Today our CEO, R Blank, is thrilled to appear for part 2 on Nick Pineault’s Smarter Tech Podcast. Can EMF-blocking cases really make your phone “safe” again? In the last years, Nick refrained from endorsing such products because of the high uncertainty around that question.
This is the 2nd in a 2-part series (check out part 1 here). In the second part of this interview, R Blank and Nick Pineault discuss the potential dangers of EMFs emitted by wired headphones, especially for very “sensitive” individuals.
Discussed during this episode:
- Can *wired* headphones emit large amounts of EMFs towards the user’s head, or is that problem over-stated?
- Why Nick is not a big fan of air tube headsets, and why he loved the new, unique solution offered by Shield Your Body (which can transform any wired headset into a air tube headset)
- Why R created the new “EMF Health Effects” app, and who it is for (bonus: it’s 100% free to use!)
Table of Contents
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Transcript
Nick Pineault 0:00
Hey, welcome to the smarter tech podcast. I am back with R blank talking about EMF shielding solutions and solutions that really work. R. Thank you so much for being here today. Again,
R Blank 0:14
thank you for having me back. It’s really enjoying this.
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Nick Pineault 0:17
Awesome. Well, if you did not listen to part one, you’re missing out, we talked about what is EMF shielding, what is EMF protection, and of all the products out there, which one will work and especially we dove in into cell phone solutions. But when you’re protected when it comes to your cell phone, and maybe you carry it occasionally in a pocket, and we talked about the kind of shielding that our recommends with his company, shield your body, then there’s a second layer to the cell phone problem that I keep hearing about. Some people told me it’s not an issue. Some people told me it’s a big issue. And I’m talking about the fact that when you talk on a phone, the cell phone signal may travel up the wire when you use these wired headsets. Is this an issue that you have measured? And how much of an issue does this represent? Really?
R Blank 1:13
Okay, so that is a great question. And as a starting point, I would say that any wired headset, just a regular old wired headset is so much safer than holding a phone up to your head. So I never want to discourage people from using wired headsets, because they are just so much safer than the alternative. And if you only have a wired headset, use the wired headset, do not use Bluetooth headset for a whole bunch of other reasons that we can, you know, talk about later if you want but a wire a traditional wired headset is super safer than just holding a phone up to your head. But that said, as you pointed out, traditional wired headsets are made with wire. And that means they can conduct EMF and they do conduct EMF and when they conduct EMF, they’re conducting it up the wire and into your ear canal which is proximal to your brain. So there is a little bit of this radiation. Now how bad of an issue is it? I mean, in terms of health effects, I don’t believe that’s ever been studied in a kind of, you know, controlled environment. I personally, you know, I don’t believe it is one of the big concerns. You know, certainly when you compare it to using carrying your phone in your pocket or holding a phone up to your head, or Bluetooth headsets, or those types of big concerns. I don’t think it ranks up there. But if you are trying to eliminate as much EMF as possible, then you might be interested in anti radiation headsets. Now, you ask if I have measured it, I have not because this type of radiation in this particular context, right, it’s basically not discernible with home grade meters. Because the radiation from the phone is even when the phone is a couple of feet away is so powerful. It overwhelms the amount that you would measure off of the the headset itself. That said, I know you have somewhere on your desk there you have a hard the headset anti radiation device. Yeah, it was lab tested. And in that lab test it did measure the the EMF from from the headset with the heart and without, but that was in a you know that was with laboratory grade equipment. It also involved a Faraday box to prevent the cell phones radiation itself from interfering with the test. And so we do have a lab test that does take into account normal kind of the level of radiation that would normally be conducted over wired headsets. But no myself I have I’ve never I’ve never measured that.
Nick Pineault 4:00
Gotcha. But they’re there. The problem was explained to me or let’s say the individuals that told me the feel a difference is those who aren’t sure, unfortunately or fortunately, depending on on your angle on this are electro hypersensitive, so they feel a difference. They probably feel better when they have these air tube headsets. And this is what I I’ve been seeing as a solution to that problem. And maybe you can explain what they are and I think you also hold these so what is the difference? Second question built in. What is the difference between a hair tube headset and then this hard extension where you plug your your headset in and then this port in your phone or computer?
