5 ms·

> Turn your wifi off in your house at night and see if you sleep any better. This needs to be a blind test, e.g. you track your sleep quality over a longer per

by mopsi 7y ago

> Turn your wifi off in your house at night and see if you sleep any better. This needs to be a blind test, e.g. you track your sleep quality over a longer period of time while a script turns wifi off on random nights.

JshWright 7y ago
Does scientific rigor really seem like something the parent comment is concerned with?
gus_massa 7y ago
And you cover the green leds with tape mask, or get version with an accurate fake blinking patterns.
- pbhjpbhj 7y ago
  My ISP supplied router has an option to turn the lights off, which is great as otherwise it illuminates the whole hallway. I don't get why electronics makers think their product needs to have such bright lights.
  - HeyLaughingBoy 7y ago
    Simple. The engineers are working on the product during the day in well-lit spaces. Since the lights are always on, it never occurs to anyone that the LEDs might be too bright at night.
    - Shikadi 7y ago
      Alternatively, engineers point it out, and product managers don't listen
  - deftnerd 7y ago
    In a bright environment, a bright LED is useful. Instead they should also have a light sensor used to determine the ambient light level, and then adjust the status LED display accordingly. My Samsung TV does this with its "powered on" light. Of course, that adds to the BOM and manufacturers love shaving off fractions of a penny. Asking them to add an extra 50 cents of parts for something consumers don't think about prior to purchase is a lost cause.
    - im3w1l 7y ago
      Old LEDs are fine in both bright and dark environments, too-bright LEDs are a recent (5y? 10y?) thing. I wonder if LCD could be even nicer... I don't think I've ever seen single-pixel LCD status indicator.
      - Marsymars 7y ago
        > I don't think I've ever seen single-pixel LCD status indicator. I approximate that by using a pin to poke a hole in the electrical or gaffer tape that I use to cover the lights.
      - bgeeek 7y ago
        Any kind of light in my bedroom is deeply annoying to me when trying to sleep. And I have the same problem with sound too. Any kind of high pitch, etc, from a plug, light, etc, really does cause problems with my sleep.
    - heavenlyblue 7y ago
      It’s much easier to turn off the other lights than to brighten the environment enough not to see the blue lights of your router
  - moftz 7y ago
    In college, all of my electronics were in my bedroom as well as the communal router. I taped off as many LEDs as I could (even the router wall wart had a big blue light) and disconnected any LEDs that had leads (like inside a PC case). There were only a few instances of LEDs that I actually needed so those got white electrical tape over them to diffuse the light or swapped to red if the tape diffused it too much to see. I don't mind having a nightlight on when I sleep, I think it helps me fall asleep quicker rather than pitch black but bright blue lights that fill the fucking room with light are the devil. I have much less electronics in my bedroom now since I now have personal space other than my bedroom to put stuff.
  - dboreham 7y ago
    The worst design is where the light is initially off but turns on when some condition arises (e.g. battery fully charged). You fall asleep in total darkness only to be woken up at 3am by the brilliant light of "your phone is charged now".
  - hombre_fatal 7y ago
    I've had a tiny chargeable buzzer that would light up entire rooms when it was plugged in. I started habitually closing the bathroom door just so it didn't bother me when trying to sleep. I eventually got fed up that I broke the LED with some fingernail clippers. The device never turned on again. I'm a pretty easy going person in life but learned how mad I could get over time at a pointlessly bright light and the people who put it there.
wizzwizz4 7y ago
And make sure that phones aren't getting messages and bleeping during the night when wifi is on.
meekstro 7y ago
You could just try it. Turn off the electrical stuff before you go to bed but hey everyone has freedom of choice.
- jjoonathan 7y ago
  Placebos work. If that's what you want, cool. If you want to figure out if RF affects sleep, that's cool too, but you'll need to double blind the experiment. Because placebos work.
  - meekstro 7y ago
    Yes but so does human intuition and its a heck of a lot faster. A healthy person can endure a toxic environment. An unhealthy person becomes more unhealthy from increased toxicity. I’m not saying electromagnetic radiation makes a healthy person unwell i’m saying it delays or worsens recovery of some unhealthy people and there are million different subsets of unhealthy people so which subset are you going to run the double blind placebo on before you decide reduce electromagnetic radiation while you sleep. It’s a simple experiment anyone can try. Two weeks of camping is an effective insomnia treatment as per research which eliminates electromagnetic radiation from the equation. I think its a zeitgeber in subsets sick people but there’s no profit in researching that so the only tools you have are existing research, intuition, self observation and logic. People figure out how to sex chickens without a causative mechanism. It isn’t a placebo effect or a double blind trial. Electrochemical gradients as per Michael Levins research affect genetic expression. Much like hedging one’s bet by believing in a creator just in case reducing your exposure to RF at zero cost is the smartest thing someone can do with the available evidence.
    - jjoonathan 7y ago
      Placebos in truth's clothing are toxins of human society. Please verify placebo vs truth before spreading, k? Thanks. > Two weeks of camping is an effective insomnia treatment Or two weeks away from the grind reduces stress. Or getting away from artificial lights/schedules reduces stress. Or it selects for people+times with less stressed. Or more healthy. Or higher SES. Or you're getting away from pollution. Or you need temperature variation to feel healthy. Or any two of those. Or three! Many plausible explanatory factors compete with RF, and you'd have to control for them in order to point the finger at RF. That's not impossible, and not even particularly difficult, but it does mean that you can't go on a camping trip, get better sleep, and then use that as proof that RF was to blame for your insomnia. > People figure out how to sex chickens without a causative mechanism. It isn’t a placebo effect or a double blind trial. The double blind trial is how you establish whether or not something is a placebo. > Electrochemical gradients as per Michael Levins research affect genetic expression. You need to blind you studies whether or not you have a plausible mechanistic explanation. You don't need a plausible mechanistic explanation to blind your studies. > Much like hedging one’s bet by believing in a creator just in case Which one(s)? > reducing your exposure to RF at zero cost Foregoing the advantages of technology is not zero cost. If you mean that turning your router off at night is zero cost, go ahead! I don't take issue with that. I do take issue with spreading unblinded anecdata, because whether or not RF-induced-insomnia is real, RF-anxiety-induced-insomnia is definitely real, and anecdata like your own definetly spread it. If RF-induced-insomnia is real, that's for the best, but if what you experienced was a placebo (and I'd bet a substantial sum of money that it was), then unblinded anecdata literally are the problem. And that's not cool. In the privacy of your own home: do what works and ignore the haters! In society: please apply good experimental technique before causing anxiety in others. It's only polite.
notjtrig 7y ago
When I was mining bitcoin I discovered graphics cards under load mess with my sleep, I would wake up feeling like I was very sick if I slept in the same room as a rig.
- catalogia 7y ago
  Noise, heat or blinking LEDs should be your first suspicions. Maybe transformer whine, with low quality power supplies. EM noise should be very low down your list of plausible causes.

