Opinion

Esotericism alert! Bluetooth is frying my brain

10.8.2023

Translation: Veronica Bielawski

Modern technology is a blessing – and often a curse for me. Bluetooth devices give me a headache. But test-driving a Tesla took the cake.

This text is a commentary by our freelance author Thomas Meyer and represents his own opinion. It doesn’t reflect the opinion of Digitec Galaxus. We don’t carry the devices mentioned in our range and don’t plan to add them to it.

Trigger warning: this article is about electromagnetic hypersensitivity. If you’re already rolling your eyes to the max, you better stop reading now. As it so happens, this text is littered with other beautiful terms from the world of esotericism. Mind you, with a critical spin.

Still here? Then let’s dive into it. First things first: electromagnetic hypersensitivity means that the affected person feels uncomfortable when near cell towers, Bluetooth devices, Wi-Fi routers, induction stoves and other strong generators of high-frequency radiation. I can definitely relate.

Electrosmog in the car

I first became aware of this problem when I changed vehicles five years ago. My first car was a Seat Ibiza ST. A great, but unfortunately rather skimpily manufactured little car that kept having more and more problems. That’s why I switched to a Honda Civic after seven years. Unlike the Ibiza, it had a navigation system, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi on board. I’d only ever use the navigation system, yet each time I got a diffuse headache after about 30 minutes of driving. I had no explanation for it.

But my mother did. She’s long been involved in esoteric subjects and rails against just about anything with more than a power cord. So I was presensitised to the topic, so to speak, and began to respond to her horrified exclamations («What?! Bluetooth! In your car?! My poor child!») by looking for ways to harmonise the electromagnetic fields, or EMF for short. Yes, «harmonise» is the term for it.

No GPS, no Bluetooth, no Wi-Fi – awesome! Unfortunately, no quality in the build either.
Source: Thomas Meyer

Nothing inside

I found what I was looking for on the internet and bought the Memonizer Car Set for 468 francs. A steep price, yes, but my discomfort made it worth it. That bought me two small boxes: one for the general electronics in the car and one for GPS, Wi-Fiand Bluetooth. The devices proved effective immediately; I no longer had a headache, and I didn’t feel as beat up after getting out of the car as I had before. In awe, I wrote to the manufacturer asking how that could be – and what exactly was in the boxes.

«Nothing,» they told me. Rather, it’s that information is transferred onto the box, with the box merely serving as a carrier – comparable to homeopathy: «Our technology modulates the frequencies of electromagnetic fields with natural frequencies. For this purpose, the frequencies of the effective energetic range of sunlight are stored on silicon.»

If you’re shaking your head at this point, I understand. Maybe you attribute my healing to the placebo effect. Or perhaps you think that whoever has a problem with Bluetooth needs some harmonising themselves. It does sound really whacky – the «effective energetic range of sunlight»! But it’s been helping me for years.

The Memonizer in use: nothing inside of it, but it works anyway.
Source: Thomas Meyer

Damage vs. limit values

Numerous studies have investigated and proved the negative impact of microwaves on humans, plants and animals. However, as is often the case with scientific findings, they’re ignored or simply denied. «There are no studies to prove it!» is a phrase I’ve heard many a time. And when I then present some, I’m met with, «Those are all unreliable.»

The World Health Organization WHO classifies cell phone radiation as «possibly carcinogenic», the Federal Office for Radiation Protection BfS recommends people «minimise personal exposure to radiation through their own initiative to prevent possible risks», the Federal Office of Public Health FOPH says about Bluetooth that «The effects on health from long-term exposure to low-frequency magnetic fields generated by the electronics and batteries also remain uncertain at present», and the Federal Office for the Environment FOEN writes on its website that «Various studies present evidence of biological effects, however, including in the case of weak radiation exposure below these limit values. For example, weak high-frequency radiation can alter electric brain activity and influence brain metabolism and blood flow. Whether these effects have an impact on health is still unclear.»

Limit values are a whole topic in and of themselves. They’re determined exclusively from the point of view of body heating. The basic unit for measuring exposure to high-frequency radiation is absorbed energy per time interval and bodyweight, expressed as the specific absorption rate (SAR) in watts per kilogram (W/kg).»