R Blank 4:48
Great question. So an air tube is well the name says it right it’s a tube of air so whereas traditional headsets conduct the sound using wire from your phone into the speaker in your ear, with air tubes at some point along the the cable, depending you know, different models work differently, the sound so the sound is converted from wire to air earlier in the so it’s not up in your ear, it’s further down somewhere on the tube. And then from there, it’s conducted through the hollow tube up into your ear. So, so you’re using air to conduct the sound instead of wire. And that’s where it gets its name, air tube, they work really well, because there’s literally no wire there. In fact, it’s the only product I sell where I don’t have lab testing on it. Because the product, if the product, you know, it’s an air tube, there’s no wire for it to actually conduct the radiation. And so you know that if you have a pair of air tubes, you know that it’s working, because there’s, there’s no wire there. The downside with air tubes is that they just don’t sound that good. Even the best sounding air tubes don’t sound that good. So I use my air tubes, for calls and for podcasts to listen to podcasts. But that’s it, I’ll never listen to music on air tubes, I hate the experience, it’s worse than not listening to music, I won’t even watch you know, a video on air tubes or play a game with air tubes, anything podcasts and and talking on the phone. So that’s where the heart comes in. The heart was developed by this firm in the UK. And it actually wasn’t even developed as an EMF protection product. It was developed as a product to improve sound quality. So let me explain how this works, right, because we’re talking about how standard headsets conduct EMF radiation. And what that means is that’s actually throwing interference into the sound signal. And so if you want to actually improve the sound quality of your headphones, you want to filter out that stray EMF. And so that’s what the heart was developed to do was to filter out the stray EMF to improve the sound quality. But by doing that, they filtered out the EMF. And so they solved actually two problems at once they they prevented the stray EMF from running up the headset. And they actually improve the sound quality and the improve sound quality is actually proof that it is working for you. And it it it solves the biggest drawback of the ear tubes, which is that they don’t sound very good. So the way that the hard works is the wire that that conducts the sound, it runs through this bath of dielectric gel, the dielectric gel absorbs that straight EMF and converts it into heat. But it’s a very I mean this is these are very low levels of EMF. So it’s a very small amount of heat. And so it doesn’t sound like the product gets hot. But it absorbs the the EMF. And by the way, this is a that is another one of these technologies that is well established. In addition to EMF shielding, there’s EMF absorbing materials. And the way they work is by absorbing EMF and converting them into heat. And so that’s what this dielectric gel does. The sound comes out the other side with filtered out the straight EMF.
Nick Pineault 8:18
Gotcha. Well, that’s a very nice solution. And something that people have expressed to me towards these air tube headset concern, if you will, is sometimes you have the air tubes here. But here around the heart area, you have the weld, the signal goes up to there. So is that shielded? And how is yours designed? I’m not I’m not familiar with your product, and
R Blank 8:41
it is not shielded? And you are I mean, you’re correct. So the I mean, that’s, that’s no different than having a standard headset. Go. But yeah, so from there be so until, until so I should have I never remember to bring my products to my desk when I’m having these interviews. But I would show you until there’s a bead on the air to me it looks like a bead it’s, it’s it’s actually a device but it looks like a bead. So until the wire gets to the bead, it works like a regular headset, and then at the bead, that’s where it’s converted to air and from there on, the EMF is not conducted. So whoever was giving you that feedback is absolutely correct. It’s not more EMF than they would have on a wired headset. But it does conduct EMF up until the point at which it’s converted to air now, okay, why not make the whole thing out of air? Well, because then the sound would be even worse. So it’s this balance between how far away from your head you want the the air tubing to extend versus how how bad the sound sounds.
