What is interesting is that since FIRST switched to the new WLAN wireless setup and required all the robots radios (or rather, gaming adapters) to run on the 5GHz band, it would seem like there is little chance of direct interference from such devices (no more than you would get anyways at least).
For reference...
- Robots and the field System
- Use the 5GHz band on a WLAN
- Bluetooth
- Uses 2.402-2.480 GHz bands
- Generally has VERY short range (max is 100 meters and only on the most high end bluetooth)
- Walkie-Talkies
- Use bands like 27 MHz, 400-500 MHz, and 900 MHz
- Because these bands are public, chances are such signals are flying around whether FIRST likes it or not, they're simply not coming from FIRST teams (I can't count the number of times I've seen staff from the venue using them).
- Other WLANs and computers
- Almost all available WLANs use 2.4GHz band by default, many venues even have such networks active during events. Why is it a problem if teams use these for robot testing and/or scouting and such?
- Cell Phones
- Use many different bands ranging anywhere from 800MHz to 2690MHz
- There's a TON of them, if you assume that even half of the people at a given event have a cell phone, and that for each team there's about 10+ people there (not always true but for example) then that's 200+ phones right there for a 40 team regional, and that's before visitors and volunteers!
I guess I've always wondered about the rational for some of the wireless rules FIRST imposes too. Frankly the way I see it is that it is almost impossible to go anywhere these days where these signals are not present. I can understand FIRST trying to keep traffic off of the band they are using (5GHz) but to restrict the use of other wireless signals that aren't even anywhere close to the same wavelength seems a bit silly to me (Granted I am not a professional in the realm of wireless communications, but I'm still pretty sure). There are so many signals already in effect, what difference is a few walkie-talkies, bluetooth mics, or WLANs going to make?
[/2cents]