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Bar In UK Uses Faraday Cage To Block Mobile Phone Signals (telegraph.co.uk)
Reader Bruce66423 writes: A cocktail bar owner has installed a Faraday cage in his walls to prevent mobile phone signals entering the building. Steve Tyler of the Gin Tub, in Hove, East Sussex, is hoping customers will be encouraged to talk to each other rather than looking at their screens. He has installed metal mesh in the walls and ceiling of the bar which absorbs and redistributes the electromagnetic signals from phones and wireless devices to prevent them entering the interior of the building. The effect was discovered in 1836 by scientist Michael Faraday and is often used in power plants or other highly charged environments to prevent shocks or interference with other electronic equipment. Some wallets are now cloaked in a similar flexible mesh to prevent data and credit card theft. Mr Tyler said he wanted to force "people to interact in the real world" and remember how to socialise. "I just wanted people to enjoy a night out in my bar, without being interrupted by their phones," he said. "So rather than asking them not to use their phones, I stopped the phones working. I want you to enjoy the experience of going out."
Good thing you have a choice whether to give them business, or not.
But something tells me the typical Slashdotter will still have a knee-jerk complaint about it.
Just hope there is no incident that happens where some really needs to make a call.
"Get off my lawn."
"I'd just like to emphasise that taking a million years isn't a metaphor here..." -Rich Bradshaw
I don't know about UK, but this would be illegal in most US cities because it would prevent people from calling 911 (emergency services).
His bar sounds like a jail.
So really he's just made an old fashioned metal plaster lathing style building. No need to invite any kind of anti-cell phone angst.
Here come the unthinking complaints from isolated individuals who think "being connected" means staring at the electronic device in their hands - and literally being oblivious to the real world around them.
of Aerosmith owns a bar in England?
As soon as one of his customers has a serious emergency while at the bar, and ends up missing their grandmother's death or their kid being hit by a car, it will be lawsuit time. I think it's a novel idea, but even in a less litigious country than the US, you'd have to have a sign outside the bar announcing the Faraday cage for entering to be considered implicit consent to have your wireless signal blocked. (I would think. I'm not a lawyer though.)
...because ORDERING people to have a "good time" always works. Especially when you throw in some arbitrary, draconian rules that must be followed in order for said good time to be had.
I'm starting to understand why Britain "brexited" right the hell out of the EU, they were starting to remind themselves too much of fucking Germany.
Kudos to the bar owner! ::thumbs-up::
"Bar in UK closes after patrons go to an establishment where they can use the cellphones like the adults that they are."
I carry a phone so that people can get ahold of me if necessary. If they can't reach me at your place, I'll go somewhere that they can.
You can do the same thing if you insulate your house with foil-faced insulation, use aluminized tape in the joints, and e-Glass on your windows. Don't
forget the ceiling and floor. The floor should be a screen because moisture in the floor will rot it. Joints are very critical everywhere. Small gaps in
the window mechanism, sliders and frames are an issue also. Conductive paint is a help. I have a house similar to those specs --inadvertently-- and
my AT&T cell tower is 5 bars outside on the porch, and 0 to 1 bar inside. E-Glass is particularly opaque to radio signals. In a non-foil building, the
stronger signals are not inside the window, but to the side of the window.
For the next guy at that location?
Will hopefully reduce/stop the number of mobile screens turning on & off in front of me.
I went to Buffalo, NY to visit family recently and a restaurant we went to tried encouraging people to put away their phones and talk. Instead of installing a Faraday cage, though, they put a basket (of the type they serve bread in) on the table. Everyone's phones went in and stayed there. If we kept our phones there during the entire meal, we got 10% off our check. (We kept our phones there and had fun taking "mental photos" of the kids instead of cell phone photos.)
I much prefer this system. It gives you an incentive to keep from looking at your phone without actively blocking your phone from being used. In case of an emergency, your phone is right there for you to use, but most times it'll just stay in the basket until after dinner is over.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
If you care about anyone outside of the bar, make sure not to enter.