Nick Pineault 9:55
Gotcha. Well, I can tell you and people can purchase air tubes I think You still have a validity in certain situations. I’m not a fan and I could not find air tubes that also were comfortable in the year. I don’t know it, I have weird shape in my ear, I always have a hard time. And these Bose wired headsets were really my favorite and the this also noise cancelling option, especially when I’m on airplanes or the subway train here Montreal sound so like so noisy like in Paris or certain other cities. And then you go to Japan, and it’s kind of a whisper and you’re like, Oh, my God, anyway, and I have a sensitive ear, like, my hearing isn’t so good. And I’m trying to protect it. So this thing when I saw it, then Brian holy, or my colleague who’s at shielded healing, told me, Nick, you gotta check this out. It’s going to creating, as you said, on your website, turn any wired headset into an air tube headset, I’m like, oh, bingo. This is a solution. I’ve been working. I’ve been yearning for four years. So I mean, now I use it, I use it on my computer, I use it in all situations. And even if the computer is just plugged into the wall, my thinking is, well, there’s dirty electricity going out the wires on the keyboard that the entire thing is made out of metal. So why not? I mean, I just installed it. I forget about it. So I don’t
R Blank 11:15
know if you can see I have I have it plugged into my headset that I use with my Yeti all the time. There we go use it. They use it the same way for my computer.
Nick Pineault 11:24
Yeah, exactly. And do you remember what was the retail price on this? It’s fairly low right there. You’re
R Blank 11:29
$49? Okay. Well, I
Nick Pineault 11:31
mean, if you’re listening to this, oh, it’s after the holidays. But still, I mean, purchase one as a Christmas gift, or? I don’t know, I guess if it’s, this isn’t in January, unfortunately. But I mean, anytime it’s, it’s very reasonable, especially if it’s, I mean, it’s something that first is 30. And I like this because the Little Apple earbuds, their regular wired ones are so thin, I break them in six months, just when I listen to podcasts, and I don’t know what I do incorrectly. But my wife is always coming back at me like Nick, you break these headphones. After four months, what do you do? And I don’t know, maybe I I walk around and it kind of puts pressure on them. But I hate the little wires. This thing is sturdy. So when I walk around with it, I know it’s gonna last. So this is something I It looks dirty. And I know it’s gonna last years, but it’s really a technology that doesn’t really expire, right, unless it breaks. Yeah,
R Blank 12:28
I think it’s a good opportunity to point out that we offer a lifetime warranty on every order. So even if he makes five or six years from now, we will honor that warranty.
Nick Pineault 12:39
Geez, okay, well, my God, that’s so that’s right there. You’ve heard it from the horse’s mouth. Oh, my God. Well, that’s a very impressive so there’s, I mean, there’s just Look who’s there from like, these big like French pots like to do like patrols and whatnot that offer these kinds of warranties. And I’m like, Okay, how do they make money. So props to you for offering lifetime warranty is very impressive. And I, I can also vouch for your customer support, I ordered those and then my invoice, I had a technicality with my invoice, I need to see the tax numbers on there, I email your customer support. And he sent me that in like 24 hours. And I was like, wow, so very responsive as well. And that’s something I also appreciate from any company that I purchase for, like our day reachable for real. And some of them personally, they fail and it takes two weeks. And I say okay, well, I will not necessarily purchase again from that company. And your yours was really the opposite for me was a very good experience kind of not even not even trying to, to go directly to you or anything like that. Just customer support. And I was served very rapidly. So I appreciated that. And then lifetime warranty. I’m very impressed. So this is Becky. Sure, sure. I mean, it’s it’s really Brian. Put, Brian told me, Brian, Whoa, you’re told me you gotta check out our blank from shield your body. In Brian’s opinion, it was the only company that he found the marketing to be clean and dedication to be exactly aligned with what we teach in our course for example. So this is why I was really feeling enticed to to talk to you today. And I want to close out this interview. I know there are so many other products. I would love to talk with them maybe in a future conversation. If, if, if you can come back to the podcast eventually, like tap like tablets solutions, and maybe shielding clothing and whatnot. But I want to focus on a special project that really I I did not expect really your company to get involved with but you’ve created an app. Can you talk about what this app is for? What’s the name and I think it’s something very exciting that has been missing from the market for years. Cool, thank
R Blank 15:00
you. So, um, that was a great intro. So yeah, the the app. And just so everyone knows it’s a browser app. So we call it an app because it is an application, but use it in a browser. So you can use it perfect on a on a hard wired Ethernet computer, just like you can on a phone, you just click the link, it shield your body.com/fx. And it’s called the SI B EMF health effects app. And the idea here, right is people like me, and you are big advocates for for people to learn how to test you, you get a decent meter, and you start testing. Because until you do that, you really don’t know how much EMF you’re exposed to, or where the surprising sources may be. And the only way you can know that is with a meter and by learning how to test. But the the units are really, really confusing. Odds are, you know, you’ve never encountered them before in your life, you certainly didn’t study him in school, you have no basis to understand what these