Yeah, I'm not criticizing you. Just saying that the numbers posted are so suspect as to not be worth paying attention to, acting on, or worry about. I have no idea if anyone on this forum would have a meter for that stuff. Might be better off asking in some nutter anti-RF forum. Somebody there might have spent the money for a real meter.
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Apple Airpods - EMF radiation levels? Can anyone here do a quick measurement?
- Thread starter Music1969
- Start date
solderdude
Grand Contributor
Wait till 5G becomes a reality...
The measurements are most likely correct.
It's not just earpods put all BT inears without wires and BT transceiver somewhere else.
These devices must make contact with other BT devices in a rather crowded ether and power levels drop dramatically when the distance doubles.
Also you must realize that when measuring they keep it directly against the antenna.
In reality the brain and ears are further away from the BT antenna so the field will probably? be at acceptable levels at that distance.
The measurements are most likely correct.
It's not just earpods put all BT inears without wires and BT transceiver somewhere else.
These devices must make contact with other BT devices in a rather crowded ether and power levels drop dramatically when the distance doubles.
Also you must realize that when measuring they keep it directly against the antenna.
In reality the brain and ears are further away from the BT antenna so the field will probably? be at acceptable levels at that distance.
The fact that the Airpods communicate using RF signals, it shouldn't be surprising that it has easily measurable RF emissions. After all, any BT supporting phones can communicate with them and therefore able to sense the RF signals the Airpods emit.
The fact that when you run your microwave oven and your BT devices in your house still work, its RF emissions must not be strong enough to overwhelm the RF communications of your BT devices, and therefore it should be unsuprising that emissions of microwave ovens should be of comparable or lower magnitude than BT devices.
The fact that when you run your microwave oven and your BT devices in your house still work, its RF emissions must not be strong enough to overwhelm the RF communications of your BT devices, and therefore it should be unsuprising that emissions of microwave ovens should be of comparable or lower magnitude than BT devices.
Here is Apple earpod declaration to FCC:
https://fccid.io/BCG-A1722/RF-Exposure-Info/16U23784-S1V1-FCC-SAR-Report-3118428.pdf
Each earpod is supposed to have a SAR of 0.5 W/kg. (slight differences between left and right).
By comparison an Iphone 7 has a SAR of 1.5 W/kg.
Therefore video measurements ( E field in V/m) shouldn't be so far away from reality.
https://fccid.io/BCG-A1722/RF-Exposure-Info/16U23784-S1V1-FCC-SAR-Report-3118428.pdf
Each earpod is supposed to have a SAR of 0.5 W/kg. (slight differences between left and right).
By comparison an Iphone 7 has a SAR of 1.5 W/kg.
Therefore video measurements ( E field in V/m) shouldn't be so far away from reality.
- Thread Starter
- #25
Thanks. So the video measurements (E field in V/m) are not orders of magnitude wrong?
But interestingly the videos show Airpods (Bluetooth Class 1) strength is orders of magnitude higher than iPhone 3G call (iPhone with full bars reception, would be higher with low bars reception)
I don't want to go into safe versus unsafe discussion here in this thread.
Just interested in the measurements. Especially Airpods levels relative to Phone call levels.
Comparing measurements from different frequency bands (i.e. the unknown iPhone cellular frequency vs the 2.4 GHz ISM band) are highly problematic. Both the sensor sensitivity and antennae gain (of the measurement device) can vary greatly with frequency. Also the RF emissions of these devices are not constant. For example, RF emissions from the Airpods during pairing when they are broadcasting to any listening devices and during normal use are very different.
Remember, low power is everything to mobile devices. They are designed to conserve as much as power as possible, and not waste any.
Proper RF measurements need to be conducted inside an RF anechoic chamber, so that measurements are not corrupted by reflections and any external sources.
FCC declaration provided was dealing with 1st generation Apple earpods. (max output power 10 dBm vs 30 dBm for a cellphone).
Will check later if we can find the one related to Airpods.
- Thread Starter
- #28
Noted, thanks for the info.
Not the case with Airpods... apparently.
They broadcast at similar power at all times, the moment they come out of their case, whether connected to any host or not.
They stop broadcasting only inside their case.
