Has anyone come up with a reliable fix or workaround for the WiFi interference caused by the Phonak TV Connector?
I’ve seen a few threads on this but no actual fix, unless I’ve missed something.
It’s easily reproducible for me and is causing me some problems with a few 2.4Ghz N devices that I have.
5Ghz isn’t an option for me here neither is hugely increasing the distances between devices (they aren’t super close but are in the same room) so any help or advice would be greatly appreciated!
Switching to 5GHz is the obvious solution for WiFi, updating to more modern modems/routers which allow/offer 5GHz is the only real way, 2.4GHz is so congested now.
I have a two story house and use 5GHz without issues.
I’m not experiencing any other issues at all and there is no 2.4GHz interference from any other device. That band is completely clean for me until the TV Connector trashes it.
In my world 2.4GHz N is normally rock solid and interference issues are a thing of the distant past, especially now that LED lights have taken over from CFL.
The modules in question are ESP8266 Wifi boards so 5GHz will never work and if it did it’s reduced range wouldn’t make it suitable for this project.
I find it really odd that a product which causes so much interference can get approved by FCC.
These TV units seems to use some kind of frequency hopping but aren’t great at it.
I’ve put the TV Connector in an anti static bag with one end open, this seems to attenuate the signal enough that it is no longer causing functional interference with 802.11n on 2.4GHz. The range of the signal is still adequate and covers at least 12ft/4m.
It’s not the best fix as the bag actuates the buttons on top but at least I can work on the ESP8266 units and stream at the same time now.
The ESP8266 units had been running flawlessly sending environmental data every second for almost two years continuously until the TV Connector became involved. They are in one of the worst EM environments possible with solenoids, fans, switching AC etc. all fighting to interfere with their power rails and comms but they survive all of that without issue failing only when nearby to the Phonak device.
If you have to go to extreme measures like this, then it’s obviously faulty, these units are indeed pretty rock solid and don’t cause that kind of interference, to be honest I haven’t seen/heard of anyone else on the forum having this issue, at one stage i had 2 of these units running without any problem, and thanks for the more detailed information on why 5GHz won’t be an opinion for you, but I’d also look into your
Wifi boards as being part of the problem.
I can think of 2 possible reasons:
Before I posted I found these two topics that seemed to hint at interference being an issue for some:
https://forum.hearingtracker.com/t/phonak-tv-connector-interfering-with-wi-fi-signal/55466
https://forum.hearingtracker.com/t/strange-phonak-tv-connector-problems/51730
Over the summer I was watching streaming movies in the evening on a WiFi connected TV using the TV connector and joked with my family that the movies only buffered when I was there: in light of my recent experience and the link above, maybe it was down to the TV connector.
The interference was so bad yesterday that it actually disabled the 2.4GHz channel in use completely on the local router which admittedly is only a few feet from the connector. No devices could connect, my phone included.
I have seen this sort of thing before in my role as a network engineer and it is rare but does happen: i.e one iteration of Apple’s Airport used to take down some Linksys routers just by connecting to them. Audio baby monitors interfere with 2.4GHz whilst video baby monitors annoy 5GHz etc.
This has been a rock solid set up for me that has sent just under 20 million pieces of data over two years and this is the first time that WiFi interference has been an issue.
@sterei
In further testing today I worked out that the connector is frequency hopping to select a clear frequency but not doing a very good job and sometimes selects a noisy value which is the same as the WiFi channel in use. I can either power cycle the connector which causes it to select another frequency or put it in a mylar bag to attenuate the signal.
Putting it in a bag has worked really well for me and only once did the HA streaming connection fail in several hours of testing.
I actually have a brand new TV Connector showing up in a week or two so I can find out if it behaves similarly of if the one on my desk is faulty.
Yeah it’s the your Wifi boards at issue for sure, out of the many thousands of units sold and only a handful of people seeing an issue with wifi, the links you post don’t really show your issue in the same light.
Here’s some info on the frequencies used by the tv connecter if it helps, Bluetooth 2402- 2483.5 MHz.
The manufacturer state’s to reorient or relocate the receiving antenna if your getting interference
So Increasing the separation between the device and
receiver, this could possibly help? Maybe move the tv connecter as far possible away from the wifi boards.
To me I’d upgrade those boards for 2.45HGz to 5HGz models that would solve the problem. Trying to “force” the tv connecter to play nice with your WiFi is obviously going to be problematic.
It took out my Asus Router and my Pixel 6 pro too. It was because I have constant monitoring on the ESP8266s that I was able to diagnose and trace the problem. ESP8266s are incredibly common in IoT and are very widely deployed, you’ve probably got some in your ownership right now.
5GHz isn’t especially new (2007) so I’m not sure that I would call it an upgrade per se. It has its uses as a high transfer backbone or a dedicated video streaming network but physics dictates that it just doesn’t have the same range or penetration as 2.4GHz. I have run dual networks for as long as they’ve been on the market.
I have a new unit showing up next week and I’ll see If I can duplicate the errors.
Yeah I get what your saying, sorry I’m not of much help on the exact issue, and yes 5HGz has been around a while, 6HGz is a newer version, but it’s all about “speed” not exactly what your experiencing per se.
Well if you do find a suitable solution, other then the “old plastic bag” trick do let us know for future reference.
Good luck.
My Resound Unite TV Streamer does the same thing. Knocks out my Google Nest wireless security cameras every single time I watch TV.
Jordan
I use this device as well, luckily I didn’t mention how well I think it works without interfering with my devices, i have Alexa, but no cameras hooked up.
Never had an issue with my TV Connector 2, I have a couple of these, one is approximately 12 feet away from my router, and this has never interfered with the WiFi signal, that I know of…But, maybe a point of interest to others, whom might be having similar issues, I was plagued with dropped connections on my broadband router, for many months, I get around 74mb, but my speed was never stable, frequent dropouts on a daily basis, I had several line engineers out, everything seemed perfect when they ran their diagnostic’s, so I eventually asked for a broadband engineer, he solved it almost instantly, Samsung fridge freezer compressor was the cause, it was a couple of feet away, so I moved the fridge freezer about 12 foot, no more dropouts or variable line speed since, and that was about 3 months ago, and it has run perfect ever since, and a steady 70mb… In truth, at the time I didn’t think much of the fridge freezer theory, but he was a 100% correct! Cheers Kev 
You could have found the RF interference without the broadband engineer by getting a Multi-Field Radiation detection meter thru Amazon.
Thank you Terry for that information:-) it never crossed my mind that electromagnet interference was the issue with my router dropouts, everything pointed to an exchange or line problem, and not a EMF issue… In all truth, I was blissfully unaware of such a problem existed, broadband engineer didn’t have a EMF Meter either, he said it was a rare thing to happen in his experience, but it does happen… The line/broadband engineers are free with my ISP, if you are experiencing internet problems. Cheers Kev
Compact Fluorescent Lightbulbs are very bad for WiFi. If you’ve ever had a problem where your broadband is fine during the day but fails at night then check your bulbs!
Never a problem here. My router is about 5 feet from the TV Connector and the TV naturally is close by. My TV normally uses a LAN cable but if WiFi still no issues.
As an aside, years ago our house alarm at 433 MHz was directly above a breadmaker. When the breadmaker was on the alarm reported it was being jammed!
Yeah that’s really interesting, who would of thought the fridge freezer was the culprit!
Yes many years ago had this issue where they interfered with a hi-fi system, a humming in the background when on certain radio frequencies.