It's an documentary detailing several very old Irish pubs, and while they don't mention a Faraday Cage, they bring up how the classic "Pub" concept is starting to fade because so many people are wrapped up in the Internet and electronics that they simply don't know how to just sit and converse.
My mom always said, "Jim, you're 1 in a million." Given the current population, there are 7000 of me. God help us all!
So really he's just made an old fashioned metal plaster lathing style building. No need to invite any kind of anti-cell phone angst.
The construction may be retro, but the purpose obviously isn't, hence the invite by the bar owner himself...
All this work and cost he went to and the digital addiction will likely win over. The bar will get a reputation for having horrible signal and people will find other bars that don't. Unless he has really awesome drinks and everything else to overcome the need for data. Even then, you'll see many people convening outside to get their information fix or make calls to the S/O. Worse, how will people be able to fake receiving phone calls to get out of creepy bar conversations?
Makes me wonder if his bar is sufficiently EMP-proof now.
@Whee
as its possible the guy sharking the pool players might have his laser go off by accident blowing up the land line.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
Most countries electronic cell phone jammers are illegal that interfere with the RF spectrum. Faraday cages are localized, passive and legal.
I accomplished the same thing by buying a stucco house with a metal roof. The mesh in the stucco and the roof together do a pretty good simulation of a Faraday cage. They stop TV, FM, Cell, etc...
Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of congress. But then I repeat myself. -- Mark Twain
What do they expect people to do? talk to each other offline?! -the people who started this are sick, demented fossils clinging to the dying ways of old farts.
I bet some millennials have already got into panic attacks and shock when they got no signal and missed their tinder hook-up or could no longer understand where they were because GPS was not working any more.
I'm launching a FB campaign against this barbaric treatment. Something must be done.
A 'singular oddity' is an event that cannot be explained and only happens when you are alone.
Back in the day when I worked for a DoD contractor I worked in many tempest buildings. And they still exist today. So for those of you that think this is illegal in the US, you are wrong! It's perfectly legal to block incoming and outgoing radio emissions.
... so many people are wrapped up in the Internet and electronics that they simply don't know how to just sit and converse.
They are sitting conversing with the dozens or hundreds of friends on the Internet that in the old days they would never have any chance of meeting at the boring old pub. Or better yet, telling all their friends: "This place is jumping! Come join me here!" Also known as extra business.
"Look at the kids engrossed in their phones, not talking to each other" is old timer speak for "Waaa! The kids don't want to talk to me! I'm so interesting! Why won't anyone talk to me?" Maybe it's because old timers are utterly boring?
Seriously, I'm glad that this exists. I won't go there because I don't have a problem with using my phone during a meal. But others who do will. Everyone wins. I hope it's a success for him.
I just hope he promotes this feature loudly so people who are on call don't get any nasty surprises.
I direct a Boy Scouts of America-accredited Cub Scout Day Camp. We operate our camp in an area with no cellular phone coverage. There are POTS phones, however, and we post a list of emergency phone numbers and directions to the nearest emergency phone in each program area.
I suspect this guy has a POTS or VOIP telephone somewhere in the bar. The prudent thing to do in a place of public accommodation where cellular telephone service is not available is to post a notice that a telephone is available for emergencies and state where it is. It's that simple. He probably already has a posted map to the fire exits in the main dining room/bar already, if fire safety regulations there are anything like what they are here.
I think if the guy were to post "EMERGENCY TELEPHONE BEHIND BAR - DIAL 911" (substitute whatever the dispatcher number is in the UK is) on the door underneath his business hours, he'd be doing his due.
It's absurd that this guy had to resort to modifying his building in order to "help" people detach from their devices.
We are all sheep gleefully surrendering common sense and respect for instant gratification and virtual goodies.
