Comments on: Can Christmas Lights Slow Down Wi-Fi Speed?

By: Christopher Winter

Christopher Winter — Sun, 06 Dec 2015 20:07:27 +0000

“Everything is kind of floating in the air,” Brad Cimaglio of Skyway Techs said.

I can’t help but wonder if Brad himself was “kind of floating” when he said this…

But, more seriously, it’s clear why Wi-fi slows down when the Christmas lights come on: Everyone in town is home and streaming holiday specials on Netflicks.

By: Paul Hutchinson

Paul Hutchinson — Fri, 04 Dec 2015 17:54:30 +0000

Richard@8, The 2.4GHz frequency was chosen for WiFi specifically because it was left as a wild west (almost anything goes) frequency buy the FCC and other regulators. The FCC has extra loose limits on 2.4GHz because that is the microwave oven frequency making it already swamped with interference.

Eric@10, I hadn’t noticed before but reading up I see the information did originate from the UK regulator Ofcom. The original source is a post they made about a free WiFi testing app they’ve made available so that UK consumers can check and improve their systems. In the original article they talk about microwave ovens, fairy lights (incandescent lamps with blinkers) and other devices. Since they appear to be the FCC equivalent I’d bet dollars to donuts that they have actually measured the problem from fairy lights.

By: Richard Chapman

Richard Chapman — Fri, 04 Dec 2015 15:10:16 +0000

I don’t know about Christmas tree lights but our microwave oven will shut down our WiFi dead in its tracks. Not only that, it seems that our neighbor’s microwave interferes with our WiFi too. We’ll be watching Netflix and suddenly the loading circle will appear for a while. This seems to happen mostly around dinner time so we suspect it’s their microwave and not just random network gridlock.

By: Eric Lund

Eric Lund — Fri, 04 Dec 2015 14:00:32 +0000

Ofcom? This Ofcom? That would be a British organisation (I am intentionally using the UK spelling here) in charge of regulating such things as TV, mobile phones, and broadband. Maybe this is an issue in the UK, if they still sell the kind of Christmas lights Paul@7 mentions. But that doesn't mean there's any issue here.

By: Greg Laden

Greg Laden — Fri, 04 Dec 2015 04:10:47 +0000

Yeah, that bubble wrap reference was strange.

By: Art

Art — Fri, 04 Dec 2015 03:20:13 +0000

Christmas light a problem for Wi-Fi, no. OTOH wrapping your router in bubble wrap would, in time, likely stop it from working, Routers, and most electronic devices, generates heat and bubble wrap would both prevent ventilation and is a pretty decent insulator. Given time the router overheats and shuts down to protect itself. If your router is not sophisticated enough to turn itself off it could, conceivably, get hot enough to cause a fire.

By: Paul Hutchinson

Paul Hutchinson — Thu, 03 Dec 2015 18:57:24 +0000

If you have old fashioned large bulb incandescent lights with a thermal blinker bulb then it could interfere. Those old thermal lamp blinkers create a very noisy wide band RF field when they switch. I’ve used them to generate wide band RF noise for testing immunity to interference.

Of course it’s extremely easy to diagnose the problem. If after you get your lights set up and running your WiFi is slower than normal, unplug the lights and wait a while. If the WiFi is still slow then it almost certainly wasn’t the lights.
If your WiFi improves then plug the lights back in and wait, if the WiFi slows down again then the lights are definitely the cause. In that case replacing the blinked bulb may fix things.

By: Johnny Vector

Johnny Vector — Thu, 03 Dec 2015 17:44:13 +0000

Well, LEDs run on DC, so they need a power supply. It’s safe to say that all power supplies for Christmas lights are low-cost switching supplies. They probably run at a few tens to a few hundred kHz, and that fundamental is a square wave. So in fact there are harmonics out to probably hundreds of MHz.

This is a serious concern if your “wi-fi” is actually an S-band receiver that has to receive a signal from a ground station 550 km below your orbit. The good news though is that for power supplies that meet FCC regulations, it’s probably unlikely that it will affect actual Wi-Fi. BTW, if there’s a big lump on the wire of your Christmas lights, it’s probably a ferrite core put there to make sure it does meet FCC regs.

By: Brainstorms

Brainstorms — Thu, 03 Dec 2015 17:31:07 +0000

Christmas trees, however, do attract electronic devices. My cat is not an 'electronic device'! Don’t believe me? Put out a Christmas tree. On the morning of December 25th, there will be battered electronic devices, wrapped in shreddedfestive paper, gathered around the base of the knocked over tree. With smashed ornaments strewn about. And a satisfied cat trying not to look guilty...

By: L.Long

L.Long — Thu, 03 Dec 2015 17:19:27 +0000

But that is a good thing, as I can feel the wiifi not affecting my brain as much with the xmas tree on! So I am going to keep the tree up all year to cut the effects of wifi radiation. ;-}