Cell phone activates oven

The New York Times reports on an EMC case involving an oven that turns itself on in the presence on a low level RF field from a Cell Phone.

Many people will have run across the beep-beep-beeping noise that you can get if a cell-phone is nearby to a poorly designed amplified speaker system. In this case, when the oven detected an RF field it switched on and set itself to high creating a significant safety hazard.

Unfortunately these days regulators seem to lack the will to enforce even the most basic EMC regulations in consumer products presenting potential hazards from poorly designed electrical equipment.

The New York Times report, which contains a video, can be seen at
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/23/nyregion/
23about.html?_r=2

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