by mopsi 7y ago

JshWright 7y ago

Does scientific rigor really seem like something the parent comment is concerned with?

gus_massa 7y ago

And you cover the green leds with tape mask, or get version with an accurate fake blinking patterns.

pbhjpbhj 7y ago
My ISP supplied router has an option to turn the lights off, which is great as otherwise it illuminates the whole hallway. I don't get why electronics makers think their product needs to have such bright lights.
- HeyLaughingBoy 7y ago
  Simple. The engineers are working on the product during the day in well-lit spaces. Since the lights are always on, it never occurs to anyone that the LEDs might be too bright at night.
  - Shikadi 7y ago
    Alternatively, engineers point it out, and product managers don't listen
- deftnerd 7y ago
  In a bright environment, a bright LED is useful. Instead they should also have a light sensor used to determine the ambient light level, and then adjust the status LED display accordingly. My Samsung TV does this with its "powered on" light. Of course, that adds to the BOM and manufacturers love shaving off fractions of a penny. Asking them to add an extra 50 cents of parts for something consumers don't think about prior to purchase is a lost cause.
  - im3w1l 7y ago
    Old LEDs are fine in both bright and dark environments, too-bright LEDs are a recent (5y? 10y?) thing. I wonder if LCD could be even nicer... I don't think I've ever seen single-pixel LCD status indicator.
    - Marsymars 7y ago
      > I don't think I've ever seen single-pixel LCD status indicator. I approximate that by using a pin to poke a hole in the electrical or gaffer tape that I use to cover the lights.
    - bgeeek 7y ago
      Any kind of light in my bedroom is deeply annoying to me when trying to sleep. And I have the same problem with sound too. Any kind of high pitch, etc, from a plug, light, etc, really does cause problems with my sleep.
  - heavenlyblue 7y ago
    It’s much easier to turn off the other lights than to brighten the environment enough not to see the blue lights of your router
- moftz 7y ago
  In college, all of my electronics were in my bedroom as well as the communal router. I taped off as many LEDs as I could (even the router wall wart had a big blue light) and disconnected any LEDs that had leads (like inside a PC case). There were only a few instances of LEDs that I actually needed so those got white electrical tape over them to diffuse the light or swapped to red if the tape diffused it too much to see. I don't mind having a nightlight on when I sleep, I think it helps me fall asleep quicker rather than pitch black but bright blue lights that fill the fucking room with light are the devil. I have much less electronics in my bedroom now since I now have personal space other than my bedroom to put stuff.
- dboreham 7y ago
  The worst design is where the light is initially off but turns on when some condition arises (e.g. battery fully charged). You fall asleep in total darkness only to be woken up at 3am by the brilliant light of "your phone is charged now".
- hombre_fatal 7y ago
  I've had a tiny chargeable buzzer that would light up entire rooms when it was plugged in. I started habitually closing the bathroom door just so it didn't bother me when trying to sleep. I eventually got fed up that I broke the LED with some fingernail clippers. The device never turned on again. I'm a pretty easy going person in life but learned how mad I could get over time at a pointlessly bright light and the people who put it there.

