if you remember this post i made a little while back, you might be aware that i recently purchased a “faraday bag” meant for protecting your mobile phone/tablet (product linked here) from radio signals used to extract/plant data. my intent was to use it as a booster bag, and i figured i would give you all a little update on how that’s worked out for me, since a few people seem interested & i think it could help other lifters!
first things first, here are the dimensions of the bag:
(the bag itself, with a regular hook tag for scale)
(here it is when it’s folded—it’s about 1.5” thick. i fold it and usually shove it down the back of my jeans so it rests against my back. paired with a loose sweater over it, it’s actually pretty hard to spot.)
you can fit a REALLY decent amount of tags inside this thing, though it does get harder to fold the more are inside. i would estimate, while folded, it can comfortably fit 10-15 tags without getting too bulky. if you stuffed the thing with disregard for bulkiness, i’d approximate you could easily fit 40-50+ tags inside, maybe more. i got the tablet size* for 70 USD, and while it is pricey, i’m really pleased!
*they also sell a cell phone size for 50 USD, which is a good deal smaller, but i’m sure you could still fit a few tags inside, and it would also be easier to conceal on-person.
i’ve tested it at the following stores, and been able to pass through the entrance* (with tags inside) incident free:
- although not a store, it worked on my iphone, lol. putting it inside makes it unable for calls or texts to get through, and when you bring the phone out, there are a few seconds before the phone “pings” with a tower that you can see it still reads “no cellular service available.”
- victoria’s secret/PINK***
*while i can’t concretely verify that all these stores actually had towers/working towers at that, i know for certain that the towers at urban outfitters worked, as well as the ones at VS/PINK. i did my testing at a relatively upscale mall, so i would assume all stores would be adequately prepared with LP measures like working towers.
**i did not conceal tags directly from these stores, but the tags i had on my person from other stores did not create an incident at these places.
***this one is a bit of a special case. i walked into the VS side of the store with tags concealed in my booster bag and the towers did NOT go off—i know for a fact they were working, however, because a woman beeped on her way out (and subsequently, an SA searched her bag). however, upon leaving the PINK side of the store with tags from PINK/VS inside my bag, i did beep. more on this down below.
here are the types of tags i’ve found success with concealing in my bag & walking out with:
top left: clam tag from UO
top right: ink tag from F21/pacsun
bottom left: hook tag from lululemon
bottom right: hook tag from A&F
now, here are the tags that may have given me a problem:
i believe all of these are from VS/PINK, though i’m not entirely certain on the tag with the wire. these tags were the ones i added to my bag while inside of the VS/PINK, and subsequentially the ones that must have made me beep. upon entering a kate spade store with the same assortment of tags in my bag, i also beeped on both entry and exit.
my lifter friend (who was there at the time) and i tried to brainstorm reasons why these tags might have made me beep. note that we made sure i hadn’t left any tags/hidden RFIDs in my purse or on the merchandise i had concealed on my person. here’s what we were able to come up with (keep in mind that neither of us know jack shit about the science behind radio signals and whatnot):
- it’s possible that one or more of the tags in the picture above uses a frequency that was not blocked by the bag? i believe this would be possible if one of the tags used a radio frequency <600MHz or >5 GHZ. just gonna put it out there that i have no ideas what those numbers mean, but on the website, that‘s the range of frequencies the bag claims to block. the same case could be made with other kinds of signals the website lists that have some kind of range associated with them.
- again, just putting it out there that i have NO IDEA how radio signals or otherwise work, but maybe the amount of tags in my bag created a combined signal strength that overwhelmed the bag? i don’t even know if signals can do that, but if they can that might be an explanation. after i started beeping, we went back to my lifter friend’s car and ditched all of the tags inside the bag before continuing (cautiously) lifting. for the rest of the day, we were careful to ditch tags as frequently as possible to limit the number inside the bag, just in case this theory had any connection to why i beeped.
that’s all the information i can give you about my bag. overall, i’m SUPER pleased with how it’s working out for me—i’ve been able to steal upwards of $1300 worth of merchandise with it so far, so the cost of the bag was money well-spent. even with the rouge beep at VS, i would say i have confidence in the bag for use while lifting. although i do still have to stay vigilant whenever i pass through towers, you should ALWAYS be alert, booster bag or not, when you leave a store, and never assume that you won’t beep.
i hope this post could help some people out—and if anyone has some kind of knowledge that could concretely explain the beeping incident at VS/PINK, it would be much appreciated (for me, and anyone else who uses any kind of booster bag).
blakekathryn
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