The folks you’d expect to complain about radio frequency are at it again, but don’t listen to them — Bluetooth and Wi-Fi on the Apple Vision Pro aren’t going to cook your brain.
The folks you’d expect to complain about radio frequency are at it again, but don’t listen to them — Bluetooth and Wi-Fi on the Apple Vision Pro aren’t going to cook your brain.
We’ve said this before, over and over, time and again. Radio frequency (RF) radiation is not the same as ionizing radiation generated by decay of radioactive isotopes, and from the sun itself. In short, RF lacks the energy that ionizing radiation has to break chemical bonds, ionize atoms, and damage DNA.
We’re going to spell it out simply: Apple Vision Pro is not radioactive, nor is anything in it radiologically decaying in any meaningful way.
What it has, is radio frequency transmitters in the form of very low power Wi-Fi and Bluetooth chips in the device. They both broadcast and receive RF radiation.
The word « radiation » sounds scary, if you don’t know anything about it. It’s also easy to bandy about with no basis in fact on social media or YouTube to rile up your like-minded followers.
Extremely high levels of RF radiation many magnitudes higher than what Apple Vision Pro can deliver can heat tissue — which you practically see in a microwave interior — and can cause tissue damage. But, these levels aren’t reachable by the public using Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, or wireless technologies.
The only people who need to be worried about high radio frequency power exposure are generally workers in extremely close proximity to a very powerful transmitter, like climbers of a cellular antenna or military radar workers.
Apple Vision Pro users don’t have to be concerned about RF. Here’s why.
AppleInsider, why are you qualified to say this?
We can talk about this because I’ve had a great deal of practical training and experience in limiting radiation exposure. In the US Submarine fleet, one of my jobs was ionizing radiation exposure measurement, control, and assessment.
As part of that training, both in the start and end of my career, I had training on not just that, but monitoring of and exposure control from radio frequency broadcasts from high-power transmitters.
Beyond that, since nearly everything Apple makes since the original AirPort products were launched have some kind of radio transmitter, as a publication we’ve talked to many, many doctors about it. Beyond the doctors, I’ve been speaking to actual authorities on the subject with a background in radiation physics for over 25 years.
And, what the World Health Organization has to say about it is clear and easy to read. Here’s the takeaway:
This has been repeated guidance from the WHO for years, and is renewed periodically. It was most recently updated with the same conclusion in late 2023.
The US Food and Drug Administration has been running studies for 25 years on the topic. The FDA points out that there have been some studies showing minor effects from the devices, but they aren’t reproducible.
Both the FDA and WHO note that given the profoundly low levels of energy involved, it is nearly impossible to eliminate other causes producing the biological effects in the studies that did find an effect.
