Xbox 360 screws up Walmart's wireless devices

[mckmas8808]

Now this is a crazy report about the Xbox 360 screwing up wireless equipment in Walmart stores across the country. Read below.

After our report last week that the Xbox 360 might be interfering with wireless devices in use at Wal-Mart, more anecdotal evidence has trickled in. There may now be enough evidence to warrant deeper investigation.
There’s no reason to get worried about the Xbox 360 launch date (there, we recognized the elephant in the room), but the breadth and frequency of these reports point to a compatibility issue between the Xbox 360 and Wal-Mart, at least.

2.4 RF will screw with the Symbol handhelds which are pretty much the backbone of Wal-Mart day to day business. That’s probably why they shut the consoles off. Even wireless speaker system demos that run on 2.4 will screw things up. — bb

the walmart i live by and sadly work at, has a problem with the hand scanner not working properly because of the 360. strange indeed. — darksar

work at walmart…. the truth is that the 2.4ghz interferes with our “Smartâ€system. nation-wide all walmarts had to stop using the pa system, because costumers complain, so 360’s 2.4 is a scapegoat. at my store we use wireless home theater systems as our excuse — BugX

I work at a Wal Mart here. We had a problem like this too. But with us it crashed our SMART system, which made all handheld terminals not function. Those handheld devices use a wireless network to function and somehow it interfered with that. — Charlie

Went to the Ypsilanti, MI Walmart yesterday and they had the 360 there but it was not turned on because the electronics person said it was interferring with their photo lab. A rep is supposed to come this week and fix it. It looked good but would have liked to have played it. — Krista

The WalMart in Lansing, MI has one, but it’s not running because Peggy, Mildred and Linda (not their real names, but pretty descriptive of the old ladies working this dept) in the electronics department SWEAR that it’s screwing up their cash register scanner. I don’t believe it, myself. I think that the MS rep didn’t set it up, and the WalMart yokels screwed up the 360 by setting it up themselves before they were supposed to do it. — XenoCorpse

Inline kiosk is up in Walmart in Kewanee, IL but not playable. According to the guy at the electronics counter: “it screws up all of our electronics†— vidGuy

Maybe 2.4 GHz wasn't the best thing to go with.

What do you guys think?

Link http://www.joystiq.com/entry/1234000410064738/

 

[EndR]

Odd..
shouldn´t this be a problem in ALL the wal-marts that MS has 360 kiosks?

 

[Platon]

I will not be playing xbox360 on a plane, thats for sure ...

 

[Shifty Geezer]

What protocol is XB360's wireless? If not WiFi or BlueTooth I'm guessing a proprietary format? How much overlap with home electronics?

This is kinda embarrasing though, launching new kiosks only for them not to work. And shows some of the troubles with wireless. I've a couple of friends who bought wireless PS2 controllers but they're so troublesome and glitchy I prefer the wired controllers. Though I hear good things of Wavebird, is wireless really robust enough to be so widely used? And how can the WalMart staff mess up the setup to cause conflicts with their wireless systems? Can the frequency be selected or something?

 

[Pugger]

Something more fundemantal to take into consideration is, The controllers in the demo pods are USB. The demo pods do not use any wireless features, so Walmart should look elsewhere for the problems.

 

[Titanio]

Maybe 2.4 GHz wasn't the best thing to go with.

2.4Ghz is pretty standard. Lots of things use it, including wifi, Bluetooth, and probably your microwave. IIRC, it's the "open band" that you don't need a license to use, hence why everything uses it.

Apparently Walmart has to turn off a lot of stuff they sell because of this.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Something more fundemantal to take into consideration is, The controllers in the demo pods are USB. The demo pods do not use any wireless features, so Walmart should look elsewhere for the problems.

Would not the console still be emitting wireless tranmissions to look for devices (wireless controllers) remotely? I think if the evidence is there that when the XB360 was introduced problems appeared, it must be something to do with the hardware. Though of course once the story gets out the moment anything goes wrong some people will start pointing fingers at the XB360 even if unrelated.

 

[pipo]

The problem might also be Wal-Mart's scanners in the first place... Old models? Bad shielding?

