Problems with CREE LED light bulbs and the garage door opener

The light bulb in the garage door opener needed to be replaced and I decided that a LED light bulb might be a good idea because it is completely vibration and shock resistant.

I bought a CREE LED light bulb. It was on sale and the quality of the light is not important. After all I will not be reading books in the garage.

The next day when I was off to work I came out of the garage and I tried to close the door from about the middle of the drive way. It would not work. I had to get out of the car and get closer to the garage. That's funny! Some kind of radio interference.

I was suspecting that the neighbor had bought some kind of new radio device and I wanted to observe the problem more closely over the next days.

When I came back home in the evening I had no problems to open the door with the remote control. But the next morning the problem was back again.

This continued for a couple of days until I started to understand it: The garage door light is off when I come home in the evening. It goes on only once the signal is successfully received. In the morning the opening of the garage door turns the light on and when I am outside trying to close the door from a bit further away then the radio interference from the CREE LED light bulb jams the signal.

So be careful with cheap CREE LED light bulbs. Those are not only light bulbs but as well radio transmitters and they jam signals at all kind of frequencies.

I went back to the store and bought a more expensive SWITCH Infinia 60W Equivalent LED light bulb. The problem did not come back. It is possible to make good LED light bulbs but stay away from those CREE LED light bulbs! I have tested interference scenarios with more devices and those CREE LED light bulbs can even diminish the the signal quality on Wifi devices if the device is very close to the light bulb.

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