I'm hardly ever on my phone, but I do need to be available for emergency calls, and that's why I have a phone in the first place. If I DO have to take a call, I tend to say "please excuse me, I have an important call" and then I go outside with my phone. I don't want those around me to hear me struggling to hear the caller and hushing their conversation, and I don't like to struggle to hear the caller in the first place. :people to interact with the real world." I think he is trying to discourage the man sitting alone in his bar from being on his cell phone playing games, the woman sitting alone at the table scrolling through facebook... He wants to take away the distractions that people use to isolate themselves and avoid intereacting with strangers, and probably hopes that people in his establishment will actually start to talk and interact together. I don't know if this will work, but good luck to him!
Cameras? Pictures? Facebook? Games? I think that these are what the owner of the establishment had in mind as he put the Faraday cage into his walls... His comment was that he wanted
Yah, I'm on call like 1/3rd of my life. I work for hospitals. You blocking my pager too..
I have a baby too.
Emergencies happen. They are more important than your bar atmosphere,.
And the gin mill owner insists I be more sociable. How about you just shut the fuck up and pour me a pint, okay, "mate?"
Have made a shielded room, and done plenty of EMC in others; it is super hard to keep cell signals out. The article looks like he has glass windows and is not underground. With an EMC room, you need conductive foam braid on the the door seals, and soon as you crack the door, you get cell coverage. Even the wiring has to have filters, as the radio waves can get in and out via wiring, plumbing etc. glass windows would need fine copper mesh. More likely he has a jammer installed, and and just told everyone it's done by mesh.
46137
Japanese were working on metal impregnated plywood for this purpose years ago, should make the cage cheaper.
elevators where I work are pretty well shielded.
I'd submit that what they are doing "with the dozens or hundreds of friends on the internet" is far from "conversing."
Electronic communications don't encourage conversation as much as they enable impulse reactionary responses more akin to a loud game of "yo' momma."
When most of us "converse" it's after thoughts have been processed and sentences formulated, unless it's a heated argument you wouldn't typically just say the first thing that popped into your head. However with digital communications, those first things are often sent to the recipient(s).
I will concede this may well be the new generations preferred means of communication, but I'd also insist it's not merely a technological difference, but a societal one that is, (pardon the dramatic word choice), decimating our humanity.
I'm curious to see whether he ends up with more customers, and their demographics. My male friends would be perfectly happy drinking in a place without cell phones, but the women I know (mostly middle aged MC-UMC) would go into shock if you kept them from Facebook for any length of time.
..."is hoping customers will be encouraged to talk to each other"...
-can't talk over the loud music
The landline would provide correct E911 information while your cell phone may or may not depending on GPS availability.
There is a bar and restaurant in Edinburgh did this more than five years ago.
In the restaurant you can't get a phone connection, only a connection to the bar's (free) WiFi.
It's a very popular place.
But only the shroomed or poppied up kind who support Mussolini and Imperial Japan :)
At least they can have a decent pub quiz that isn't ruined by surreptitious Googling (though some git will probably download offline Wikipedia).
It will stop phone calls & texts but sadly candy crush will work just fine.
Net effect, I can't find out why my mate / girl / droogs are late or even going to show up AND they can't call me to tell me, but I can still ignore everyone else playing games.
Oops.
Is that why you have people calling 999 to report that their cat has been playing with string for over two hours straight, or that two actors were fighting on a television show?
And don't get me started on Brexit...
Forget about the cage, I wanna know if the women in that bar enjoy having sex with adrenaline junkies.
I'm guessing he did this not really knowing or expecting what the effect would be on cell phone use, then decided to use it as a marketing ploy...
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Puts a Pokie Stop INSIDE the building and watches while the hapless Pokimon players drift in and realize there is a life outside their mom's basement.. The look on their faces is priceless.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
In the U.K. they have a little black box which you see fastened to the wall that has a small range. As you walk towards the exit door your phone suddenly starts working. They use them in libraries, and some WHSmith stores, and some operating theatres. Sometimes you see a small placard on the wall saying "please do not use your mobile phone in this location."
