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LG Confirms 5K Mac Monitor Has Issue When Placed Near a Router, Says New Batch To Have Enhanced Shielding (recode.net)
Late last month, we learned that LG's UltraFine 5K Display, which was designed in part by Apple to work with the new MacBook Pro and as a replacement for the Thunderbolt Display, would flicker, disconnect, or freeze computers if placed within two meters of a router. The company has acknowledged the issue, and says it will add enhanced shielding to its 5K monitors to prevent interferences with nearby wireless routers in the upcoming batch. From a report: "LG apologizes for this inconvenience and is committed to delivering the best quality products possible, so all LG UltraFine 27-inch 5K displays manufactured after February 2017 will be fitted with enhanced shielding," the company said in an email. Existing models will be able to be retrofitted with the enhanced shielding, which will allow the monitor to be placed near a router.
ikr. It's nearly twice the distance of 1 meter.
How on earth did this ever pass EMC testing (or the UL equivalent)?!
The company I worked for spent a small fortune modifying all our designs back in 1999 to be immune to external RF interference (and likewise to generate none) in order to pass those tests, how the hell could something like this happen in this day and age?
I'll settle for 4K, but with 16:10 aspect ratio.
3840x2400
as far as enhanced shielding, they could reconfigure the main deflector grid to emit an inverse tachyon pulse...
Did Apple try one of these things before recommending it, highlighting it in the MPB rollout?
People sometimes have their wifi router sitting behind their monitor. Hell, I bought a couple of add on shelves for an Apple monitor so my cable modem and wifi router are literally sitting on the back of the the monitor. Pretty damn convenient for keeping crap off the desk.
This is an Apple failure in part, not solely LG's.
This issue is an obvious defect from a customer perspective($1,000 for a computer peripheral that malfunctions if the wifi is too close? Are you kidding?); but from a regulatory perspective I'm not sure why LG would be in any trouble. If failure modes don't include catching fire/electrocuting the user; it's not like UL or the consumer products safety commission cares; and the FCC's usual stance is
"This device complies with part 15 of the FCC Rules. Operation is subject to the following two conditions: (1) This device may not cause harmful interference, and (2) this device must accept any interference received, including interference that may cause undesired operation."
Which would justify a beatdown if the LG monitors were disrupting other devices; but allows(indeed, requires) products to suck it up and deal with the presence of licensed RF and FCC-compliant ISM/misc background noise. The customer obviously has reason to be displeased; but regulatory bodies are mostly concerned either with devices that are overtly dangerous; or devices that do RF things that step on other people's toes. Pitiful resistance to interference isn't their concern.
Actually, exactly twice the distance of one meter. Damned near a rod and almost 1/11th of a chain!
It's also more than three times the distance of two feet, which is the distance LG says is the threshold for the problem.
I did a whole bunch of research prior to upgrading my computer at work, and it's clear that Apple has *really* botched their latest Macbooks. We're already, what? 5 months post release and the number of available USB-C devices are laughably small. Which I guess makes sense, since they are too damn cheap to provide a sufficient number of USB-C ports on the machines themselves. If you're going to produce a laptop that is essentially useless without an entire drawer-full of external adapters, then you need to have a full lineup of those friggin adapters, hubs, docking stations, etc.
If that wasn't bad enough, the stuff that does exist are garbage. For example, look at the reviews for the HDMI USB-C connector. 1/5. The thing loses connection if you so much as look at it wrong.
And now this nonsense with a $1300 monitor that was explicitly recommended by Apple.
This is flat out unacceptable. Period. The whole point of paying the Apple premium is that you have assurance that everything Just Works(tm). Apparently Apple doesn't care about that anymore.
So my final decision was to buy a refurb of last years model. I get to reuse the existing hoard of adapters I already have, and it still has a normal USB port, magsafe power, HDMI and an SD card slot.
The reason why you haven't seen a flood of printers and scanners, etc. with USB-C is because they simply don't need it.
However, If you had actually done any research, you would know that USB-C is 100% compatible with USB 1.0 to 3.0, and therefore a $6 USB-C to USB-B cable ($8 for the USB 3.0 version) (both completely passive) is all you need to magically transform your existing USB printer, scanner, etc.into a USB-C-compatible device. That's it; no updated drivers, no fancy adapter dongles, NOTHING. Or, you can simply snap a $2.50 PASSIVE USB-C to USB-A adapter onto the end of the existing USB-A cable, and be done with it.
And if you actually have a PARALLEL Printer, you're STILL covered!
So, Problem solved!
As for devices that could benefit with having USB-C natively, either for speed, like HDDs and SDDs, or for convenience (USB Sticks), there are already several choices, with more coming every week. Here's a sample:
https://www.amazon.com/Seagate...
https://www.amazon.com/LaCie-P...
https://www.amazon.com/Samsung...
https://www.amazon.com/Lexar-J...
https://www.amazon.com/SanDisk...
If you have a bare SATA drive, you can either put it in an USB-C enclosure (this one is even a two drive RAID), or use one of these.
And there are even adapters that let you continue to use your existing TB2/ MiniDP adapters, in case you want to keep them.
Or, you can just get one of these sort of things (there are dozens to choose from!), and be done with it, with three more USB-C Ports t
No, they acknowledged the issue and didn't blame users. They still have a lot to learn.