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Does wifi have any effect on health in home?

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I wouldn't think anybody would really know if there were long term health effects yet, as this stuff has not been widely used long enough. We'll find out in 20-30 years when we all have tumors or something. – Tester101♦ Mar 7 '11 at 17:40

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Compared to holding a mobile phone against your head, the exposure levels are very low.

So, even if non-ionizing radiation is found to be a health concern in the future (current studies show no reason for concern), wifi isn't going to be the primary source of exposure for most people.

If you are concerned, locate your router somewhere other than directly next to a desk.

Some router configuration software also allows you to set the transmit power level, so you can lower the power levels to a place where you still get acceptable bandwidth in the areas of the house where you use wifi.

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Remember that electromagnetic radiation received from an unidirectional emitter falls off proportional to the square of the distance (due to the 'sphere' of radiation being larger and thus the portion of the sphere touching you on the surface being less dense). If it's nominally safe to put WiFi base station 1' away from you (and it is), then it's 64 times safer if you put it 8' away. – Phrogz Mar 7 '11 at 21:56
can you explain a bit about mobile phone exposure? – Heidar Mar 10 '11 at 15:40
up vote 7 down vote

There is no detectable effect.

In double blind studies where people who claim to be sensitive to electric fields have tried to detect whether a wi-fi source is on or off their results have been no better than chance.

What does affect their health is their anxiety over possible health effects. This isn't to belittle that as anxiety can cause real health problems, so anything you can do to reduce the anxiety is worth the effort.

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If anyone can detect this, they should contact the James Randi foundation who has a $1-million prize for proving paranormal claims (randi.org/site/index.php/1m-challenge.html). It's sat unclaimed for many years now. – gregmac Mar 7 '11 at 17:51
Do you have links to these studies? I totally believe you, and want some citations to use on people who think otherwise... – Alex Feinman Mar 9 '11 at 19:33
@Alex - not to hand. Check out badscience.net. This is something Ben Goldacre has covered several times so there should be links in articles there. – ChrisF♦ Mar 9 '11 at 20:09
@Alex - badscience.net/category/electrosensitivity would be a good place to start. – ChrisF♦ Mar 9 '11 at 20:23
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No. Beyond a doubt not even possible. The harmful part of a Wifi signal strength can't even break the outter most layer of your skin. Unless you're eating a wifi router a day for lunch and somehow turning them on you're fine.

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Surely eating the router would have its own 'health effect'? :) – Alex Feinman Mar 9 '11 at 19:34

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