Earlier this year, a town in Ohio called North Olmsted experienced an occurrence that left many homeowners distrubed and confused. Most of the entire entire town had their garage door openers and some car fobs simply did not work. The reason for this opener and car fob blackout was discovered after city officials sought the help of garage door repair technicians. This phenomenon is relatively rare, it can and does happen. What was the cause of this strange happening? It’s called Opener Frequency Interference.
Garage Door Opener Mystery
As modern day home and auto owners, we have become very reliant on our technology. We often take for granted that it will just continue to work without any issues. This wasn’t the case for many residents of North Olmsted. Many residents tried changing the batteries, and that didn’t work. Many homeowners soon found out that there were others experiencing the exact same issue, making the situation very strange. Then a garage door technician had to step in to solve the mystery.
It was discovered and later reported on that a homeowner was using a 315-megahertz radio signal to send him a warning signal when someone would enter his home. The reason for the garage doors and car fob blackout was because most openers and fobs use the exact same signal to open doors. The frequency was disrupted by the homeowner, and this is what caused the blackout.
RFI Explained
The reason for the frequency disruption and subsequent garage door blackout is called RFI, or radio frequency interference. While this widespread occurrence happened to an entire town, a similar issue can happen in your home. Because so many of our devices are wireless nowadays and there are so many signals being sent every second of every day, these types of things can happen more than you’d expect.
According to a ruling from the FCC, all garage door openers must operate on limited power. The issue with limited power is that it has limited range, as you might expect. Garage door frequencies don’t get as high of a priority as licensed transmitters, remotes or radio controls, and these devices can’t be interfered with by law, so the homeowner had to stop using the frequency for his home alarm.
These devices operate under a license that is called a Low Interference Potential Devices. These include, but are not limited to, WiFi systems, LED downlights, car fobs, doorbells, garage door openers, and other wireless systems. With so many smart devices connected to each other in our homes and using similar frequencies, it’s not really a surprise that sometimes they will have their signals interrupted and therefore will malfunction.
Trust the Garage Door Professionals
If you are experiencing garage door opener frequency interference and can’t seem to figure out what the issue is, feel free to give us a call here at Garage Door in My Area. We have many years of experience dealing with these issues. We offer affordable pricing, great service and we will always get the job done the right way every time.