WiFi, EMF & your health

[jtwrace]

I've been wondering about WIFI and how being around it all the time affects ones health. In my house, I have an eero system which has "pods" all around the house including bedrooms. I've submitted a feature request to be able to put each pod on a set schedule so they will be turned off for sleeping. The question becomes is how bad is it really? There are A LOT of devices that claim to decrease or get rid of it. What are you thoughts?

If you have an Eero and would like to vote for the feature please see here.

 

[SIY]

Paul Brodeur was/is (don't know if he's alive) a complete fraud. And the superstition he started has taken on a life of its own.

 

[maverickronin]

Wifi uses non-ionizing radiation. The only effect it can really have on your body is simple heating, and regulatory limits on a single device's output power are so low that such effects aren't even generally perceptible.

Unless you have an over the top wardriving setup with bootsed power and directional antennas or something there aren't any health concerns from wifi.

 

[solderdude]

From time to time I have to go to a EMC lab to have designs checked out.
While talking to engineers over there they talked about experiments done there in those EMC shielded labs where they 'tested' people that claimed to 'feel' the presence of RF fields. Extensive tests were done were carrierwaves of different frequencies (modulated and not modulated) of various levels were either switched on or off where a few test subjects that claimed to be susceptive (in a negative health way) to these fields.
This was done over several days with (more than one) person.
There turned out to be no relation whatsover between the 'feelings' the subjects had and or radiation.

A friend of mine in the RF field says there is nothing to worry about with cell phones, wifi and wireless stuff.
Some of the testers, however, have serious doubts about 5G as that requires a lot of HF power and lots of transceivers close together.
Holding such phones close to the head (cm's away from the brain) has a few people worried though.

I guess we'll know in 10 years or so.

 

[Soniclife]

There turned out to be no relation whatsover between the 'feelings' the subjects had and or radiation.

I've read similar reports before, it seems to be pure expectation bias, like lots of health claims. Bogus health claims can do real harm, unlike faulty listening tests, but the same delusions are at work, and we are all susceptible.

 

[Veri]

My concern about this particular topic, was never really in "our" health but rather our ecosystem's. I have read several (fear-mongering) articles claiming bees are slowly being eradicated because of radio pollution. Without bees, many plants needing them for pollination could die. Would there be any truth to this, I wonder.

 

[Soniclife]

I have read several (fear-mongering) articles claiming bees are slowly being eradicated because of radio pollution.

Have you tried tracking back from these articles to find the original science? I haven't tried it on this topic but often the trail goes cold quickly, or leads to nothing more than speculation, but not always. It's sad that all to often it falls to the reader to do this because the journalists don't.

 

[mansr]

My concern about this particular topic, was never really in "our" health but rather our ecosystem's. I have read several (fear-mongering) articles claiming bees are slowly being eradicated because of radio pollution. Without bees, many plants needing them for pollination could die. Would there be any truth to this, I wonder.

Pesticides seem a much more likely source for the plight of the bees.

 

[restorer-john]

I turn off my WiFi at night, not because I'm worried about 2.4/5.0HGHz WiFi signal, but because the router/receiver/NAS etc are all on the one powerpoint and we get an awful lot of electrical storms at night (lots of lightning in the hills around here).

My four main areas in the house (computers/lab/test gear, HiFi area, TV and entertainment area and router/NAS/printers area) are switched by a 433MHz remote for all-off or individual plug-in on/off receivers (15A relays). The little remote is on the door frame to our bedroom, and I switch it all off before going to bed.

Sometimes if I think I'm getting some interference when testing gear, I can shut it all off remotely too.

Saves a lot of power too.

 

[Veri]

Have you tried tracking back from these articles to find the original science? I haven't tried it on this topic but often the trail goes cold quickly, or leads to nothing more than speculation, but not always. It's sad that all to often it falls to the reader to do this because the journalists don't.

Here is a European research group tackling the subject http://www.eklipse-mechanism.eu/emr_activities

A 2016 study https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10841-016-9868-8

(apparently one of the biggest concerns for the bee populations are killer mites, so wifi/emf might not exactly be the biggest factor, they might not help either, though).

 

[Blumlein 88]

Even 5G is well below the frequencies of ionizing radiation. You are not likely to suffer damage from non-ionizing radiation except by other effects like heating or photo-chemical effects. 5G and any lower frequencies are not going to cause problems like that.

Ionizing radiation is somewhere in the ultra-violet range and above. So 2.4 and 5 ghz wifi is nothing to worry about for health effects.

 

[solderdude]

The 5G bands mentioned below is where the meaurement guy was afraid about. In order to pull this off the network needs to be far more dense and have high power base stations (class-A) to accomodate for this kind of network.
It also meant their firm would have to invest tremendously for EMC tetsting which would require analysis and antennae up to the 50GHz range.
For radiowaves in the below mentioned frequencies the ether is 'dense' and not easy to penetrate. High losses per doubling of distance.


USA: 27.5 – 28.35 GHz and 37 – 40 GHz pre-commercial deployments in 2018

Korea: 26.5 – 29.5 GHz trials in 2018 and commercial deployments in 2019

Japan: 27.5 – 28.28 GHz trials planned from 2017 and potentially commercial deployments in 2020

China: Focusing on 24.25 – 27.5 GHz and 37 – 43.5 GHz studies

Sweden: 26.5 – 27.5 GHz awarding trial licenses for use in 2018 and onwards

EU: 24.25 – 27.5 GHz for commercial deployments from 2020

 

[Blumlein 88]

The 5G bands mentioned below is where the meaurement guy was afraid about. In order to pull this off the network needs to be far more dense and have high power base stations (class-A) to accomodate for this kind of network.
It also meant their firm would have to invest tremendously for EMC tetsting which would require analysis and antennae up to the 50GHz range.
For radiowaves in the below mentioned frequencies the ether is 'dense' and not easy to penetrate. High losses per doubling of distance.


USA: 27.5 – 28.35 GHz and 37 – 40 GHz pre-commercial deployments in 2018

Korea: 26.5 – 29.5 GHz trials in 2018 and commercial deployments in 2019

Japan: 27.5 – 28.28 GHz trials planned from 2017 and potentially commercial deployments in 2020

China: Focusing on 24.25 – 27.5 GHz and 37 – 43.5 GHz studies

Sweden: 26.5 – 27.5 GHz awarding trial licenses for use in 2018 and onwards

EU: 24.25 – 27.5 GHz for commercial deployments from 2020

Still all those frequencies are non ionizing.

And not powerful enough for health effects.

 

[Wombat]

Still all those frequencies are non ionizing.

And not powerful enough for health effects.

2Hz sound will not be audible but intense enough may damage human organs. Intensity matters.

 

[maverickronin]

2Hz sound will not be audible but intense enough may damage human organs. Intensity matters.

Yes, but too much power in any of those frequencies is pretty much just going to burn (or otherwise heat) you in a very obvious manner.

It's not like gamma radiation or something which can damage your DNA and cause cancer without any obvious macroscopic effects warning you to get the hell away.

 

[RayDunzl]

I don't see any obvious effects of cell phone usage over the last 20 years or so, beyond the "normal" zombie behaviors of the general populace...

 

[Blumlein 88]

2Hz sound will not be audible but intense enough may damage human organs. Intensity matters.

Yes, I'm aware of that. That isn't what we are dealing with here that I see.

 

[maverickronin]

I don't see any obvious effects of cell phone usage over the last 20 years or so, beyond the "normal" zombie behaviors of the general populace...