A blogger at Smart Data Collective says electric smart meters rolled out by utilities may cause interference with WiFi.
A Zigbee device within each smart meter sends a ping about every 30 seconds to communicate with other smart meters in the vicinity, creating a mesh network. If a WiFi router is set on or near the same channel as the Zigbee signal, the WiFi can be disrupted.
WiFi routers are 2.4ghz and on channel 6 or 9, says Smart Data Collective, adding that Zigbee especially causes problems for WiFi on channel 6. Changing the channel on the WiFi router to 1 or 11 significantly helps the problem.
Consumers have found lots of things to complain about when it comes to smart meters, including invasion of privacy and causing fires.
Photo: Smart meter via Shutterstock