Again, rather than believing the several videos I've seen of this, would be great for someone to measure to confirm to add another datapoint.
Mmm ... That makes very little sense. These are headphones, they only need to broadcast a lot when they are trying to pair. If they keep radiating so much RF energy away, their battery life has to be abysmal.
Curious. Are they picking up the e-field from the wireless charging case instead?
[Edit] The Airpod probably does something too since the reading went up when it was placed near the sensor.
- Thread Starter
- #33
The levels go up once the case is opened, as this allows BT pairing to a host, even with the Airpods sitting inside.
But then the levels go up even more once one Airpod is lifted out of the case.
Highest levels are with both Airpods out of their case (doesn't matter if connected to host at all).
But with the Airpods inside the case and the case fully closed, levels are at their lowest.
Very interesting indeed. Too bad I am no longer working at my previous company where I had access to all sorts of RF measuring equipment. Sorry
- Thread Starter
- #35
Very interesting indeed. Too bad I am no longer working at my previous company where I had access to all sorts of RF measuring equipment. Sorry
No problemos at all.
I’m sure someone on this forum has access to such gear and will eventually bump into this thread and might have an interest verifying levels (relative to cell phone for example)
- Thread Starter
- #36
If it is the always listening “Hey Siri” that is responsible for the seemingly constant transmit power, I would imagine Apple could do an update where this is disabled if the host device has Siri disabled.
And this should increase battery life, which is about 4 hours at the moment.
I’m only guessing.
They’re a pretty smart bunch as others have hinted but at the same time they do have a track record of (sometimes) doing things a bit silly (and then fixing later).
FCC declarations for apple are available here:
https://www.theiphonewiki.com/wiki/Models
Select the desired model:
Then select SAR report or any other in exhibits:
In terms of SAR values the last Airpods (pro and 2nd gen.) have slight higher value: 0.6 W/kg
Max Output power still reported around: +10 dBm ( 0,01W)
At the end, with official values, wearing a pair of those (SAR 1.1 W/Kg) is roughly equivalent to the radiation of a modern cell phone (SAR < 1.3 W/kg)
Measurements:
https://www.theiphonewiki.com/wiki/Models
Select the desired model:
Then select SAR report or any other in exhibits:
In terms of SAR values the last Airpods (pro and 2nd gen.) have slight higher value: 0.6 W/kg
Max Output power still reported around: +10 dBm ( 0,01W)
At the end, with official values, wearing a pair of those (SAR 1.1 W/Kg) is roughly equivalent to the radiation of a modern cell phone (SAR < 1.3 W/kg)
Measurements:
- RF field testers (video ones) integer the results over a bandwidth of 3 GHz with a slow sample rate 2.5 sample/second. No receiver antenna pattern provided.
- Airpods should transmit only at 2.4xx GHz
- Cellphones frequency bands are: 800 MHz/ 900 MHz/ 1800 MHz/ 2100 MHz/ 2600 MHz ( Europe)
- Airpod antenna pattern is unknown but for efficiency it should be directed not towards head. In principle head direction should have less gain. Some videos are measuring at 'outside side'
- etc...
- Thread Starter
- #38
Interesting. Some said power levels are much less than cell phone... just because they are bluetooth.
But the numbers show something else.
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To me an interesting thread. The second sentence contradicts the first that I put in bold...
We want to measure to know how safe these are or not.
I use a BT headset when I travel and sometimes at work. I tend to be skeptical of the claims of an industry when it comes to my personal safety. We should remember how well the Tobacco companies muddied the field when it came to the deleterious effect of smoking. They had the money to fight ... and so do big tech companies.
I really would like to see independent, even amateurs measurements. This is our health we're talking about here.
To put things in perspective:
In the USA 96% of the adult population has a cellphone of some sort. If they were to add children to this ... It is normal these dyas for a 7 years old child to have a cellphone .. It never was normal in the US for a child to smoke at 10 ...
Well things are not so simple. In principle transmit output power of cellphones are 20 dB greater than Bluetooth at maximum level.
You have to consider also the Transmit pattern of the device in 3D ( it is not omnidirectionnal; meaning not same gain in all directions ).
SAR measurements/reports are done under very specific circumstances.
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