WLAN Health risks?

[edyzmedieval]

I just installed a WLAN in my home and I was wondering if there are any health risks associated with it...
I googled it and found either studies saying there's no health risk and pages saying it's a huge health risk, so where's the middle line? I need an informed opinion about this.

[pevergreen]

Less risk than carrying a cell phone in your pocket.

[Husar]

It's pretty much unknown AFAIK.
Would be hard to come up with long-term studies for something that has not been around for all that long. But then we've been sending all sorts of electromagnetic waves through the air for decades now.
What is relatively certain is that your router will not fry you alive.
My physics teacher said we should be a bit careful and not overload everything with wireless stuff when we have no idea whether it's harmful or not, so my router turns the WLAN off at night etc(also saves energy/money). It's somewhat unavoidable though since as I said, radio and TV broadcast, the neighbor's WLAN and everybody's cellphones are around you anyway.

[Lemur]

I need an informed opinion about this.

Unless you wrap your cranium in tinfoil, you're going to die.

[miotas]

Light bulbs emit radiation that is more harmful.

[Monk]

Would be hard to come up with long-term studies for something that has not been around for all that long. But then we've been sending all sorts of electromagnetic waves through the air for decades now.
What is relatively certain is that your router will not fry you alive.

This.

[Tellos Athenaios]

@Monk: you are looking at the wrong way. As with any consumer oriented product: don't ask “how dangerous is the router”, ask: “how dangerous is the idiot who uses it, how great his ingenuity for converting it into a WIFI enabled toaster”? Routers, for instance, come with explicit warnings that you should not open it because it may result in your untimely deep fried demise (well, a rather nasty shock more like as it's only a few Watt at 10KV or so).

But WIFI signals are simple radio signals in the 2.4-5Ghz spectrum which is used for just about every wireless peripheral not using IR signals. Think wireless mice and keyboards, bluetooth devices and certain types of remote controls.

[Xiahou]

It's non-ionizing radiation.

With high enough power (see microwave ovens), it could burn you. But, you'll never encounter that with an off-the-shelf wireless router. Otherwise, there isn't much to worry about.

Edit:Also....

[Sp4]

I thought a discussion on the health risks of WLAN must be ancient :D

[Ibrahim]

I just installed a WLAN in my home and I was wondering if there are any health risks associated with it...
I googled it and found either studies saying there's no health risk and pages saying it's a huge health risk, so where's the middle line? I need an informed opinion about this.

go with the studies: they pretty much all agree you have little to worry about.

[Husar]

go with the studies: they pretty much all agree you have little to worry about.

Paid for by the wireless devices association of the Illuminati America?

[Moros]

I just installed a WLAN in my home and I was wondering if there are any health risks associated with it...
I googled it and found either studies saying there's no health risk and pages saying it's a huge health risk, so where's the middle line? I need an informed opinion about this.

A student in highschool made a simple class experiment with Wireless routers. He grew watercress next to one router and grew some distance away from the router. Well actually only the watercress that was removed from the router really grew. The other only barely and was brownish yellowish in colour.

Not a very scientific or academic experiment, but it says a lot.

[edyzmedieval]

3 year old thread, but I guess it can stay for a little while

[Ibrahim]

Paid for by the wireless devices association of the Illuminati America?

[Tellos Athenaios]

A student in highschool made a simple class experiment with Wireless routers. He grew watercress next to one router and grew some distance away from the router. Well actually only the watercress that was removed from the router really grew. The other only barely and was brownish yellowish in colour.

Not a very scientific or academic experiment, but it says a lot.

I once removed a kitten from a wireless router. A short time later I looked again and the kitten was lying on the router again. This is not a very scientific experiment, but it says a lot. Mostly that kittens do not take hints seriously.

[Husar]

Maybe it felt the warmth of the router? Cellphones can warm your ear up by about 1°C with their microwaves.

Not to forget the suspicion that all these waves may affect the orientation of bees which fail to find food and die as a result.
I have no idea where the research is on that though but I'm a little suspect of these "we can release whatever we want into the environment and it won't do any harm" - opinions we probably got for leaded gasoline when it was new as well.

*Sent from my computer through a wire connected to a wireless router*

[Tellos Athenaios]

Maybe it felt the warmth of the router? Cellphones can warm your ear up by about 1°C with their microwaves.

Not to forget the suspicion that all these waves may affect the orientation of bees which fail to find food and die as a result.
I have no idea where the research is on that though but I'm a little suspect of these "we can release whatever we want into the environment and it won't do any harm" - opinions we probably got for leaded gasoline when it was new as well.

When it comes to highschool students and watercress experiments I'm going to bet on simple neglect being more of a killer.

We're talking an order of magnitude less than 1 W of electro magnetic radiation versus something in the order of 20W IR radiation (heat).

[Husar]

When it comes to highschool students and watercress experiments I'm going to bet on simple neglect being more of a killer.

We're talking an order of magnitude less than 1 W of electro magnetic radiation versus something in the order of 20W IR radiation (heat).

It's still going to kill us. No bees, no trees. Just like the dinosaurs.

I think a relatively small variation in temperature can make male sperm unusable and if the cellphones won't do it, the plasticizers in food packages will.

Or maybe the plastic we eat with our fish and drink with our water.

That's why I use WLAN, to reduce my suffering once we inadvertently kill ourselves.

Also happy new year soon!