units mean. And there’s all sorts of different ones, right? The different different meters use different units, different fields are measured with different units. And so you can compare it to like a list of guidelines that you might get from, you know, the building Biology Institute or some other source like that and say, Oh, well, that’s really high, or that’s not as high. But beyond that, it’s very hard for regular people to understand what these units mean. At the same time, you know, people like you and me keep going around saying the science is very clear, there’s 1000s of studies on this. But you know, what are those studies? And, and I felt, and I felt this for a long time, actually, that this the, the idea for what became this app actually came before the idea for sci fi. So this, the idea for this app actually started in in like 2012, when I was writing overpowered with my father, the idea is to connect what people see in an app in their meter to the science. And so what the app does is you can just enter in any reading that you would get off of your meter. And it will show you a list of scientific studies that show health effects at or below that reading. And then it’ll give you additional details about each of those studies. We’ve, we don’t just show you the abstract, we’ve actually parsed out the abstract. So it’ll show you the level of EMF, how long the exposure was, what was the problem the researchers were studying? What were their conclusions, and then you can link out to the full abstract if you would like to. Right now we have about 1000 studies in the database. It takes time to parse these, these all came from the the this this this initial batch, which we’re still working on, every week, we had more. This initial batch all came from the reports that were reviewed by Dr. Henry Lai, as part of the bio initiative report, first in I believe, 2008, and then the second edition in 2012. So these are all vetted, high quality,
peer reviewed studies, that are included in the analysis, presented by the bio initiative report, which if your listeners don’t know, is a bio initiative.org, which is a, it is a it’s a report, it was published twice, like I said, by a group of international researchers, which included my father, as well as others like Dr. Henry Lai, and they surveyed 1000s of studies, to show to sort of summarize what the science was actually saying about the health effects of EMF, we do have more to go. But the thing is, is we can’t actually include every study in this app, because the app, the study needs to report a specific exposure. If a study talks about, you know, they use the cell phone for five minutes or 10 minutes or three hours, you know, that’s not a specific exposure, we can’t actually link that to a specific reading from a meter. So we’re only including studies that show that that show results from specific exposure levels. And that’s how that’s the connection that makes this work. And, you know, I think it surprises people when they use the app to see even really, really low levels that you would get you’re nowhere near a phone, your Wi Fi is off. You know, maybe there’s power running through your walls or something. There’s some sources, but they’re not these huge sources right next to you. You take a reading, you type it into the app, and you’re still seeing negative health effects being reported at those levels. And so that’s kind of the missing link that this app fills. I like I said, I had this idea nine years ago. And we finally released it this year. And it’s kind of amazing to me that in the intervening nine years, no one kind of jumped in and did it before me because to me, it’s such an obvious gap in In the in the presentation of information for for, I mean, it’s, you know, it’s for the level of consumer who would go out and buy a meter. But for that level of consumer, you know, how do you relate the science to what they’re seeing? And how do you make the science more accessible, more meaningful, more, more understandable. And this is, this is why we created the app. And as I say, We’re continually adding to the data. Every week, we update the database. And hopefully in later in 2022, we’ll actually be able to engineer some more features.
Nick Pineault 20:32
This is great. And I think the app can I mean, you can do two things, they can educate people and say, My God, there’s still studies that that have found effects at these levels. It can also be discouraging, so I guess you get to use it with with with also the mindset that minimizing exposure is much more realistic goal than eliminating exposure, especially if you live right outside this window in Montreal. I’m not in a good spot. I mean, the average here could be 0.2 volts per meter, like 100 microwatts per square meter. And for people who don’t understand the unit’s Well, it’s it’s not good as ambient level is fairly high. In Vegas, I could measure 0.5 volts per meter ambient, just from the towers, in my hotel room, a little bit outside Las Vegas in a in a conference center. It was bad, and I did not feel good. And many people in that conference were electrosensitive and feeling very buzz. But what can you do? I mean, in the end, you it’s it’s informative. And don’t don’t let the information in the app or other things you read detract you from doing your best to minimize so I guess it also needs to be used in a context but at least it can be a munition for. For advocates, I would I would tend to think also that. I mean, the they go to a certain place, they look at the levels and they say guys, this is linked in scientific studies with reduction of sperm count or this and that and increase in cortisol and look at the studies. And it’s right there. So it’s it’s good that at least you give all the Bioinitiative Report or part of it available in instantaneous way. Depending on the levels. I think it’s it’s very useful. Who is using that app? Exactly? Is it? Is it more more for advocates for everyday people lay people?
