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.)
Ask HN: Does your microwave interfere with Bluetooth? Mine does
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Re: Ask HN: Does your microwave interfere with Bluetooth? Mine does
#62Re: Ask HN: Does your microwave interfere with Bluetooth? Mine does
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
Office microwaves (assuming it's not just a retail one that happens to be in an office) can be overpowered. Think the last one I was near was a 2.5kW unit.
Good lord, who uses that much power in a microwave? 600W are enough. (Clearly, the idiots microwaving fish in them. In one office I know they put a sticker with a crossed-through fish symbol after one particularly pungent incident)
Re: Ask HN: Does your microwave interfere with Bluetooth? Mine does
#64My neighbors have something crazy emanating from their house. None of my Bluetooth devices, from Bose to Plantronic to new AirPods Pro, survive signal connectivity when I walk past their house. The connection gets very disrupted and the devices have trouble reconnecting. So I have to leave everything off when I go for a run and not connect headphones until I make it to the end of the street. It’s weird.
Context: Radio observatories need to minimize as much radio interference as possible. Typically, they are some distance away from population, and people are asked not to use phones within a couple of km of them. Inside the premises no unshielded electronics are allowed. If any are used, you can immediately see the effects on the data being collected by the telescope.
Anyway, these guys were getting some sort of strong interference signal at 4 pm every day. They could not figure out where it was coming from. They eventually decided that it was not coming from within, but from somewhere outside the observatory. They got some triangulation equipment out and over the course of several days, finally determined that the signal was coming from a house a couple of km away.
So they went over and knocked. Asked the owner what was going on. Turned out, the guy had a electric can opener, and every day at 4 pm he would open a can to feed his dogs. That was the interference signal they were getting all the way to the observatory!
Eventually, after some back and forth, they got the guy a new can opener they had vetted to not cause an interference signal.
Re: Ask HN: Does your microwave interfere with Bluetooth? Mine does
#65Re: Ask HN: Does your microwave interfere with Bluetooth? Mine does
#66[1]: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/may/05/microwave-ov...
Re: Ask HN: Does your microwave interfere with Bluetooth? Mine does
#67I assume modern Wifi has gotten better at chugging through the interference (and perhaps microwave-makers better at shielding).
Re: Ask HN: Does your microwave interfere with Bluetooth? Mine does
#68There's about 1000 watts of RF inside the microwave, it has to be attenuated to less than a few microwatts on the outside to avoid congestion, as they use the same frequency band. I'm amazed WiFi or Bluetooth ever works at all. 8) You can thank Hedy Lamar for that. Try cleaning the mating surfaces around the door thoroughly. If that doesn't work, consider replacing the microwave or relocating the speaker.
Wifi also has a listen-before-talk model. If it "hears" a microwave running, it thinks it's another station transmitting, and backs off. This feature of the protocol is why long-range networks worked so poorly in the past. If station A can't hear station B, but the AP can hear both of them, then A and B are going to step on each other and the AP won't be able to communicate with either station. This is why the "enterprise" way of deploying networks was to have a ton of access points running at low power; that works well with the listen-before-talk model since the AP likely can't talk to or hear stations that are too far away for the stations in its range to hear.
I don't know if interference robustness still exists in modern standards, as I haven't seen it in a control panel for decades, but it was definitely in 802.11b. I have never tested Bluetooth (or read the standard), but basically... the industry knows this is a problem, and handled it a long time ago. Bluetooth might ignore the problem because it plans on frequency-hopping (away from the microwave) anyway, but like all software, that can easily be bugged.
Re: Ask HN: Does your microwave interfere with Bluetooth? Mine does
#69My 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
#70It did with anything 2.4 GHz (BT, WiFi, Logitech nRF, etc etc). I threw my microwave away. Not really missed it, it was a waste of space, but anyone who wants to do a deauth attack can also get you to disconnect from WiFi. Right now we got two airfryers, an oven (airfryers are basically mini ovens), and a mini pizza oven. The latter is pretty bad and hard to operate but because our main oven is broken, its as good as…
I use my microwave constantly, but it's all for defrosting. Once the food is no longer frozen but not yet piping hot, it then goes into the toaster oven or skillet or whatever to finish heating including crisping/browning. It's great because it not only saves significant time, but loses less moisture. Heating from frozen in an oven dries things out too much, or you have to use up aluminum foil to wrap it, which is an…
If its frozen soup (made in bulk it is very cheap) then it just has to be put out early enough. A microwave could help to defeat bad planning or tough time schedule.
[1] https://www.ah.nl/producten/product/wi920/ah-rijkgevulde-tom...