 mini + WH-1000XM3 and the connection dropped after ~5 meters.

Re: Ask HN: Does your microwave interfere with Bluetooth? Mine does

#12
My data is anecdotal, but I've observed that Panasonic inverter ovens that I've used interfered in the 2.4GHz range, while models of other brands (e.g. GE) have not.

(This is unfortunate because Panasonic seems to be the only brand that can actually adjust power output, whereas the others simulate lower power levels by cycling on and off.)

Re: Ask HN: Does your microwave interfere with Bluetooth? Mine does

#13
Microwaves aren't perfect faraday cages and a little spectrum bleed does happen. Not enough to cook you but definitely enough to make your wifi call or Bluetooth device can get iffy if the microwave is in the path of the sender and receiver.

Re: Ask HN: Does your microwave interfere with Bluetooth? Mine does

#14
Around 15 years ago my wireless Magic Mouse's pointer movements would become so choppy as to become unusable not just if my microwave was in use, but also if a neighbor's was.

But upgrading to a new laptop+mouse fixed it, and I've never had a problem since.

Since they're on roughly the same frequency, interference makes sense. Microwave ovens are high-energy, Bluetooth is low-energy, so minor leakage can still have a big effect. But there's no health concerns or anything, precisely because it's still so low-energy. (You can't cook food with Bluetooth!)

But it does seem like some Bluetooth chips/stacks are better at hopping around frequencies to avoid it than others, or that particular devices just develop bugs.

Re: Ask HN: Does your microwave interfere with Bluetooth? Mine does

#15
post #12

My data is anecdotal, but I've observed that Panasonic inverter ovens that I've used interfered in the 2.4GHz range, while models of other brands (e.g. GE) have not. (This is unfortunate because Panasonic seems to be the only brand that can actually adjust power output, whereas the others simulate lower power levels by cycling on and off.)

Adjusting the power output is the definition of “inverter” basically. A few brands offer it, it seems like it was probably patented as it was only 3-4 higher end well known brands at least in Australia.

Inverters themselves are potential noise sources though so may be part of the issue but other implementations may not interfere.

Re: Ask HN: Does your microwave interfere with Bluetooth? Mine does

#20
That's inconvenient, but it's definitely expected.

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISM_radio_band :

> The ISM radio bands are portions of the radio spectrum reserved internationally for industrial, scientific, and medical (ISM) purposes, excluding applications in telecommunications. Examples of applications for the use of radio frequency (RF) energy in these bands include radio-frequency process heating, microwave ovens, and medical diathermy machines. The powerful emissions of these devices can create electromagnetic interference and disrupt radio communication using the same frequency, so these devices are limited to certain bands of frequencies. In general, communications equipment operating in ISM bands must tolerate any interference generated by ISM applications, and users have no regulatory protection from ISM device operation in these bands.

> Despite the intent of the original allocations, in recent years the fastest-growing use of these bands has been for short-range, low-power wireless communications systems, since these bands are often approved for such devices, which can be used without a government license, as would otherwise be required for transmitters; ISM frequencies are often chosen for this purpose as they already must tolerate interference issues. Cordless phones, Bluetooth devices, near-field communication (NFC) devices, garage door openers, baby monitors, and wireless computer networks (Wi-Fi) may all use the ISM frequencies, although these low-power transmitters are not considered to be ISM devices.

So basically the microwave oven's Faraday cage needs to block enough for safety. There are regulations about the radio spectrum, but they allow it to emit some.

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