WiFi question

[Bishop149]

Is it a problem to have two different systems in a house using the same frequency?

I ask because I'm looking at getting a baby monitor and they tend to transmit at 2.4GHz, which is exactly the same as the WiFi signal our router puts out.
I have seen the occasional amazon review for baby monitors along the lines of "Useless! Interferes with our WiFi!" but not THAT many.

Is it really a problem?

[apogee]

depends on if they use the same channel, if they do then this could impact performance, but it probably won't stop each other operating. or use the 5ghz channel (if available) on the wifi when you can. dont forget loads of other people in your area will have wifi, at the same frequency it all seems to work itself out.

[Chips]

If you want to know what channels are in use - try Netgears "wifi analytics" app and see

It shows you how many networks are using whichever channel, and helps you choose the most suitable channel to minimise interference of signals.

[Bishop149]

Ok so reading around if I understand correctly, each band (in this case 2.4GHz) contains a number of channels, and as long as two devices are three channels apart interference shouldn't be a problem.

Can I set what channel my router should use relatively freely?

[Chips]

Depending upon the make, yes you should be able to. I'd just google your router make and "set channel" and see what comes up. Youtube is usually full of guides, but youtube search is worse than Google search imo (ironically)

[jlehtone]

Yes, there are multiple WiFi channels around 2.4 GHz, but they are overlapping, even with the "narrow" 20 MHz setting, not to mention the 40 MHz:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_WLAN_channels


How does the "wifi analytics" work? Does it simply listen to WiFi traffic? I've seen a PC application that did plot energy of wide frequency spectrum. There was a clear peak, when microwave oven did run, and ovens do not send any Wi-Fi packets. In other words, it could show non-WiFi noise too.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wi-Fi#Wi- ... o_spectrum

Additionally, other devices use the 2.4 GHz band: microwave ovens, ISM band devices, security cameras, ZigBee devices, Bluetooth devices, video senders, cordless phones, baby monitors,[56] and, in some countries, amateur radio, all of which can cause significant additional interference.

In case of noise/inference, whether it is another AP or oven, the WiFi devices have to resend data until transfer is successful. That does show up as slow-down.

[pjknibbs]

In case of noise/inference, whether it is another AP or oven, the WiFi devices have to resend data until transfer is successful. That does show up as slow-down.

Yeah, I've had the misfortune of working in a noisy WiFi environment, and it can be painful...talk about transferring data across the WiFi network at 100kb/sec and you get an idea.

[felter]

Most of the Baby monitors I looked into use the DECT (Digital Enhanced Cordless Telecommunications) standard, which uses roughly 1880 - 1900 Mhz (in Europe) and not the 2.4 Mhz that WIFI uses. It's the same as your cordless phone uses, so more likely to interfere with your phone calls. Depending on the model they come with a few to well over a hundred different channels to choose from. That is something you may look at when deciding on what one to buy, get one with many different channels rather than just a few.

Honestly I would recommend staying away from a WIFI baby monitor, not because of interfering with your WIFI, but because most of them have low security and are pretty simple to hack into, if you know what you are doing. Once you have compromised them you can listen in to what is being said. And if they connect to your network, well then that is something else and that is the only reason to get a 2.4Mhz WIFI one, to connect it to your network.

[Morkonan]

...Honestly I would recommend staying away from a WIFI baby monitor, not because of interfering with your WIFI, but because most of them have low security and are pretty simple to hack into, if you know what you are doing. Once you have compromised them you can listen in to what is being said. And if they connect to your network, well then that is something else and that is the only reason to get a 2.4Mhz WIFI one, to connect it to your network.

There used to be, on various "Internet of Things" websites, all sorts of links to plain just "wide open" monitors like that. People could click on them just like Youtube. (Straight over regular net, not some super-secret hacker stuffs.) Today, the average person is a little more aware, so IoT has "improved" security a bit, but not by much.

It shouldn't be a too much of a problem, really, but one does need to keep aware of such things.

[mrbadger]

Honestly I would recommend staying away from a WIFI baby monitor, not because of interfering with your WIFI, but because most of them have low security and are pretty simple to hack into.

I can't think of anything more boring than hacking into a baby monitor.

It's not exactly something to boast about is it?
Oh yeah, I totally listened to a child farting in their sleep yesterday, it was so cool!!!

[Morkonan]

I can't think of anything more boring than hacking into a baby monitor.

It's not exactly something to boast about is it?
Oh yeah, I totally listened to a child farting in their sleep yesterday, it was so cool!!!

It was a "thing" for awhile. Largely because some journalists heard about Shodan and clicked. (IIRC, there was also a dedicated website for hacked (ie: simple discovery) IOT cams that may have inspired some attention) Then, there was the whole "school provided laptops use backdoor software to spy on kids through laptop cams", etc..

I would hope that newer devices have some more security features than older ones. But, considering how often we are hearing about IOT devices being played with, it's probably not much. More security = more effort for consumer to make it work = less sales

[felter]

Honestly I would recommend staying away from a WIFI baby monitor, not because of interfering with your WIFI, but because most of them have low security and are pretty simple to hack into.

