These companies are banking on your fear of radiation
But don't buy into their snake oil and scare tactics.
Imagine if, next week, every Best Buy in the land began selling a Dan Cooper-branded Fluorocarbon detector for $100. There'd be a big cardboard cutout on each aisle end, with my stern-looking face advising you to protect your family with this product. Even if you didn't instantly lay down a Benjamin for Dan Cooper's Lean, Mean, Fluorocarbon Detectin' Machine, you'd probably think about it. Maybe you'd do a cursory Google to learn more -- since they wouldn't sell the equipment for no reason, would they?
For the record, Fluorocarbons are generally harmless, odorless and don't, in their natural state, cause any environmental damage. But no matter how reassuring the science is, you'll remain puzzled by the existence of that product in Best Buy. You'll start to wonder if you're being lied to, and maybe you should begin to worry anyway because of what you don't know. It's exactly this sort of anxiety that companies like to prey upon -- and you'll always see a few of these turn up to CES.
This year's preoccupation was with radiation -- that most silent of killer -- in at least two different forms. The first was ionizing radiation, the sort that you'll find in an X-ray machine or if you stand too close to a nuclear reactor.
Dosime was at the show hawking a consumer version of the clip-on radiation meter (dosimeter) you'd need to wear if you actually worked at a nuclear power plant or in a hospital. The company's pitch was that everyone should be worried about getting a fatal dose of radiation while they're out and about. Dosime also doubles as a home monitoring device, and can be used to sniff out any X or Gamma radiation in your local area.
But there wasn't just one dosimeter at CES, and the second that we stumbled across came in the form of Ruim from French inventor Gael Patton. Much like Dosime, Ruim is designed to monitor the local environment and warn you about potential health risks. Unlike its competitor, Ruim also uses that data to build a crowdsourced map of radiation hotspots across the world. That way, you can check for risks of irradiation before your morning run or when you're buying a new home.
If you live in the shadow of a nuclear power plant or on an estate that hosted a nuclear test, then it's reasonable to worry about radiation. I'm not looking to demean or trivialize the small subset of people who have legitimate concerns about what's in their locale. Same goes for Radon, a naturally-occuring ionizing radiation that can harm your health if your home is poorly ventilated. But in the US, residents of every state bar New Jersey can pick up an EPA-approved radon detector for $25 -- ten times less than the price of Dosime.
I haven't tested these products and can't comment as to their efficacy, but I have no reason to believe that they don't do the job that they're advertised to do. But that doesn't mean it's ethical to market them to the public, especially if the vast majority of them will never need to worry about radiation. It's the same laissez-faire attitude that enables companies to peddle nonsense about how smartphone signals cause cancer or deplete your sperm count.
Speaking of which, Franco-American outfit Spartan has created a pair of boxer briefs with silver woven into the fabric. The idea is to protect your genitals from the imagined horrors of the smartphone that sits in your pants pocket. After all, that device is pumping out harmful radiation that'll cook your sperm and give you all sorts of cancers. A single pair costs around $50 with shipping from France to the US, so you can imagine how well the company's creators sleep at night.
Let's be clear, your smartphone emits radio frequency (RF) radiation, a non-ionizing form of radiation that is also generated by microwaves and radio signals. The only time that you're likely to suffer any harm from RF is if you burn yourself on an overheated TV dinner. But Skimguard and MJoose would prefer it if you didn't know that, because they're selling phone cases designed to block phone radiation.
When asked why their product existed, Skimguard's Con Samios said that "there are people who are worried about radiation from their phones. I know for me, whenever I talk on my phone, it gets really hot. It can be worrying."
A smartphone gets hot for a variety of reasons, but an excess of radiation isn't one of them -- just ask Samsung. But these companies have no guilt about hawking their products on the back of false premises. MJoose's Chase Schumcher explained it perfectly when he said that these products are for people "concerned with(sic) radiation."
But let's be honest, we know why these products exist, and it's not to improve your health or protect your family. It's to exploit ignorance and and use technology as a smokescreen for bullshit, same as those hologram energy bands. Dosimeters and radiation shields may very well do what their creators claim, but that doesn't make them necessary. If you're worried about Radon, spend $25 on a survey kit, don't get conned into buying an expensive smartphone accessory that you don't need.
Additional photography by Jessica Conditt, Chris Velazco and Nicole Lee.
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