Edit - could be (from the Joystiq link)...

the scanners they use operate around 900Hz, they cant use cordless phones cuz they mess with the outdated system

 

[mesyn191]

Sounds like BS to me.

As another poster stated pretty much everything uses 2.4Ghz these days. PC's (802.11b,g), phones, microwaves, PDA's, you name it...

All of these things interfere with each other as they all use the same frequency band, X360 or no X360 you'd be having problems with all of them in the same building on at the same time.

Shifty: It uses plain old 802.11a,b, and g which are universal standards.

Also if Pugger is correct and the pods aren't using anything wireless then there is no way its possible for X360 to be causing the interference as in order to get a 802.11x signal with X360 you need the wireless adapter add-on which you have to buy seperately....

 

[mckmas8808]

I think some of those people posting that information were real Wal-Mart employees though.

 

[pipo]

BTW: I can't imagine the pods using wireless. You don't want to recharge those things right?

I also suspect the 360's wireless reciever / transmitter to be off by default untill you try to bind a controller...

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Also if Pugger is correct and the pods aren't using anything wireless then there is no way its possible for X360 to be causing the interference as in order to get a 802.11x signal with X360 you need the wireless adapter add-on which you have to buy seperately....

The Wireless networking needs the WiFi adapter, but what about the wireless controllers? Surely these aren't 802.11x or else why's a $100 WiFi adapter needed if the tranmitter/reciever hardware is already included in the console?

 

[pipo]

Just to put an end to the wireless controllers discussion...

http://www.xbox365.com/news.cgi?id=GGGidrGGGG05251111

I also think it's very unlikely they have WiFi enabled on those retail setups.

 

[mesyn191]

Shifty:

The controllers use infrared signals, no 2.4Ghz or 900Mhz signals are coming from the base unit at all without the wireless adapter as the adapter also functions as the antenna.

http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=NzY4

"Right above the MU slots is a infrared controller window for the controller that will come with your Xbox 360. It is very much like any other CE controller you might see except with the big Xbox Guide Button on it, the same as is on the top middle of the wireless game controller, again with the ring of lights."

 

[pipo]

The Wireless networking needs the WiFi adapter, but what about the wireless controllers? Surely these aren't 802.11x...

The controllers use infrared signals...

Nope. It's a custom design.

Only the remote control uses infrared.

 

[Brimstone]

Like it has been pointed out already, why would the wireless aspect of the Xbox 360 crash anything if the controllers are plugged in via usb?


Comon, this quote in paticular comes across as ridiculous.

Went to the Ypsilanti, MI Walmart yesterday and they had the 360 there but it was not turned on because the electronics person said it was interferring with their photo lab. A rep is supposed to come this week and fix it. It looked good but would have liked to have played it. — Krista

How the hell could a wireless device screw with the stores photolab? They don't have photolabs next to consumer electronic departments at Wal-Mart stores.

 

[robofunk]

Sounds like the problem is with the scanners. This is Walmart we're talking about so they'll probably switch to wired controllers within the next few days.

I highly doubt this will interfere with Wi-Fi. If anything some 2.4Ghz cordless phones (the shit ones that interfere with Wi-Fi) might disconnect your controller from the 360, not the other way around.

 

[London Geezer]

Why would the X360 pods use the infrared controllers?! Think about it. They need to be attached and secured to the pods or people will just start taking them home (or trying anyway). Therefore the controllers can just be the wired ones, or wireless ones always plugged in for "charging".

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Just to put an end to the wireless controllers discussion...

http://www.xbox365.com/news.cgi?id=GGGidrGGGG05251111

I also think it's very unlikely they have WiFi enabled on those retail setups.

If those are wired controllers, how come there's no wires into the controller (USB) ports on the front of the XB360 console? It's possible the controllers are wirelessly connected to the console but with seperate power line and secure fastening.

 

[London Geezer]

If those are wired controllers, how come there's no wires into the controller (USB) ports on the front of the XB360 console? It's possible the controllers are wirelessly connected to the console but with seperate power line and secure fastening.

.... that doesn't make much sense....