Faraday Cage / Radiation Blocking for routers?

đź’¬ Lounge
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This thread sent me down a deep rabbit hole to figure out how to clean up my equipment area. I came across people selling faraday cages for routers. Doesn't that sort of defeat the whole purpose of routers/ wifi? or am I completely in the dark on this?

2

Should work fine for modems and routers.

But not WiFi access points attached to the routers. Those would have to be outside of the Faraday cage.

So it wouldn’t work if your router was a WiFi router.

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To clarify , Im not looking to DO this, just got me curious. That said (and yeah this is probably going to sound REALLY stupid) I thought all routers were wifi?

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If your router was WiFi this would cure the issue :smiley:

Seriously there is a relationship between opening (in the mesh) size and frequency. I don't recall the exact relationship but I'm sure the gaps must be larger than one wavelength. WiFI 2.4Ghz ~ 120mm. However our usage was shielding efficiency, not passing RF.

However consider the hole pattern in a microwave oven door. A microwave oven is nearly the same frequency as a WiFi signal. This hole pattern needs to stop microwave energy from leaving the oven cavity.

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No. I use a plain router/firewall. And then have a wireless access point plugged into the router.

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Not all, there are 3 functions that need to exist to have Wifi on an system;

  1. Modem - receives cable or fiber input from the street - outputs data on an ethernet cable
  2. Router - Only need if there are to be more that the WiFi interface connected. i.e. if you have a printer with an ethernet interface, you will need a router.
  3. WiFi radio - inputs data from ethernet cable and output data on the wireless channels.

Devices exist either individually or in combinations. Some cable companies provide a modem+router+Wifi in a single package

I have a modem + router with wifi

John

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A router is a device that routes between different networks. They can be all ethernet, ethernet and wifi, or even (in olden days) different flavors of ethernet (looking at you, Novell).

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I look at this product as a solution to stopping Internet Service Provider (ISP) equipment from transmitting signals that can impact user owned equipment. Some of the ISP provided equipment has very basic settings where you cannot disable Wifi so this product would essentially do that via faraday cage.

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9

The title here got my attention because I'd like to put a Faraday cage around my entire property! I use nearly all of the 2.4Ghz spectrum with my variety of devices and I'm sure the neighbors would appreciate the isolation. However, my gear is also interfered with my their signals! :roll_eyes:

:grin:

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10

I prefer heavy duty aluminum foil.

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So, you're saying I should put my wifi router inside the microwave oven, right?

I guess I can drill a hole in the oven to feed the power cord out. Oh, wait, the cord will get all twisted up when the oven is running and the microwave turntable is rotating. That won't be good.

Wait....
Wait...
I've got it!

All I need is a microwave-powered Wifi router, sort of like a turbocharged wireless Qi charger for a phone, then I can set the microwave on full power to get a better Wifi signal!

[Several hours later]
Honey, about the smoke detector going off... I was just streaming a movie and I turned up the microwave to get more bandwidth.

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12

@lcw731 So these were a brilliant gag by this guy to get one over these people who believe that RF is making them sick... He's been selling them for years...I think he also markets them so that government can't snoop on your internet browsing with radio equipment

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As I said.... aluminum foil, you can even make yourself a hat. :face_with_hand_over_mouth:

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Most consumer level “routers” are actually three devices that can exist in varying combinations, or completely separately.

  1. Router
  2. Switch
  3. WiFi access point

And I agree with @rlithgow1 most people selling faraday cages on the internet are probably just snake oil salesmen.

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15

Here is even cheaper and better solution: simply unplug all the equipment.

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But then the router won't work.

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LTT actually did some lab testing with these products. They confirmed it is 100% Snake Oil.

Some of the idea itself may not be bad depending on what you want, but the stuff being sold is completely garbage for this purpose.

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"There's a sucker born every minute." - attributed to but never spoken by P. T. Barnum. There's a sucker born every minute - Wikipedia

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