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Had a weird interference issue on a job in Tacoma last month, figured out the source was a fish tank heater
Was installing a new wireless panel in a split-level house, and one of the door sensors kept dropping signal. Spent an hour checking the usual stuff, battery, placement, you know the drill. The homeowner mentioned they just got a new 75-gallon aquarium. On a hunch, I unplugged the heater unit for the tank, and the sensor linked up solid immediately. Plugged it back in, signal dropped. Never would have guessed that. Anyone run into something similar with other household electronics causing RF noise?
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max_ramirez481mo ago
Honestly that seems like a huge stretch... fish tank heaters are just basic resistive loads. More likely it was a bad power supply on the heater itself, or some weird wiring fault in that outlet causing noise. Could have been total coincidence the sensor linked up when you unplugged it, maybe it just finally finished its retry cycle. Those things can be flaky on their own.
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casey8431mo ago
Yeah @max_ramirez48 has a point, a bad heater or a weird outlet could totally mess with nearby signals. Makes way more sense than the heater itself sending some crazy data packet.
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