LG is fixing future 5K monitors to allow them to work near Wi-Fi routers

William Gayde

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After an embarrassing moment in which LG's new UltraFine 5K monitor would fail when placed next to a Wi-Fi router, the company has announced they'll redesign the display to fix this issue. Proximity within 2 meters to a router created electromagnetic interference which thus caused flickering, instability, and ultimately made the monitor unusable at times. The original statement that LG made after 9to5Mac uncovered the issue was to just keep the display away from any Wi-Fi router. This clearly isn't a long-term solution and isn't viable for those in tight spaces.

In a new statement to Recode, an LG spokesman said the company will be adding additional shielding to newly manufactured models. This only applies to models manufactured after February 2017, but older monitors can be retrofitted with the shielding device. The fix should be relatively easy as the shielding component will likely just screw into place, but LG recommends users "contact their nearest LG customer center for prompt service."

The decision to issue a fix rather than a recall makes sense financially since not all users will experience the issue, but the fact that this was a problem in the first place doesn't reflect well on LG. Surely many home and small office users have a router within 6ft of their display. After all, the Apple-recommended device still costs a handsome $1300, which gets you a nice 5120 x 2880 IPS display with proper MacBook Pro compatibility.

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My wifi router is mere centimetres away from my fairly new LG monitor and nothing seems to interfere with it's picture quality, not even cellular reception but then again I'm not an owner of one of these 5K displays. I wonder what other LG monitor models it affects. Surely the problem cannot be localized to just that one certain model because it's parts will be used in a whole host of other models.
 
My wifi router is mere centimetres away from my fairly new LG monitor and nothing seems to interfere with it's picture quality, not even cellular reception but then again I'm not an owner of one of these 5K displays. I wonder what other LG monitor models it affects. Surely the problem cannot be localized to just that one certain model because it's parts will be used in a whole host of other models.
Except it's the only 5k display.... so maybe it IS localized to that model - and it would explain why LG didn't notice the problem until it was too late
 
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