Don't fear the Bluetooth radiation

Bluetooth for your prepaid cell phone. Bluetooth, and really any hands-free device, is becoming a bigger issue, with more and more states implementing handset bans while driving. Further back, on our sister site, we talked about radiation emitted by cell phones. One might wonder, though, about the level of radiation we’re getting from Bluetooth headsets. Kent German of CNET’s Crave blog answers this question for us in his latest “On Call” post.

Bluetooth headsets do emit radiation, but they do it at a much lower power than a cell phone. In fact, it’s so low that it’s almost negligible. Keep in mind that while cell phones need to connect to a tower that could be a couple of miles away, a headset has an effective range of just 30 feet. However, if the prospect of Bluetooth radiation really worries you, I would suggest using a wired headset instead.
That makes enough sense. Since Bluetooth doesn’t have a whole lot of transmitting power, it isn’t as serious a radiation risk as the handset itself. Then again, professionals are divided as to the actual effects of the radiation from our cell phones. While some think there are no long term health risks, others think it cancerous. German hits the safe bet at the end: wired handset. I can understand if you don’t want to walk around with one, but it can work while driving. Even so, it doesn’t sound like Bluetooth is a big deal when it comes to radiation. In fact, it seems like it poses a similar threat as, say, a remote control.]]>

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