Tested some smartphone RF readings (samsung, iPhone)

I became ES when they installed 11 smart meters behind my kitchen a few years ago.  Took me 3 months to figure out why I was going insane.

I am out of that thankfully, but for my work I still need to expose myself to EMF at times.  A smartphone is one of those sacrifices that I can usually tolerate around me for a couple hours without too much ill effect.

I have an iPhone SE that I usually have on airplane mode and have the calls forwarded to a landline. But it is getting buggy and I need to replace it.

I did research and found out the Samsung Note has particularly low SAR ratings, so figured it would be even better then my iPhone SE.  

Bought a Samsung Note 10 and tested it with my cornet meter and boy was the internet research wrong.

RF readings from the iPhone SE cellular network when holding it, looking at it, and measuring between the phone and your face (in a home that is far from towers so it's working hard to connect) were 50-150. I thought this was ridiculously strong as I live in a home that reads .0005.

The RF readings from the Samsung Note 10 maxed out the meter at 1850ish.  Thing is diabolical!  Just using it for a little while, and making a phone call on it, I started getting dizzy and feeling panicked, like I was back in that smart meter apartment.

I decided to return the Note10 and buy the lowest SAR rated Samsung I could find, which is the Samsung A10e with a head SAR of .47 and a body SAR of .54.  This is around HALF of the SAR ratings of my iPhone SE, so this has to be weaker right??

Well it was not as strong as the Note10, but again, testing with the meter revealed it was usually around 500 in the same test scenario above, and it often spiked to max around 1850.

So bottom line, tested three phones, iPhone SE (1st gen), Samsung Note 10, Samsung A10e, and the older iPhone SE had the actual lowest RF readings.  SAR values appear to be totally BS, at least to the cornet meter.

Not sure if this is useful to anyone, but if you are like me and need a smartphone for work a couple hours per day, maybe this will help in your selection.  I could not find anything else like this info out there.

I believe the new phones are way more powerful, and the SAR readings are being manipulated to get them under the 1.6 limit.

Yeah, unfortunately people on these groups buy phones based on SAR values, and I don't think SAR values have anything to do with electrical sensitivity tolerability.

On the Facebook equivalent of this group, the iPhone 6 is generally considered the most tolerable smart phone that is still supported by most carriers.  But I think if you look up the SAR for that, it's pretty high.

I use an iPhone 6 myself, but found it fascinating that it's "okay" with some carriers/networks (e.g. Ting/T-Mobile), but intolerable with other carriers/networks (e.g. Consumer Cellular/AT&T).  So for me, the choice of the carrier/network appears to be more important than the choice of the phone.

I'm currently using my iPhone 6 with Ting/Verizon, which seems to be as good (or almost as good) as Ting/T-Mobile.

Marc

Interesting.

What is the facebook group equivalent of this forum?  I looked everywhere for info on specific phones and found nothing on the iphone 6 or a group like this forum.

The biggest one I found was EMF warriors and they don't talk about specific phones at all.

Maybe I should get the iphone 6...does that include the 6s or just the original 6?

I have ATT...but not consumer cellular...are they the same?  Maybe I should switch over to T-mobile or Verizon

Sorry for all the questions, trying to get my head around this stuff

The Facebook equivalent to this forum (only because I run both) is this:

  https://www.facebook.com/groups/140151559518542

I personally found the 6s to be worse than the 6... I think maybe the processor or the touchscreen technology is different enough to bother me, because their support of the various 3G/4G phone services is the same.  Although some people are okay with the 6s.

I haven't actually tried AT&T itself as a carrier, I tend to go with no-commitment smaller carriers which I can cancel quickly after I find I can't tolerate something.  And there are carriers like Ting and Red Pocket that support multiple networks.  
 
Marc

that is super helpful Marc thank you very much!

Okay I did some more testing for anyone else who is wondering, and it backed up most of what Marc said.

I decided to buy an iphone 6 off ebay and luckily my mom still owns an iphone 6s.  So I got to test the SE, the 6s, and the 6.

The iphone 6s with my meter was just a little stronger then my iphone SE.  Seeing that I have been living with the SE for years, I could probably handle an iphone 6s.

When I got the iphone 6 in the mail, I popped in my ATT sim card and measured it against the SE.  Just like many other people have intuitively picked up, the iphone 6 power was about a third of the strength of the iphone SE.  Much less EMF!

The order from strongest to weakest in signal power goes iphone 6s, SE, then 6.

I also decided to order sim cards from Red pocket mobile to test out Verizon, T-mobile, and my current carrier ATT.  I tested these all in the iphone 6 I had because it was unlocked.  Readings are in MW/M2 and my meter's max reading is 1827

I tested ATT first while surfing the web on my phone:
700mhz
Max 730
Average reading 450-500
Range 350-550

Verizon CDMA:
1710mhz
Max 1827
Average 1000+
Range 1000-1827

T-Mobile GSMT
1700mhz
Max 1827
Average 1700ish
Range 1500-1827

So surprisingly, ATT was the lowest power on my meter.  It was also interesting that ATT was at 700mhz and the others were 1700 mhz.  I am not sure what that means, maybe Marc you could chime in about that?  I am also wondering if I walked around for awhile with verizon or tmobile if the signal would change overtime to 700mhz.  I basically just put the sim cards in for this test so maybe the strength would change overtime not sure.

Would love any comments or color people could give on these results.

Very interesting!

Is it your meter that is telling you the phone's frequency, or the phone itself?

Note that I had the worst reaction using Consumer Cellular as the carrier, I've never tried AT&T.  Also the highest readings may not matter if you are most sensitive to another frequency (that has a lower reading).

Marc
 

Also, as the phone ramps up and down its power based on how close the nearest cellphone tower is, maybe that AT&T tower is closer than the others?  Or you need less power to communicate at 700Mhz than 1700Mhz, I don't know.

I have seen people say to seek out phones and carriers that use the newer, lower frequencies, like 600 - 700 Mhz.

Marc
 

Yeah my cornet meter tells me what the frequency is.  
It has been pretty consistent that when the mw/m2 is higher, I feel it more.  Perhaps there is a slight difference between the frequencies for sensitivity but I don't know if I am sensitive enough to parse that out.  I can tell the difference between phones, wifi, and cell towers.  Phones and wifi seem "sharper" and more lower back centered while cell towers are like a whole body deep ache.

That is interesting that newer phones use the lower frequencies.  Do you think its possible that 5G will actually be easier on people with EHS then 4g/LTE?

I am sure the closeness of towers matters which carrier is the worst, so I suppose that is something that everyone will need to test for themselves.

The thing about the newer frequencies for 4G/5G is that they are both lower and higher.  So we've got the new lower frequencies, (eg. 600Mhz/700Mhz) but we've also got higher frequencies (e.g. 25Ghz).  So you need to figure out what you do best with, and use a phone/carrier that uses those frequencies.

Marc
 

Interesting...I thought 5G operated at high GHZ, but I guess it can operate at lower frequencies too.

Verizon says this:



from: https://www.verizon.com/about/our-company/5g/what-frequency-5g


This website says 5G operates sometimes at those low frequencies just like 4G

https://www.businessinsider.com/what-frequency-is-5g?op=1

Overall, I think when the iphone 6 is picking up 700mhz, it is probably from 4G.

Well yes, the iPhone 6 cannot pickup 5G at all... the only iPhones that support 5G are phones that were released in the past few months!

Marc