Harry Kane and the phone radiation shield

Has Harry checked out the science behind SleepHalo?

Flicking through a Christmas gift guide that came with Saturday’s Guardian, I came across an intriguing gadget. In a full page advert the SleepHalo was advertised as “the world’s first mobile phone charger that blocks radiation.” It was also featured on the highlights page of the advertorial supplement which said it “incorporates electromagnetic field shielding and deflects mobile phone radiation away from your bed.”

As seen in a Guardian advertising supplement

I later discovered from people who responded to my tweet about the SleepHalo that it had already been featured earlier this year in the Independent and the Sun in enthusiastic articles about sleep aids.

But here’s what makes the radiation deflecting phone charger really exciting - it’s endorsed by none other than ‘Harry Kane! According to the company’s web developer the announcement of the England captain’s endorsement caused a huge surge of traffic to its site.

This left me with a question. What exactly is the danger posed by mobile phones when they are not even in use, just sitting on a charger? We know that there are plenty of people who believe, in the face of overwhelming scientific evidence, that electromagnetic radiation from wi-fi networks or mobile phone can cause harm to humans.

That has spawned a thriving industry offering radiation protection products, everything from canopies to put over your bed, to “smart” stickers you put on your phone, all the way to the lunacy of Faraday cages for your wireless router - which have the same effect as switching the damn thing off.

What their customers think they are protecting themselves against isn’t clear. On Twitter Taras Young sent me this:

Taras Young @pidg

@ruskin147 @iucounu Normal background radiation is ~0.17 to ~0.25 µSv/h

The picture shows a Russian-made radiation detector recording a lower level of harmful emissions from a phone making a call than he says would occur naturally. Mr Young admits he’s no radiologist - he’s a Cold War researcher who bought this device to use when visiting sites related to the history of nuclear confrontations.

But surely the makers of the SleepHalo must have used something similar while developing a product which aims to protect against mobile phone radiation?

In the “about us” section of its website the company behind the product explains that SleepHalo’s inventor David Clark is an electronics engineer whose previous big hit was Road Angel, which warned drivers about speed camera locations and accident black spots. Apparently he had come up with the charger after his wife, who had been suffering from night-time migraines, found moving phones away from the bed improved matters.

I emailed Mr Clark with a number of queries about the testing of the product, what his research showed about radiation levels from phones with and without the SleepHalo, and what evidence he had provided to Harry Kane.

Fair play to him, he came back with a speedy and lengthy response. On the technology behind the product he said this:

The aluminium shield inside Sleephalo is very effective at blocking/deflecting radiation and has been proven by independent test houses.

He promised to send me this research, and good as his word, a few hours later a report of an independent lab test landed in my inbox. It did indeed show that the SleepHalo was effective at deflecting what it described as “radiated power” from mobile phones.

But radiated power does not mean harmful radiation of the kind that can damage human cells so it appears that all sleeping users are doing is making their phones less efficient - they might as well switch them to airplane mode.

And on the evidence of harms from mobile phone radiation Dave Clark concedes:

There has been little evidence that mobile phone radiation is dangerous however it is considered by the World Health Organisation to be a class 2 Carcinogen. 

It should be noted that this WHO advice a decade ago put mobile phones in the same category as talcum powder as a class 2B carcinogen. And the cancer researcher and physicist Dr David Robert Grimes told me this: “There's no known biophysical mechanism by which radiofrequency light would cause cell damage, given it is orders of magnitude less energetic than even visible light.”

But Dave Clark says his customers are satisfied:

“With the feedback from my wife and many thousands of happy customers, our product does improve sleep and has helped other people with the same issues that we have experienced.

I think your quote that “SleepHalo is selling a product that protects people against a non-existent danger” is unfair. Importantly we are not allowed to use words like ‘protect’ which could insinuate danger for fear. We use terms like block, deflect and shield which are accurately descriptive of what our product does.

Sleephalo is marketed towards those people like ourselves that are concerned about the long term effects of mobile phone radiation. We don’t scaremonger and can only speak as we find.”

He told me that Harry Kane’s management team had been given all the information about the product’s effectiveness before he endorsed it.

I also decided to contact Tottenham’s misfiring striker, tweeting to him rather tactlessly during Sunday’s clash with Norwich:

Rory Cellan-Jones @ruskin147

Dear @HKane - just a few questions about your endorsement of the SleepHalo mobile charger that "deflects mobile phone radiation. 1. Why do you think radiation from a phone is a problem in general? 2. What evidence is there that a phone emits dangerous radiation while charging?

Rory Cellan-Jones @ruskin147

3.What is the technology being used by Sleep Halo to deflect radiation? 4. What were the bedroom radiation readings shown to you by SleepHalo with and without the product?

Rory Cellan-Jones @ruskin147

I accept you’re on the pitch playing Norwich right now ( good luck btw) but I’d be grateful if you’d give this attention later as I understand your endorsement crashed the SleepHalo website so much do people trust you

Tottenham beat Norwich 3-0, a result which I applauded as a Brentford supporter happy to see the gap between us and the Canaries widen. But so far, he has not replied to my queries about the SleepHalo.

Let’s be honest, this is one of thousands of similar products and I probably would not be writing about it but for the stardust sprinkled over it by good old Harry.

This is far from the worst example of products making questionable claims about radiation protection and is a lot cheaper than the £300 anti-5G USB stick I investigated last year. Dave Clark was extremely prompt in responding to my questions and far more frank and open than executives from major technology companies.

Nevertheless, we are in a period when science is fighting what sometimes seems like a losing battle against conspiracy theories about everything from a link between 5G and Covid-19 to the idea that vaccines contain chips designed for mind control.

So perhaps powerful influencers like Harry Kane might ask a few more questions about the science behind the products they are paid to promote - and if they don’t understand it, just walk away.

But given how helpful Dave Clark was, I thought it was only right to give him a marketing suggestion. I told him he should advertise SleepHalo as giving protection against alien abduction and asteroid strikes - then he’d be able to report a 100% customer satisfaction rate rather than the current 89%.

Note:

When this newsletter is relaunched to focus on healthtech - probably in January - I’m planning an occasional feature on products making unlikely claims about their health benefits. It will be called The World of Woo and I would welcome suggestions of subjects for inclusion.

Oh, and by the way, there’s a book which makes an ideal Christmas gift:

Always On is available as a hardback, ebook or audiobook here.

And if you want to support your local independent book shop you can order it at Hive.