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Bar In UK Uses Faraday Cage To Block Mobile Phone Signals (telegraph.co.uk) 537

Reader Bruce66423 writes: A cocktail bar owner has installed a Faraday cage in his walls to prevent mobile phone signals entering the building. Steve Tyler of the Gin Tub, in Hove, East Sussex, is hoping customers will be encouraged to talk to each other rather than looking at their screens. He has installed metal mesh in the walls and ceiling of the bar which absorbs and redistributes the electromagnetic signals from phones and wireless devices to prevent them entering the interior of the building. The effect was discovered in 1836 by scientist Michael Faraday and is often used in power plants or other highly charged environments to prevent shocks or interference with other electronic equipment. Some wallets are now cloaked in a similar flexible mesh to prevent data and credit card theft. Mr Tyler said he wanted to force "people to interact in the real world" and remember how to socialise. "I just wanted people to enjoy a night out in my bar, without being interrupted by their phones," he said. "So rather than asking them not to use their phones, I stopped the phones working. I want you to enjoy the experience of going out."
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Bar In UK Uses Faraday Cage To Block Mobile Phone Signals

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  • by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 02, 2016 @02:32PM (#52630387)

    Good thing you have a choice whether to give them business, or not.

    But something tells me the typical Slashdotter will still have a knee-jerk complaint about it.

    • by Joce640k ( 829181 ) on Tuesday August 02, 2016 @02:34PM (#52630397) Homepage

      What if there's a terrorist attack in there? How will they call the police from the toilets?

      • by Richard_at_work ( 517087 ) on Tuesday August 02, 2016 @02:46PM (#52630557)

        How the *fuck* did we function during the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s and 1990s without mobile phones and *active* terrorist cells on the UK mainland carrying out IRA attacks?

        Somehow, someone still managed to call the police without a mobile phone...

        "But what if there is a terrorist attack!?!" has rapidly become the new "wont somebody think of the children?!?" in ridiculous arguments either for or against something.

        • by namgge ( 777284 ) on Tuesday August 02, 2016 @03:01PM (#52630679)
          People used to use public phone boxes. Since mobiles became ubiquitous in the UK these have almost all been sold off as garden furniture for the wealthy or converted into starter homes for the poorer.
          • by Richard_at_work ( 517087 ) on Tuesday August 02, 2016 @03:11PM (#52630755)

            They still exist, pretty much every business still has a landline, and now any passer by in the street is almost guaranteed to have a phone. I still see no reason to make this about a terrorist attack or anything else - its private property, the only right that exists here is the right for that owner to do this.

        • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

          by Anonymous Coward

          How the *fuck* did we function during the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s and 1990s without mobile phones and *active* terrorist cells on the UK mainland carrying out IRA attacks?

          We didn't. We didn't function during the troubles. We didn't function during the Blitz. We didn't function during the Black Death.

          Don't you get it? Hipsters are the first truly functioning members of human society.

        • by Archfeld ( 6757 )

          Back then there would have been 2 pay phones in the lobby and a landline behind the bar. Still it must be nice to have that option to render your business a mobile phone free zone. Actively blocking or jamming cell signals in the US is an violation of FCC regulations but to use a faraday cage or to take advantage of natural interference is still very legal and in my opinion the right of the owner/operator of any private establishment. I probably wouldn't frequent such a place, being on-call a lot it would m

        • by Sloppy ( 14984 )

          "But what if there is a terrorist attack!?!" has rapidly become the new "wont somebody think of the children?!?" in ridiculous arguments either for or against something.

          You mean, it's almost as though the person you're replying to must have been joking? Huh, that's a weird thought.

        • by Hylandr ( 813770 )

          Won't someone think of how they are to contact the babysitters watching the children?

        • by locofungus ( 179280 ) on Wednesday August 03, 2016 @04:38AM (#52634239)

          How the *fuck* did we function during the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s and 1990s without mobile phones

          We used to plan.

          There would be an agreed meeting point if we got separated (or common sense - go back to the place where we last saw each other)

          People would arrive on time. If people hadn't turned up, five minute after the agreed time we'd be off and the latecomers were on their own.

          Nowadays, people text five minutes before the agreed time to say they're going to be an hour late[1]. People also assume the most optimistic times for a journey instead of a realistic time.

          Late entry into theatres and concerts has, IME, become much more common. 20 years ago there might one one or two couples who were let in in the first break - and you felt sorry for them because obviously there'd been an accident or something else completely unexpected that had delayed them excessively. Now it's dozens of people - often so many that it's not actually possible to seat them all in the few minutes before the second piece starts.

          [1] This is the one that really pisses me off. It's taken me an hour to get to our agreed meeting point. I've arrived a good ten minutes early out of courtesy, and then I'm kept waiting around for another hour.

      • by __aaclcg7560 ( 824291 ) on Tuesday August 02, 2016 @02:49PM (#52630583)

        How will they call the police from the toilets?

        This is the UK. Stand on the toilet, flush the toilet and escape down the drain. Wizards do it all the time.

      • by tsotha ( 720379 )
        Instead of going to the toilet they'll step out the back door and make the call from behind a dumpster. This is a pub we're talking about, not the Mall of America.
    • And the gin mill owner insists I be more sociable. How about you just shut the fuck up and pour me a pint, okay, "mate?"
  • by magsol ( 1406749 )
    "Get off my lawn."
  • So really he's just made an old fashioned metal plaster lathing style building. No need to invite any kind of anti-cell phone angst.

    • So really he's just made an old fashioned metal plaster lathing style building. No need to invite any kind of anti-cell phone angst.

