You are working on your laptop when you suddenly see the WiFi signal dropping to zero. Nothing changed, except that your partner switched on the microwave. Wait – can a microwave affect WiFi? Let us take a look.
Frozen Wi-Fi Connectivity? The Microwave Oven Is At Fault!
In the out of the ordinary world that we are currently living in, where we use wires, and no wires for our connectivity, people are often experiencing that their Wi-Fi stops working whenever some of the appliances in their household were turned on.
Many people complained for a while that suddenly all of their Wi-Fi connections got disconnected from their devices all over the house, and it resulted in the disruption of their work. It wasn’t until recently that it was questioned whether or not household appliances, especially microwave ovens, affected the Wi-Fi connectivity.
What does research tell?
After a few researchers got together onto the source of this problem, they found that it was, in fact, possible for a microwave oven to disrupt their Wi-Fi connection. Typical wireless routers and microwave ovens, both operate on the same frequencies, i.e. around 2.4 GHz, which often results in microwave ovens interfering with routers. That’s why it is advisable to keep the router a tad bit away from your microwave – like in another room.
After finding the source of the problem, more questions arose, which went somewhat like — Aren’t Microwaves shielded?
1. Aren’t Microwaves shielded?
Yes, they are. But the truth is, even though a thoroughly shielded microwave shouldn’t leak any sort of radiation, it actually does. They leak quite a bit, which results in the radio-frequency interference that quite a lot of people experience.
2. How to reduce the interference?
Upgrade your Wi-Fi equipment to one that operated the on 5 GHz band. Or change your Wi-Fi channel. And if the internet still proves to be a bit slow, try the following—
- See the best place to position your wireless router.
- Try a different channel and then compare.
- Speed up your computer.
3. Can the shield be strengthened?
There are microwave ovens available now that don’t interfere with the Wi-Fi and other wireless connections of the house. They have better shields. Mainly, Panasonic and Whirlpool are the main culprits that people are having an issue with. Even though there are other Microwave ovens as well that interfere with the Wi-Fi, these two prove to be the ones that interfere with the wireless connections the most.
Which Microwave Should You Buy?
Not all microwaves interact and affect your WiFi’s performance. It all depends on the type of microwave you are buying – look for brands of Microwave ovens that won’t interfere with the Wi-Fi and that are possibly at the 5ghz range or anything.
Or just look for ones that aren’t on the same wave as the Wi-Fi.
What else can you do?
Already have a microwave and wondering what you could do now? There are some simple fixes to apply too. For one, moving the microwave away from the Wi-Fi source works as well most of the times.
However, in some cases, it doesn’t, and the only way left to solve this problem is changing the Microwave oven.