Wi-Fi Cards Can Now Detect Microwave Ovens

An anonymous reader writes "Researchers at UW Madison have used regular WiFi cards to detect non-WiFi interference sources like microwave ovens, Bluetooth devices, cordless phones, Xbox controllers and video cameras. They call their software Airshark. Current products like Wispy, Spectrum Expert are expensive and need extra hardware, whereas Airshark is a software-only solution that can directly work on the Wi-Fi cards on your laptops and APs. This also paves way several interesting applications. For example, your WiFi network will not be affected anymore just because your neighbor switched on a microwave oven or a cordless phone — the newer WiFi APs will be able to switch the channels and adapt to the interference accordingly."

Comments

If only all wifi devices could work cooperatively

[Skinkie]

Then the entire spectrum problem is solved, and everything would be autoconfigured for the basic paradigm: connectivity. Now I don't expect a microwave to give me food-over-ip, but I would expect a neighbor wifi cell, helping my AP to extend the signal, if my client would move out of range (aka: has more noise).

Re:Why is there still microwave oven interference?

[bbn]

WIFI is only allowed to transmit 100 mW (0.1 watt).

Even if only 0.01% of the microwave is leaking it is still more powerful than the WIFI. And even less is required if you do not have a perfect WIFI signal to begin with.