The SAR limit therefore only specifies how much heat may be generated in one kilogramme of human tissue through the use of a device. A Bluetooth device of power class 2 (i.e. with a peak transmission power of 1.9 milliwatts and a range 40 metres) has a SAR limit of 0.03 – compared to an iPhone 14 (0.98) or a Google Pixel 7a (0.99), that seems harmless.

But microwave radiation also has so-called athermal effects, causing disruption in the cell membrane, biochemical damage (oxidative stress) and damage by disturbing cell communication. These effects occur with a delay, i.e. can only be detected later, and have a variety of consequences, such as sleep disorders, headaches, nervousness, impaired concentration, tinnitus, impaired potency and fertility, immune deficiency, burnout, hyperactivity, miscarriages and much more.

The reality of limits

Now you may say: sure, all this exists. But there are other causes behind it than a technology I can’t physically feel and which operates within official limits.

I counter: the limits cover only a part of the effects – i.e. heat damage – and just because you can’t feel a direct connection doesn’t mean there isn’t one. Perhaps you have headaches often and feel exhausted all the time, and you blame it on everything but the actual culprit. For example, the Bluetooth headphones you have in your ear all day (or wear to sleep, as a colleague recently described doing here). Or the 5G cell tower (link in German) on the roof of your neighbour’s house.

Speaking of 5G, the power flux-density limit of cell phone antennas – 5 volts per metre – is commonly not always adhered to. The cantons measure the radiation and regularly find values of up to 11 volts per metre. One in five antennas creates too strong a radiation (link in German); in the canton of Bern, the figure is one in two. In Saas-Fee, there was an antenna radiating at just under 24 volts per metre.

So much for limits. Incidentally, a parliamentary motion (link in German) hopes to raise the limit to 20 volts per metre.

5G in Zurich. Or rather, Zurich in 5G.
Source: Thomas Meyer

The NWO wants to take over the world!

Unfortunately, it has become very difficult to discuss certain topics – already before Covid-19, but even more so since then. No matter the discussion, two factions immediately form, each claiming the truth for themselves and considering the other side stupid and deluded. The first sentence will typically already include mockery, with insults making their entrance right after. The issues end up being peripheral, at most. When I comment on a post on Digitec, all it takes is dropping the word «electrosmog» for all hell to break loose.

Mind you, people who point out the potential dangers of Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and mobile communications are sometimes laughed at with good reason. If you want to find out more about the subject, you won’t just come across websites and YouTube channels from trustworthy geopathologists. You’ll also – or mainly, actually – stumble upon the kind of whimsical fellow who believes that 5G is a particularly perfidious method of the world’s Jewry in their effort to enslave mankind.

Now, for environmental reasons, I’d like to drive an electric car. However, I have concerns about the additional exposure to radiation. So, I searched for «electrosmog electric cars» on YouTube in German. In one video, a man used an EMF meter, like the one I own, to measure the radiation in an electric car. But he enriched the results by sprinkling in quirky little rants about «microwave terrorists» and a «digital dictatorship». In the comments, of course, promptly came the claim that the NWO (the «New World Order», a term with antisemitic undertones) wants to take over the world – the supposed explanation for why electric vehicles don’t offer sufficient shielding.

As I said, I can understand everyone who laughs at such nonsense; I can’t help but laugh myself. But just because certain people completely overshoot the mark doesn’t mean they were wrong at the start.

Radiation blast in the Tesla

I took a test drive in the Tesla Model 3 anyway. It’s a fantastic car, equipped by default with a high-end audio system and much more. You can even set it to make a fart noise instead of clicking when signalling – and it has an outside speaker! The salesman told me tales of men meeting by chance at the Supercharger parking lots along the highway, all setting their speakers to fart and then laughing themselves silly. What a wonderful new world! I’d like to be part of it.

But I can’t. Shortly after setting off, I got a headache and felt an eerie tingling sensation all over my body. I felt, well, literally electrified. My testing device measured up to 100,000 microwatts per square metre, which is classified as a severe health hazard. The exposure limit as per building biology is 50 microwatts per square metre. All this to say, in a Tesla, you can enjoy a radiation intensity equal to the sum of 2,000 cell phone towers. Oof!

Ten minutes in, I decided to end the test drive. The second I got out of the car, my symptoms were gone.