P.S. I see small gangs are using mobile phones, in train stations to scan passengers as they are going past they are looking for "smart credit cards" Cards which you just touch on some devices to pay for your groceries and so on. Even though i do not have one the gangs are making me damn paranoid. They can swipe your money?
How are you going to catch Pokemon?
-- Each tock of the Planck clock is a new world and here we are still life. --
Requiem for the American Dream
...registered the center of the bar as a Pokestop.
The same way your game running in a console emulator does it when you're not in a Faraday cage?
Ezekiel 23:20
Holy shit, I take it back. Mod me down.
I had no idea, until I scrolled down and read more comments. There are really people who look at making emergency phone calls as a positive right, where they think someone is doing something bad to them, if they're unable.
They're not joking, they're just stupid or evil (as usual, it's hard to tell the difference).
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
That's just silly. Caused a lot of death - sure. But MILLIONS?
Download and play an offline game on your phone. (Yes, those exist.)
Some people just want to watch the world burn.
This would not have been necessary if the radio protocols for mobile/cell phones had included a provision for blocking in the first place.
It would not just be convenient to have in bars and movie theatres; some hospital departments need cell-phones to be off for some very sensitive equipment (MRI, etc.) to work properly.
It is not as if illicit cell phone use have not been a problem at hospitals and movie theatres since they first were introduced.
I think having the phone stop transmitting by itself would be a much better solution than a Faraday cage. Then it would still be possible to call emergency services.
"We mustn't be caught by surprise by our own advancing technology" -- Aldous Huxley
The comments on litigation are amusing. Kind of seems like many posters have never visited a rural UK pub before. In this part of the UK you will not get a signal in a pub, likewise I don't get one properly at home. Why? .5m-1m thick stone and generally have various steel plates/RSJ's due to property modification or strengthening.
Signal isn't great in the north to start with. We are less populated. The land isn't flat.
Pre-1900 Pubs/houses are built of
Oddly, no pub around here has received litigation, nor has any signal provider.
It's really not that much different than bars that have lockers for smartphones, as long as people are warned about it beforehand.
Of course it'd be better if people were just polite and still have a little empathy left in them to keep their smartphones away in social occasions, but you know.
Those Faraday cages are cranking out a lot of EMF (electromagnetic frequencies) probably good for blocking cell phones but also can disrupt brain function and cause many types of issues. Probably better ways of handling this.
Since most phones increase their transmitter power when they are having problems communicating with the tower, anyone that does not turn their phone off soon after entering this bar will likely exit with a phone that has no power left in its battery.
I wish that this technique was used whenever any new movie theater was built. I've been in secure US Government rooms that were explicitly designed like this years ago.
You could add an enhancement: a very low power white noise generator attached to the cage. It is not a jammer, yet helps further distribute electromagnetic "fluff" to devices, so even if something had a bit of a chance getting through the cage, it smothers it. I worked for a 3 letter agency, and they used a 3 layer system: A grounded Faraday cage on the inner and outer grids, with the white noise thingie in the middle. They called it Echelon, but it made it impossible to broadcast into or out of the building (even close range high power). Think of the joy the patrons have by not having the infernal device going off all the time. Sure if you want to make a call or take a smoke you go outside. Its just manners after all.
They are sitting conversing with the dozens or hundreds of friends on the Internet
First, anyone you haven't actually met in person is not a friend.
Second, you could do that at home. Why would you go to a bar if you don't want to talk face to face with the people around you? The mind boggles.
Third, the reason you whip out the phone at the bar is because you are a loser and don't know how to socialize.
