Are smart meters safe?

The brains of babies and very small children are the most vulnerable. Get them to comment on that!

Son is not a scientist - autodidact I call him. He reads a lot. Have decided to ignore pain and stay on the fence. Govt probably more or less right to allow the meters etc, but at the same time I can't see how living in a soup of waves emitted from all kinds of devices can actually be good for you or anyone, especially not small children who are still developing (One p or 2?) and we don't know the long term effects yet.

Hub has emailed the installer and asked them to confirm that the meters are not in any way harmful - that was a week ago and they have not responded. Maybe they don't want us to have anything in writing.

No-one was sneering, just pointing out that we already use many similar things.

By the way, my "tinfoil helmet"link was very informative. It says:-

"the intensity of a Wi-Fi signal is around is 100,000 times less than a microwave oven. The oven is a targeted device that operates at very high voltages and short distances. Wi-Fi routers operate at very low voltages, broadcast in all directions, and are used at relatively long distances.

Since radio waves follow the inverse square law – like light, sound and gravity – then each time you double the distance, you get only a quarter of the energy. In other words, the signal strength falls off very rapidly. At normal operating distances, Wi-Fi's intensity is generally so low that it's not worth worrying about: it's just part of the "smog" that is generated by radio and TV signals, AC mains wiring, the motors in home appliances, and the universe in general. (As my colleague Charles Arthur once pointed out here, the wavelength of Wi-Fi signals is the same as the cosmic background radiation: 12cm. If you're worried, don't go outside.)

.... The electromagnetic spectrum stretches all the way from very long wave radio frequencies to very short wave gamma rays, with visible light somewhere in between. We know that types of ionising radiation with wavelengths shorter than light tend to be dangerous. Examples include ultraviolet (UV) rays, X-rays and gamma rays. (The ultraviolet part of sunlight is certainly dangerous. Wear sunscreen.)

However, the non-ionising wavelengths that are longer than light tend not to be dangerous. These include infra-red rays, microwaves and radio waves. At 2.45GHz, Wi-Fi comes in the microwave band along with baby monitors and mobile phones. After that come the radio frequency bands used for TV broadcasting and AM/FM radio, and further along, long wave radio (famous only for Test Match Special and Economy 7 heating signals).

Of course, it does make sense to minimise risk, as long as you concentrate on the biggest risks, not the trivial ones. If you want to do that, the mobile phone must be the first thing to go. In use, the phone is held close to the brain, while the Wi-Fi router may well be in another room (inverse square law). It has been estimated that you get a bigger dose of microwaves from one 20-minute phone call than from a year's Wi-Fi.

Twenty laptops and two routers is roughly equivalent to one mobile phone.

If you are extremely fussy about Wi-Fi, then make sure you sit 1m (or more) away from the router, and don't use your laptop on your lap. Put it on a table or tray instead. I don't think there is a risk, but you may feel safer if you remove a non-existent risk."

Well, the OP asked, and I answered. Thanks for the sneering, though. Very much appreciated.

elegran

Our smart meter reader is by the cake tins! I look a it about twice a week. The DGCs were interested in it at firstand kept flicking on the kettle to watch the segments light up...but we have all forgotten about it now!
ps no headaches!!

Tinfoil helmet, anyone?
www.theguardian.com/technology/askjack/2012/sep/27/wi-fi-health-risks

Not even a mobile phone, alchemillamollis ?

I won't ask the obvious question.

Elegran, no, I don't use those things because yes, I do have concerns about their long-term safety. Not short-term safety. Smart meters are very easy things to do without. Why not take a precautionary approach?

"Got back to my son to say he was wrong about the health risks and said Huffington (see jingl above) quoted a lot of convincing figures - he retorted that did I know where the figures came from? Follow the money, he said, and you will find they are produced by people the energy cos etc pay for."

At a trial the defence barrister is paid by the defendant, and the prosecution barrister paid by the state, perhaps the jury shouldn't believe anything either of them say.

If you tell me that people will die if they don't get enough to eat, and I reply that your just saying that because you want some of my dinner, have I proved that people can survive without food?

Some arguments are true even when there's a motive for making them, so the way to refute an argument is with counter evidence and a reasoned counter argument, not by impugning the motives of the advocate.

Do you use a mobile phone? An I-pad? A wi-fi link for your PC or laptop? do you worry about the safety of these?

Smart meters communicate in the same way.

From www.smartenergygb.org/what-are-smart-meters/what-smart-meters-do/how-smart-meters-work

"How the smart meter system communicates

Inside your home, your smart meter uses its own secure, wireless network system. This works in the same way as other wireless systems like mobile phones or TVs, using radio waves. (Though it is a wireless system you don’t need wifi in your home for it to work. And it won’t use your wifi if you do have it.) "

I used to think that if the govt was elected they knew what they were doing. How naive can you get? I think we do relatively well here but politics in USA is driven by big business as every fule no and what they have over there comes over here in the end.

alchemillamollis - link us to a sensible British article. One with the science clearly documented please.

Do you really think the powers-that-be would allow anything to be widely used that could put further strain on the NHS?

They only transmit for one and a bit seconds in twentyfour hours! Gathering the information would be done electronically. That can't hurt you anymore than the timer on your cooker.

stopsmartmeters.org.uk/

FWIW

I do think they are harmful to health, so I prefer to err on the side of caution. They're hardly essential, are they? I'm very interested in your son knowing about the health risks - is he a scientist?

Got back to my son to say he was wrong about the health risks and said Huffington (see jingl above) quoted a lot of convincing figures - he retorted that did I know where the figures came from? Follow the money, he said, and you will find they are produced by people the energy cos etc pay for.

So have a pain in bum where the fence cuts in. Still have a mild headache but wondering if it's the antibiotics I had from dentist. but then I only remembered we had had the meter put in when I realised I had the headache.

"Put the kettle on and the monitor has a heart attack!"

This is precisely why smart meters can be so misleading, it looks like the kettle is where all your money is going, but the real cost is in appliances that are on for protracted periods of time like fridges, freezers, tumble dryers etc.

If someone tells you you might get a headache because of ABC you will be very likely to.
I cannot see how it can be any worse that WiFi in your home.

We've got one and are quite happy with it. Put the kettle on and the monitor has a heart attack! It is mildly interesting to see how much something costs but has not affected our usage. If you were on a tight budget it could be helpful. I don't usually use ready meals but did once last week. I hesitated about putting the oven on for one small meal but it wasn't really suitable for the microwave. It cost 10p to cook the meal, so nothing to worry about.

Panic over - I always panic first and then do other stuff later. The Huffington Post was good and crum made me remember all the fuss when we first got microwave ovens.

I won't let DH have one of those.

jingl, you don't need to squat in front of the meter to read what the energy use is at any one time. They give you a little gadget that you can site anywhere that gets the message from the meters and you can tell which of your appliances use the most. Kettle and toaster use a lot, but they are only on for a few minutes at the most. I am pleasantly surprised that the washing machine and dishwasher don't use as much as I expected.

Yes they are safe.

Sectors of the workforce have been using radio for decades before it was in the hands of the general public, if radio was harmful there would have been a raised incidence of cancer among those.

The placebo effect works both ways, you will feel better if you believe a pill will make you better, but you will also feel unwell if you believe something is harmful (the nocebo effect). In blind trials the people who claim to sensitive can't actually tell whether they're being subjected to EMR or not, and will report symptoms if they think they're being irradiated even if they aren't.

It's conspicuous that this problem only appeared after radio was put in the hands of the general public rather than professional users, and that they then started reporting problems with equipment that had already been in trouble-free use for decades.