Measuring the EMF in the Tesla. This can’t be good...
Source: Thomas Meyer

The seller wanted to know how I liked the car. I said I’d buy it for the farts alone – but, unfortunately, couldn’t be in it because of the radiation. To my surprise, the man didn’t make any stupid remarks, instead listening with interest and finally admitted to sometimes having headaches in his own Tesla.

I also had to send back the Sony headphones I had recently ordered from Digitec in an attempt to gain some peace and quiet on the train and tram. I felt like my brain was being literally fried right after pairing the headphones with my phone. I also got earaches and dizziness.

Next-level protection

I find Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and cellular communication to be extremely practical. And I view e-mobility as a viable means of significantly curbing CO2 pollution. I do also believe that a certain amount of microwave radiation is harmless. As I see it, though, technology has once again galloped away from under us without us really being clear about what exactly we’re doing. The nuclear powers of the world conducted over 500 above-ground nuclear weapons tests until they realised that it might not be so cool to contaminate everything with radioactive material. They themselves then imposed a test ban in 1963 (though they still continued underground, of course).

5G was not introduced because mobile phone users complained that 4G was too slow, but because industry and politicians are simply drunk on digitisation. The result? There are up to 10 times more antennas – and we’re irradiated from all directions, 24/7. The brains of children coming into the world now are under this influence from the very beginning. What does this mean for their development? No one knows for sure. But we carry on regardless. I think this is grossly negligent.

I’ve since levelled up in my fight against electrosmog. My laptop, iPhone and iPad are all connected to the internet via Ethernet; my Wi-Fi has been deactivated for weeks. And around my bed, I mounted a canopy interwoven with silver threads (a splurge, I’ll tell you that much!) It shields me from the cell tower near my house. On my balcony, I measure 1,000 microwatts per square metre. On my bed, I measure 1 microwatt per square metre. That’s a value you won’t get anywhere else. Not even in the middle of Lake Zurich.

100 microwatts per square metre is the minimum anywhere you go (left). 1 microwatt per square metre – I only get this low a value in my bed (right).
Source: Thomas Meyer

Oh, and I bought baseball caps for myself, my son and my partner with the same silver thread fabric sewn into them. My Opel Astra is gas powered, but it still radiates quite a bit, as my measurement showed. Even with the Memonizer, I want to play it safe.

«So now we’ll be wearing caps in the car,» my girlfriend sighed, putting hers on.
«How dotty do you think I am?» I asked her.
«Is that a rhetorical question? With your electric princess bed? And your wired mobile phone? And now these caps?»
«Yeah.»
«You just want to hear that you’re oh-so dotty!»
«Yeah.»

Radiation reduction for sceptics

You can think what you want about electrosmog. If you have no symptoms, all the better. But you might still want to turn your router down to 25 or even 10 per cent transmission power, which is perfectly adequate for most homes, and set up a timer to turn off the Wi-Fi altogether at night. You’ll find more tips on how to reduce your exposure to radiation (here (link in German). Doing so will cost you a minute and may significantly improve your well-being.

And now, I’ll conclude by quoting Deutsche Telekom, which writes the following in the instructions for its router: avoid setting up your Speedport in the immediate vicinity of bedrooms, children’s rooms and recreation rooms in order to keep exposure to electromagnetic fields as low as possible.

In other words, to be online, you need a device that’s as far away from you as possible. I can’t think of a more beautiful way to express the dilemma.

Header image: Thomas Meyer

131 people like this article

Thomas Meyer

freier Autor

tacheles@thomasmeyer.ch

Author Thomas Meyer was born in Zurich in 1974. He worked as a copywriter before publishing his first novel «The Awakening of Motti Wolkenbruch» in 2012. He's a father of one, which gives him a great excuse to buy Lego. More about Thomas: www.thomasmeyer.ch.

Health

Follow topics and stay updated on your areas of interest

Tech

Follow topics and stay updated on your areas of interest

Opinion

This is a subjective opinion of the editorial team. It doesn't necessarily reflect the position of the company.

Show all

These articles might also interest you

Opinion
The Grand Tour coming off the air is the end of an era
by Samuel Buchmann
Opinion
Confessions of an ex-vegan
by Thomas Meyer
Opinion
«Fight Club»: more than senseless violence
by Luca Fontana