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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

#133
post #84

You can demonstrate WiFi interference by putting a laptop next to your microwave and running a ping test to your WiFi router. I can put my laptop about 4 feet away from my microwave and the ping test hangs as soon as the microwave starts. The ping test resumes as soon as the microwave stops.

I haven’t had my afternoon coffee yet, and I read this as though the ping test stops when you put your laptop in the microwave and turn it on.

Lol! It's tempting. Very tempting.

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

#134
post #77

My 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.

Sometimes it’s things like baby monitors or low-cost cameras blasting analogue video.

A lot of current video baby monitors are actually digital video over DECT.

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

#135

Earlier 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)

I do. I've got a 1650 watt microwave. It's nice being able to reheat things dang quick. And it cooks a mean baked potato in no time!

Loads of recipes I run into assume at least 800W, usually 1,000W. I'd be pretty frustrated with only 600W. I can always run a high power one at less power, I can't run a low power one higher. I'll always take the more powerful microwave.

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

#136

Bluetooth and WiFi both borrow their spectrum from microwave ovens. It's typical and expected that microwave ovens will cause some interference with other users of the 2.4GHz ISM band that are very nearby. Microwaves operate at very high power levels and are required to be shielded for human safety, but the permissible leakage power is relatively high compared to typical WiFi and Bluetooth devices---there's a simple…

Could I make a legal bluetooth jammer that is actually a small microwave oven then?

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

#137

Bluetooth and WiFi both borrow their spectrum from microwave ovens. It's typical and expected that microwave ovens will cause some interference with other users of the 2.4GHz ISM band that are very nearby. Microwaves operate at very high power levels and are required to be shielded for human safety, but the permissible leakage power is relatively high compared to typical WiFi and Bluetooth devices---there's a simple…

If anyone’s interested in seeing the leakage on a spectrum analyzer:

https://youtu.be/tToMYkO7Gkw

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

#138
Related question:

I used to be able to use wifi when my microwave was running. Then one day with no apparent change it started interfering, so that I can no longer use wifi if the microwave is roughly between the two devices connecting over wifi.

Of other microwaves I’ve encountered, most haven’t interfered with wifi, but one or two have.

Is this a problem?

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

#140

Bluetooth and WiFi both borrow their spectrum from microwave ovens. It's typical and expected that microwave ovens will cause some interference with other users of the 2.4GHz ISM band that are very nearby. Microwaves operate at very high power levels and are required to be shielded for human safety, but the permissible leakage power is relatively high compared to typical WiFi and Bluetooth devices---there's a simple…

Also, to the best of my understanding, the only known risk to human safety of a microwave without proper shielding is injury due to the heating of human tissue. Not like that's a good reason to ignore any potential health concerns, but I used to have the misconception that it was much more dangerous, e.g. could cause cancer, but, of course, ionizing radiation is much, much higher frequency.
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