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by michaelmrose 1543 days ago
Oh I absolutely believe in wiring everything stationary. That doesn't need justification beyond reliability and performance.

I'm talking about the logical inconsistency of scheduling wifi to avoid exposure. Your phone used without headset or speaker is a cm from your brain putting out up to 2W and your wifi access point conversely is 1/10th of a watt 30 meters away. You are getting up to 180 million times less exposure than up against your head.

Comparing speakerphone usage 15cm away isn't much better. It's up to 800,000 times the exposure vs your wifi.

If that is dangerous enough to schedule your phone logically needs to go straight in the trash.

You are underestimating how low energy your wifi is and how much the difference the distance makes.

1 comments

"wifi access point conversely is 1/10th of a watt 30 meters away."

Not in the US I guess? Also 30m is a massive house. In the US routers are 1W (although I believe many could reduce it per device with the newer tech, but many still have set limits; although this is also true of the 2W you mention for cell).

"You are underestimating how low energy your wifi is and how much the difference the distance makes."

My house is not 30m in any dimension. Probably about 5m router to bed, and that's one of the longest distance in the house. I don't think I am overestimating router power for my region. US limits are about 10x higher than Europe for wifi, while i believe Europe is about .4W higher for cell tx allowance.

You mention power and distance. What about time for cumulative exposure?

"15cm away"

I think this is underestimating speaker phone usage. Usually I keep it .75-1m away from me. 15cm is very close and not even worth using at that distance.

"I'm talking about the logical inconsistency of scheduling wifi to avoid exposure."

Not avoid, but reduce. The biggest point,since you brought up logic: baseline-5mW < baseline. There is a quantifiable reduction, at no cost (in my experience/situation, since I'm not using it at that time). Eliminating cell usage would require a cost (in my situation). So I accept that exposure with mitigating factors, like speaker phone and not sleeping with it next to my head. Likewise, I am a ham and except that exposure with mitigating factors (ground planes to limit RF back into the house, typically 1W but always QRP, and compared to cell phones it's about 1/2 the RF since isn't not full duplex), even though I don't use it very often.

You could limit your exposure more by not putting your router in the same room as your bed more so than scheduling it.

Of course the whole exercise is somewhat like playing like the floor is lava and hopping from couch to chair as a kid nothing happens when you fall unless you break a lamp on the way down.

There is no evidence of injury by virtue of WiFi.

"You could limit your exposure more by not putting your router in the same room as your bed more so than scheduling it."

It's not. I just don't have a huge house.

"There is no evidence of injury by virtue of WiFi."

The research seems to be mixed when searching PubMed. At the very least, there are confirmed biological effects for microwave RF for which we don't understand the mechanisms or their implications (eg increased cellular glucose metabolism). To me, these unknowns warrant some caution, especially if I can make reductions in exposure without any reduction in utility.

There is no reason to believe that 1 watt 10s of meters away has a biological effect. Do you have some links to studies that would suggest otherwise?