So we just upgraded our internet to something new and fast. This required bringing the router in through a different entrance point, as the new service does not work through the existing coaxial service. To simplify the install, we had it placed in our dining room, against an outside wall.
In that dining room, we have a china cabinet, which has interior lighting - and the nifty feature that you turn the light on (or adjust its brightness) by touching a specific hinge.
Ever since the router was installed, the thing has taken to turning itself on randomly - to the point where we decided to just unplug the cabinet.
Theories:
The router is haunted
The china cabinet is haunted by something that hitched a ride on the router
Both are haunted, and the previously-tractable cabinet haint does not get along with the router’s inhabitant
The router installation messed up the feng shui in the room, and the china cabinet (or its unearthly inhabitant) is PISSED.
There’s some sort of interference in the household wiring, caused by the router’s wireless signal (but nothing else is misbehaving, as far as we can tell).
There’s some sort of direct wireless interference with whatever makes the cabinet’s touch-to-light circuitry go (to be honest, I’ve never understood the physics of touch-to-light lamps anyway).
I’m leaning toward the latter: we once had a computer that was not well shielded, and the monitor we were trying to use gave off enough interference that the computer crashed within minutes of startup. We thought it was feng shui there too, LOL - but the problem was solved by moving the computer further away (then replacing the monitor).
Note that the former router was in another room of the house (due to being able to use coaxial input), with several walls between it and the china cabinet. It’s quite possible the same interference would have happened if the old router had been near it.
Did some googling, and the FIRST HIT was “can a ghost turn on a touch lamp”.
I kid you not. . This did not appear to be a joke - the website appears to be dedicated to ghost-hunters.
A reddit thread on the same topic had “Must be a ghost, lolz” as the first couple responses.
But, interestingly, the ghost-hunting side had much more rational explanations for the phenomenon (though they didn’t rule out a bit of unearthly interference!!).
Other hits focus more on the “fluctuating power” and “RF interference” aspect, which was our preferred theory.
Hah! I wonder if our next-door neighbor is having some odd lighting behavior now (the houses are not far apart).
A few years back, we thought our garage door opener was on the fritz - half the time the remote did not work. It turned out to be because my husband had put LED bulbs in the thing’s built-in light. When he swapped them out (for incandescents, I think), the problem solved itself. Definitely RF interference.
Although I’ve never looked at them carefully, I’d assume the touch-to-turn-on is a capacitive touch mechanism. It’s basically looking at a change in electrical behavior based on the added conductivity of your body. I suppose it’s possible that a wifi router, specifically close by so before power dissipation from distance, could provide enough power to trigger it as well. Think in terms of the old pulsing noises that speakers had when you put an old cell phone near them.
Electricity and touch-based devices are weird and magical. And I say that as an embedded software engineer who worked in the cell phone space back with touch screens first became popular.
In the history of household electronic devices, WiFi routers are weird - they’re pretty much the first device we’ve collectively welcomed into our homes that intentionally and constantly pumps out radio waves. Almost certain that the china cabinet is receiving and misinterpreting those signals.