I can't think of anything more boring than hacking into a baby monitor.

It's not exactly something to boast about is it?
Oh yeah, I totally listened to a child farting in their sleep yesterday, it was so cool!!!

That's how they want people to think. Baby monitors don't just pick up what a baby is doing, it picks up what everyone around them is saying. But it is not what people and baby's are saying that these people are interested in, it is the network that the wifi monitor is connected to that there true interest is at.

There are web sites out there that has the stock admin username and password for these devices, and a lot of these devices do not use any kind of encryption, they talk to the server using plain text. So as soon as they hack into the baby monitor, they are on the network and it is pretty simple to download the unencrypted text file, which has the password to the network. Once they have that they can basically do whatever they want and no one is any the wiser, especially if the hacker knows what they are doing. So if you do any banking online they have those details, do any shopping online they have those details. Got a web cam fitted, they are not just listening they are watching. Do any work from home where you have to log onto the work server, they now have those details. And yes people do this and they do boast about it.

[Chips]

I can't think of anything more boring than hacking into a baby monitor.

It's not exactly something to boast about is it?
Oh yeah, I totally listened to a child farting in their sleep yesterday, it was so cool!!!

and yet people worried about whether the Amazon echo or other similar products could be used to eavesdrop on their every word... furthermore, don't some baby monitors include cameras? It isn't just listening.

If you really think there is no issue, would you put a baby monitor online for everyone to observe / listen to / watch? And why, or why not?

[Morkonan]

and yet people worried about whether the Amazon echo or other similar products could be used to eavesdrop on their every word... furthermore, don't some baby monitors include cameras? It isn't just listening.

If you really think there is no issue, would you put a baby monitor online for everyone to observe / listen to / watch? And why, or why not?

Heck, most people who think twice tape over their laptop cameras. And, when people scoff, all you have to do is point to the fact that so many "security conscious" people do, as well.

"Golly, that's stupid. Why would anyone do that? They must be paranoid."

"Hold my beer..."

What's concerning isn't just the possibility of someone finding a "way in" but what the companies who make these products end up collecting and how it's used or stored. Every fricking day, it seems, you hear about some financial processor storing all its user info somewhere in a plain text file....

"Yeah, we're sorry about that, lolz. We're a bajillion-dollar company that does bunches of financial transactions and tracks bunches of customer information, so we just keep that stuff in plain text to make everything more fasterer and cheaperer. Who'da thunk? lolz We'd say we're sorry, but then that might open us up to be sued. We'd hire some IT guys but they want money. We like money, so that's a no-go."

[Hank001]

Am I really bypassing a group of problems here with an in-house LAN network and not knowing it? It allowes me to network things like my laptop and desktops securely (unless someone physically taps it) and still ramp my smartphone to the internet over wifi through a VPN and only have to turn on the wifi when I want to ramp my smartphone.

It might be old school but it's secure.

[Antilogic]

Wired LAN is still 100% the best way to go if you can at all manage it.

Wi-Fi is great, but is much more of an ad-hoc solution for mobile devices in my opinion.

[Hank001]

Antilogic notes:

Wi-Fi is great, but is much more of an ad-hoc solution for mobile devices in my opinion.

Isn't it! With Android 6 you could bluetooth into a USB hub to you laptop, but but on 7 and above. Recently I upgraded to this Android 8 smartphone and it won't. You'd think SOMEONE would set up a smartphone with some hardwired ramp to your cable internet, but no.

That and LG the maker of this smartphone won't release the scematics for this phone to anyone but licenced repair contractors and then charges then 4 figures for them. This is new as could download the schematics for my Android 6 phone from their website.

Though with a 2009x1080 screen this new phone is readable for me without the gimmick I had to use to connect the old one to an HDMI setup to my HDTV. Otherwise it's if I need to transfer files to my other computers it's back to using USB and MTP.

Another drawback is a smartphone that's almost larger than my hand and weighs almost half a kilo!

But don't believe for a second that if my eyes weren't half gone I'd be on by soldering bench looking for a way to tie this baby into my LAN network.

[Antilogic]

I'm including laptops in this as well. Anything that doesn't really have a fixed position to a network port is generally served better by Wi-Fi.

[Hank001]

Antilogic:

I'm including laptops in this as well

What, are laptop's skipping a LAN chip now too? Luckly my Toshiba Satellite is ancient enough to still have one. Though I should have seen that coming as some motherboards are dropping built in LAN and going to built in wifi.

[CBJ]

Isn't it! With Android 6 you could bluetooth into a USB hub to you laptop, but but on 7 and above. Recently I upgraded to this Android 8 smartphone and it won't.

I can't find anything that says they removed Bluetooth tethering. Are you sure you just didn't just forget to enable Bluetooth discovery?

What, are laptop's skipping a LAN chip now too?

Not that I know of, and I have no idea how you got that idea from Antilogic's post.