      The construction may be retro, but the purpose obviously isn't, hence the invite by the bar owner himself...

  • by Anonymous Coward

    Here come the unthinking complaints from isolated individuals who think "being connected" means staring at the electronic device in their hands - and literally being oblivious to the real world around them.

  • You can do the same thing if you insulate your house with foil-faced insulation, use aluminized tape in the joints, and e-Glass on your windows. Don't
    forget the ceiling and floor. The floor should be a screen because moisture in the floor will rot it. Joints are very critical everywhere. Small gaps in
    the window mechanism, sliders and frames are an issue also. Conductive paint is a help. I have a house similar to those specs --inadvertently-- and
    my AT&T cell tower is 5 bars outside on the porch, an

  • For the next guy at that location?
  • by Anonymous Coward

    Will hopefully reduce/stop the number of mobile screens turning on & off in front of me.

  • Phones In The Basket (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Jason Levine ( 196982 ) on Tuesday August 02, 2016 @02:40PM (#52630473) Homepage

    I went to Buffalo, NY to visit family recently and a restaurant we went to tried encouraging people to put away their phones and talk. Instead of installing a Faraday cage, though, they put a basket (of the type they serve bread in) on the table. Everyone's phones went in and stayed there. If we kept our phones there during the entire meal, we got 10% off our check. (We kept our phones there and had fun taking "mental photos" of the kids instead of cell phone photos.)

    I much prefer this system. It gives you an incentive to keep from looking at your phone without actively blocking your phone from being used. In case of an emergency, your phone is right there for you to use, but most times it'll just stay in the basket until after dinner is over.

    • That's a good option for dinner at a restaurant where you know the people you are eating with... But at a bar, you might forget the phone, or your phone might grow legs and walk off with one of the random people who sit near you.
    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      I knew a guy who would take an old Nokia to those things, and walk out with an upgrade. If course it's an old trick, he used to do it with cars when they made people leave their keys at the door.

  • by jbarr ( 2233 ) on Tuesday August 02, 2016 @02:43PM (#52630509) Homepage

    It's an documentary detailing several very old Irish pubs, and while they don't mention a Faraday Cage, they bring up how the classic "Pub" concept is starting to fade because so many people are wrapped up in the Internet and electronics that they simply don't know how to just sit and converse.

  • All this work and cost he went to and the digital addiction will likely win over. The bar will get a reputation for having horrible signal and people will find other bars that don't. Unless he has really awesome drinks and everything else to overcome the need for data. Even then, you'll see many people convening outside to get their information fix or make calls to the S/O. Worse, how will people be able to fake receiving phone calls to get out of creepy bar conversations?

    Makes me wonder if his bar is suffi

  • Most countries electronic cell phone jammers are illegal that interfere with the RF spectrum. Faraday cages are localized, passive and legal.
  • I accomplished the same thing by buying a stucco house with a metal roof. The mesh in the stucco and the roof together do a pretty good simulation of a Faraday cage. They stop TV, FM, Cell, etc...

  • What do they expect people to do? talk to each other offline?! -the people who started this are sick, demented fossils clinging to the dying ways of old farts.

    I bet some millennials have already got into panic attacks and shock when they got no signal and missed their tinder hook-up or could no longer understand where they were because GPS was not working any more.

    I'm launching a FB campaign against this barbaric treatment. Something must be done.
  • by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 02, 2016 @03:10PM (#52630753)

    I'm hardly ever on my phone, but I do need to be available for emergency calls, and that's why I have a phone in the first place. If I DO have to take a call, I tend to say "please excuse me, I have an important call" and then I go outside with my phone. I don't want those around me to hear me struggling to hear the caller and hushing their conversation, and I don't like to struggle to hear the caller in the first place.
    Cameras? Pictures? Facebook? Games? I think that these are what the owner of the establishment had in mind as he put the Faraday cage into his walls... His comment was that he wanted :people to interact with the real world." I think he is trying to discourage the man sitting alone in his bar from being on his cell phone playing games, the woman sitting alone at the table scrolling through facebook... He wants to take away the distractions that people use to isolate themselves and avoid intereacting with strangers, and probably hopes that people in his establishment will actually start to talk and interact together. I don't know if this will work, but good luck to him!

  • Have made a shielded room, and done plenty of EMC in others; it is super hard to keep cell signals out. The article looks like he has glass windows and is not underground. With an EMC room, you need conductive foam braid on the the door seals, and soon as you crack the door, you get cell coverage. Even the wiring has to have filters, as the radio waves can get in and out via wiring, plumbing etc. glass windows would need fine copper mesh. More likely he has a jammer installed, and and just told everyone it'

  • Pub Quiz (Score:5, Insightful)

    by RDW ( 41497 ) on Tuesday August 02, 2016 @03:47PM (#52631039)

    At least they can have a decent pub quiz that isn't ruined by surreptitious Googling (though some git will probably download offline Wikipedia).

  • by geekprime ( 969454 ) on Tuesday August 02, 2016 @03:54PM (#52631089)

    It will stop phone calls & texts but sadly candy crush will work just fine.

    Net effect, I can't find out why my mate / girl / droogs are late or even going to show up AND they can't call me to tell me, but I can still ignore everyone else playing games.

    Oops.

  • by bobbied ( 2522392 ) on Tuesday August 02, 2016 @04:06PM (#52631167)

    Puts a Pokie Stop INSIDE the building and watches while the hapless Pokimon players drift in and realize there is a life outside their mom's basement.. The look on their faces is priceless.

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