R Blank 22:33
Yeah, I mean, we don’t we don’t require logins or anything like that. So anyone can you know, I don’t know, everyone, to everyone. So I don’t know exactly who’s using it. I know that on my mailing list, several just regular consumers thought it was really cool. We have some comments, because we did a launch webinar for it. got very good feedback. A few building biologists have given me very good feedback on it. And then a few high level academics have given me not only given me positive feedback on it, they’ve shared it with their lists. There’s one up in Canada, who’s told me he’s integrating it into his curriculum at university. So we’re seeing responses it to me it was an app for average consumers, not average at the average consumer who would buy a meter? Let’s put it that way. Yeah. But, but we’re seeing a response to it, you know, from all kinds of levels of people involved in advocacy and education.
Nick Pineault 23:32
This is great. And is it free of charge? Or is it
R Blank 23:35
totally free, and it’s, it’s always gonna be free. So
Nick Pineault 23:39
well, that’s a great service, you’ve done a four protocols for humanity for education, and probably a lot of money invested out of your own pocket. So I salute you for that. I tried to donate myself based on my projects and whatnot. And I know this is a more of a passion project to put that together. And then 1000s of studies, I don’t know how many 1000s of hours It must have taken so well, props to you. It’s it’s really important, and I will keep sending people towards that project. And your company. It just shows that again, I think when you when you you vet people that are for profit, I think that conscious capitalism needs to include a few things. One of them is proper claims that are realistic and ethical, and you pass the sniff test 100% And then also giving back, you there are so many webinars that I keep I keep seeing information you put out. It’s always educational, and I mean, you don’t have to do that as a EMF protection company, if you will. So you go way beyond your mandate, or you’re the usual company that is there to sell products and you educate people. So please, let people know, what do you have as far as education goes, what they can expect and where they can find you because I really, really am excited for people to Learn from you in everything you’ve got going on.
R Blank 25:03
Well, thank you. That was really kind and I appreciate it. Everything is centered at shield your body calm. So there, we have a ton of articles on our blog, we have literally hundreds, very easily searchable. So you can just type in any term you want, you’ll odds are you’ll find at least one article about it. Also on the on the website, you’ll see our archive of webinars. So we’ve we try to run them every month, we don’t quite get to it every month, but we try to run them every month on some type of topic related to concerns of EMF and health. In fact, the one we just ran, as we’re recording this, it’s just before Christmas. So the one we just ran was a low tech holiday guide. So it was a guide to having people celebrate holidays this year with low tech. If you are on the site, you can also join my mailing list, that’s where you will get the invites to the webinars when they happen. We also have the healthier tech podcast, which right now we’re just starting the recordings for season two. And that is, you know, some of our subjects are similar to the ones you cover. Others are a little different, but it’s all about, you know, in the same vein as as you it’s all about establishing a healthier relationship with modern technology. And you can learn more about the podcast there. And then the final resource that I would highlight for people is our YouTube channel. I mean, we’re on all the social platforms. But I think our YouTube channel has a lot of great info because it not only has our webinar archives, but we have a whole bunch of videos on different topics within EMF education, and that’s at youtube.com/shield your body.
Nick Pineault 26:46
Perfect. Well, I’m going to link all of this in the show notes are it’s been an honor and a privilege to talk to you. And I feel like we’re really, really aligned when it comes to our values. And I appreciate everything you do. And I can’t wait to see the feedback we have on this two part interview here for this new season of Smart Tech. Thank you so much.
R Blank 27:07
Thank you. It’s been a real pleasure and I really appreciate it. Thank you
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