wizzwizz4 7y ago

And make sure that phones aren't getting messages and bleeping during the night when wifi is on.

meekstro 7y ago

You could just try it. Turn off the electrical stuff before you go to bed but hey everyone has freedom of choice.

jjoonathan 7y ago
Placebos work. If that's what you want, cool. If you want to figure out if RF affects sleep, that's cool too, but you'll need to double blind the experiment. Because placebos work.
- meekstro 7y ago
  Yes but so does human intuition and its a heck of a lot faster. A healthy person can endure a toxic environment. An unhealthy person becomes more unhealthy from increased toxicity. I’m not saying electromagnetic radiation makes a healthy person unwell i’m saying it delays or worsens recovery of some unhealthy people and there are million different subsets of unhealthy people so which subset are you going to run the double blind placebo on before you decide reduce electromagnetic radiation while you sleep. It’s a simple experiment anyone can try. Two weeks of camping is an effective insomnia treatment as per research which eliminates electromagnetic radiation from the equation. I think its a zeitgeber in subsets sick people but there’s no profit in researching that so the only tools you have are existing research, intuition, self observation and logic. People figure out how to sex chickens without a causative mechanism. It isn’t a placebo effect or a double blind trial. Electrochemical gradients as per Michael Levins research affect genetic expression. Much like hedging one’s bet by believing in a creator just in case reducing your exposure to RF at zero cost is the smartest thing someone can do with the available evidence.
  - jjoonathan 7y ago
    Placebos in truth's clothing are toxins of human society. Please verify placebo vs truth before spreading, k? Thanks. > Two weeks of camping is an effective insomnia treatment Or two weeks away from the grind reduces stress. Or getting away from artificial lights/schedules reduces stress. Or it selects for people+times with less stressed. Or more healthy. Or higher SES. Or you're getting away from pollution. Or you need temperature variation to feel healthy. Or any two of those. Or three! Many plausible explanatory factors compete with RF, and you'd have to control for them in order to point the finger at RF. That's not impossible, and not even particularly difficult, but it does mean that you can't go on a camping trip, get better sleep, and then use that as proof that RF was to blame for your insomnia. > People figure out how to sex chickens without a causative mechanism. It isn’t a placebo effect or a double blind trial. The double blind trial is how you establish whether or not something is a placebo. > Electrochemical gradients as per Michael Levins research affect genetic expression. You need to blind you studies whether or not you have a plausible mechanistic explanation. You don't need a plausible mechanistic explanation to blind your studies. > Much like hedging one’s bet by believing in a creator just in case Which one(s)? > reducing your exposure to RF at zero cost Foregoing the advantages of technology is not zero cost. If you mean that turning your router off at night is zero cost, go ahead! I don't take issue with that. I do take issue with spreading unblinded anecdata, because whether or not RF-induced-insomnia is real, RF-anxiety-induced-insomnia is definitely real, and anecdata like your own definetly spread it. If RF-induced-insomnia is real, that's for the best, but if what you experienced was a placebo (and I'd bet a substantial sum of money that it was), then unblinded anecdata literally are the problem. And that's not cool. In the privacy of your own home: do what works and ignore the haters! In society: please apply good experimental technique before causing anxiety in others. It's only polite.

notjtrig 7y ago

When I was mining bitcoin I discovered graphics cards under load mess with my sleep, I would wake up feeling like I was very sick if I slept in the same room as a rig.

catalogia 7y ago
Noise, heat or blinking LEDs should be your first suspicions. Maybe transformer whine, with low quality power supplies. EM noise should be very low down your list of plausible causes.