I've been in nearly all 50 states. I'm pretty sure there's no such place as "Hove, East Sussex". So there wouldn't be phone service anyway.
http://gamapserver.who.int/gho...
claims that the total for the whole world for 2013 is 1.25million. Assuming that for the whole period of the 20 years, that's 25 million. For it to be 'millions' implies > 2 million. Therefore over 8% or so are caused by mobile abuse. That seems conceivable; I must admit to assuming a lower rate of death on the roads.
Thank you for making me think - that's nearly the highest compliment I can pay to a person!
...what if there's a doctor on call?
Faraday cage in UK serves spirits to lure in users
You're not the only one who knows how to do this stuff.
A target-rich environment with no chance to call for help.
But how do you catch the pokemons???
Just kidding, I don't play that game.
I do wonder if those that do will report the bar as a deadspot and try to work around it...
I don't know the meaning of the word 'don't' - J
Both aspects:
1) it is hard to build a faraday cage that can adequately shield cellphone signals. Try this fun experiment at home.. place phone in microwave oven (don't turn the oven on, of course). Close door. Now the phone is in a shielded box. Call mobile number. It will ring.
Unless this place in East Sussex is a LONG way from the nearest cell site, the signals will be pretty strong. Inasmuch as the Gin Tub is in Hove, less than a mile from Brighton Pier, I suspect the signals are pretty strong: it's not out in some deep cwm or canyon in the mountains of Wales.
2) assuming the cellphone signals are adequately blocked, do people interact more, face to face? Or do they just complain about how weak the signals are.
Has anyone actually measured the signal levels inside the Gin Tub? Certainly Steven Tyler doesn't care: he's got a lot of publicity over the last few days, whether the shielding works or it doesn't.
I hope no-one ever needs to call the emergency services from his establishment.
SURELY NOT!!!!!
I wish them luck with their niche business model. Hopefully the Faraday cage won't be too expensive to remove for the next tenant of the space when they go out of business.
My experience is that I rarely have any phone signal when I walk into any pub or restaurant outside London. Luckily most places have free Wi-Fi.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Does "conversing" with dozens or hundreds of people on the Internet really lead to deep, thoughtful, intimate discussion--something face-to-face conversations with a small group certainly promotes--or is it really not much more than "surface contact"? There will always be exceptions, of course, but IMHO, texting and tweeting just does not promote deep discussion.
My mom always said, "Jim, you're 1 in a million." Given the current population, there are 7000 of me. God help us all!
I work at an EMI laboratory with four shielded rooms. I can tell you that it is *extremely* difficult to effectively shield an enclosure from radio waves, especially in the gigahertz range (where cell phone frequencies lie). FM radio signals, with much larger wavelengths (and thus far easier to block), can penetrate the room if we get a small crack in one corner. Also, any wires that penetrate the walls can carry the signals via conduction - think power lines, cable TV, POTS phone lines, etc. This is a noble effort, but the chances of it being highly effective are low.
I am not a number - I am a free man!
Thank you for the 5th grader book report explanation of a Faraday cage.
NRRPT/RCT
I'm blind. My phone is a compass, GPS navigation system, object recognizer, money counter, menu reader, and ride-summoning device. Would everyone like to lose all of those abilities upon entering a business? And God forbid, I might even use it to call for a friend to come join me. People shouldn't assume that cell phone == asocial.
Im going.. Sone day
If that bar owner made his bar a Poke Stop, and then saw all that traffic roll in with no ability to play the game!
Often pubs are full of sad, drunk bastards. I just want to chill with a drink and catch up with what my friends and family are doing around the world on facebook (or the 4 messaging apps you need to have installed because federated services are still some years in the future), read the news etc, and not get involved with someone who looks like they've not left the pub to do any exercise in the last 30 years. Irish pubs are especially bad for unstable idiots looking for a fight, even by UK standards of drunken idiocy.
Love this! It beats the hell out of inviting the corporate police state block your ability to record.
That'll stop those pesky cell phones while I relax and enjoy, "Star Trek: Beyond"