Beware of Electric Blankets - They sap your Wi-Fis, all of them

If the bed is upstairs and the wifi router is downstairs, the signal would be coming from below the blanket.

MDJCM wrote:
Anyway, it turns out that electric blankets (specifically, earthed) can sap Wi-Fi signal very well. So she eventually discovered she had to fully unplug the blanket to resolve the problem.

Don't believe everything you read on the Internet! If her electric blanket is disrupting her iPad's WiFi connection, there's something seriously wrong with it and it would probably be more dangerous to her than anything else. If an improperly grounded electric blanket were plugged into the same circuit as her router maybe, possibly, it cause some interference but that would be across the board, not just in bed. Maybe she left her iPad on the electric blanket and it overheated?

All last winter, I used my iPad in bed with the electric blanket. No WiFi issues.

If the blanket's element forms a fairly fine mesh, and the signal is none two strong in the first place, it may be forming a Faraday Cage - you can block radio signals by enclosing a receiver in an earthed cage with a reasonably fine mesh; it has the same affect as a box with solid walls. A metal mesh bed support could have the same effect, though apparently this isn't the issue here. If the blanket is unplugged then you would expect the blockage not to happen, since it depends on the radio signals being diverted to earth.

Roger Wilmut1 wrote:
If the blanket's element forms a fairly fine mesh, and the signal is none two strong in the first place, it may be forming a Faraday Cage - you can block radio signals by enclosing a receiver in an earthed cage with a reasonably fine mesh;

True. However, I believe that the iPad would need to be wrapped in or under the blanket(along with, presumably, the respectable middle-aged lady). One would imagine that would make breathing difficult. Merely being in the vicinity of such a blanket would not result in the same effect. I suppose you could create the effect if the router were under the bed.

To date, I've also not seen an electric blanket with anything but big, annoying wires. If there are electric blankes with a fine mesh, I want one!

Hey, OP: We would figure this out if we have more info.
- Was she under the blanket?
- Where is the router in relation to the bed?
- Were there any other electronic devices getting good wifi connections at the same time?

Thanks...

You are all WRONG

Its aliens/___sbsstatic___/migration-images/migration-img-not-avail.png They are to blame.

🙂

Of course Steve Jobs is probably one of them 😟

Message was edited by: James Ward4

Used my electric blanket all winter long no problems.

People write false stories and publish them all the time. Why was this a stop the presses story anyway? Things happen to me from time to time that have no reason to why and you don't see me calling the local Tv station to report it.

Thanks for the story anyway... another urban legend for the pile.

Meg St._Clair wrote:

James Ward4 wrote:
You are all WRONG

Its aliens!

?............Or is tinfoil still state of the art for this sort of thing?

yes. Tinfoil.

MDJCM wrote:
She didnt go under the blanket, the blanket goes under the bottom sheet

She lives in an apartment, one level, no upstairs etc, so the router is same height. Also, she tried an Airport Express to solve it, put it in the bedroom, still couldnt get good signal when the blanket was plugged in.

I dont know about other wifi devices, i think the iPad might be the only one.

Strange.

True story:
We had a paint drying oven where I used to work and we couldn't use wifi near it. We had to run cat-5 to computers in the area.

Maybe the temperature hotspot was interfering with her wifi hot spot?

Ok. Not all my jokes can be funny, but I'll keep trying.......

red555 wrote:
Ok. Not all my jokes can be funny, but I'll keep trying.......

Points for effort. 😉

Mine works fine in a bed with an electric blanket. I am also a respectable (except on certain Saturday nights)middle-aged woman. 😉

As they say, correlation does not prove causality.

But, wouldn't the user have to be completely UNDER the blanket, with their iPad, for that theory to work? If using it on top of or not covered over by the blanket should not do that.