zWave/RF/human impact

IVB

Senior Member
I had a convo with Steve @EHX, still trying to determine what my opinion is.

His basic theory about how to approach his own house is that all this RF/wireless stuff bombarding our house/bodies could be a bad thing, and that as long as there's an option (ie, UPB), he was going with that route. Not that zWave is bad for others, just not his personal decision.

So I got to thinking; UPB wasn't an option for me given my lack of 3rd wire in 90% of my outlets, but for others, did that enter your decision-making process?

Given that I've also screwed up many of my plaster/lathe ceilings with attempting to put speakers in, i'm wondering whether I'd be better off spending $150 or more getting someone to fix it or 2-3x ripping out the plaster/lathe and putting in sheetrock. And, if I'm going to do that, should I just do it for the 10 walls that have lightswitches, and put neutral's in every location. That way I could swap out for UPB.

Of course, that's a slippery slope, and I could just run LV to each switch as well and put in Centralite hardwired, but that's another thread :)
 
I had a convo with Steve @EHX, still trying to determine what my opinion is.

His basic theory about how to approach his own house is that all this RF/wireless stuff bombarding our house/bodies could be a bad thing, and that as long as there's an option (ie, UPB), he was going with that route. Not that zWave is bad for others, just not his personal decision.

So I got to thinking; UPB wasn't an option for me given my lack of 3rd wire in 90% of my outlets, but for others, did that enter your decision-making process?

Given that I've also screwed up many of my plaster/lathe ceilings with attempting to put speakers in, i'm wondering whether I'd be better off spending $150 or more getting someone to fix it or 2-3x ripping out the plaster/lathe and putting in sheetrock. And, if I'm going to do that, should I just do it for the 10 walls that have lightswitches, and put neutral's in every location. That way I could swap out for UPB.

Of course, that's a slippery slope, and I could just run LV to each switch as well and put in Centralite hardwired, but that's another thread :)

I'm not really a fan of sheetrock and I would hate to see you tear up your plaster and lathe just to change out some light switches. I guess if you did tear it all up, you should do both Neutrals AND CAT-5 to cover all future options... but I wouldn't.
 
I had a convo with Steve @EHX, still trying to determine what my opinion is.

His basic theory about how to approach his own house is that all this RF/wireless stuff bombarding our house/bodies could be a bad thing, and that as long as there's an option (ie, UPB), he was going with that route. Not that zWave is bad for others, just not his personal decision.

So I got to thinking; UPB wasn't an option for me given my lack of 3rd wire in 90% of my outlets, but for others, did that enter your decision-making process?

That is 1/2 of my decision making process. I'm not convinced that all this RF we are bombarding ourselves with in our houses is actually bad for us, but if there is an alternative, why not explore the non-RF alternative and err on the side of caution. The other 1/2 of the decision making process against RF is not knowing what RF interfering products may be put into service in and around our houses in the future. What recourse do I have if my neighbor installs something that renders my RF network unstable, or unusable? And then on the security side, what's to prevent someone from jamming, disabling, or even hijacking the wireless portion(s) of your home security? If I enable some anti-jamming alert, will it go off every time my neighbor uses his microwave or ham radio?

Like you, I'm starting to wonder if I should be looking at a hardwired lighting solution...

RM
 
On a New "This Old House" I had seen a product demonstrated that is for repairing lathe & plaster. I don't recall the name of it, but you would drill a series of holes along the cracks. Next you'd apply a preparation solution to the holes that would then be followed with a special epoxy you'd inject into the holes (using a calking dispenser).

Finally a series of plastic anchors would be screwed into the wall or ceiling to anchor the works while the epoxy would harden. Finally you'd remove the anchors, fill the holes and paint.

Good as new again.
 
So, the unfortunate news is that the RF stuff has been bouncing around your house long before z-wave. Radio, TV, cellular, errant microwave signals (from towers, not your kitchen appliance), various cordless phone standards, various wireless internet, baby monitors, bluetooth, etc.

[ Funny Story: I once had an argument with a guy that thought installing his own 802.11 router was unsafe because of RF, so he didn't want to install his own router, instead he decided he was going to free-load off of someone else's 802.11 connection!! He didn't get the irony. ]

I'd argue that if there were RF --> cancer (or other medical conditions) links, they'd have appeared a long time ago. But, regardless of whether those links are ever established, I'd think its too late for most of us (unless you live in a farm in a valley in the middle of nowhere)
 
So, the unfortunate news is that the RF stuff has been bouncing around your house long before z-wave. Radio, TV, cellular, errant microwave signals (from towers, not your kitchen appliance), various cordless phone standards, various wireless internet, baby monitors, bluetooth, etc.

That's why it is only a part of the reasoning, perhaps even just a justification. Perhaps I should have said 1/8 or less of the reason was in case of health effects, but 7/8 or more was future-tech caution. The chances of outside signals obliterating the network down the road are a significant concern. It's one thing to have a $79 Router go flaky and lose LAN/internet on occasion, it would be quite another to spend thousands of dollars on lighting and security technology to have it go flaky. Then, if flaky isn't enough, will future interference cause false alarms?

This is one of those times when the lack of HA taking hold fast enough could come back to bite us. What is the size of installed base that will need to be in place at the time some future technology starts causing problems for these current platforms to get some type of FCC (or other body as appropriate) interaction to keep the old systems operating properly?

RM
 
Interestingly enough, Z-Wave is a "silent unless speaking" protocol, so your devices are always in receive mode but do not transmit any kind of heartbeat (in constrast to other some other mesh protocols which constantly sync neighbor/routing lists).

Maybe "low RF emissions" is a new "selling point" of Z-Wave? :lol:

I of course say all of this in jest,

Chris
 
I had a convo with Steve @EHX, still trying to determine what my opinion is.

His basic theory about how to approach his own house is that all this RF/wireless stuff bombarding our house/bodies could be a bad thing, and that as long as there's an option (ie, UPB), he was going with that route. Not that zWave is bad for others, just not his personal decision.

So I got to thinking; UPB wasn't an option for me given my lack of 3rd wire in 90% of my outlets, but for others, did that enter your decision-making process?

Given that I've also screwed up many of my plaster/lathe ceilings with attempting to put speakers in, i'm wondering whether I'd be better off spending $150 or more getting someone to fix it or 2-3x ripping out the plaster/lathe and putting in sheetrock. And, if I'm going to do that, should I just do it for the 10 walls that have lightswitches, and put neutral's in every location. That way I could swap out for UPB.

Of course, that's a slippery slope, and I could just run LV to each switch as well and put in Centralite hardwired, but that's another thread :)
Are you serious?
 
I've listened to steve talk about this when I was at the last EHX. I understand his concern because if I recall correctly he has a child who he believes was affected by RF. I have to say that my opinion may be a little different if I thought RF caused harmed to my children.

However, my current opinion is that RF is surrounding us even we used no electronics. RF, is a frequency or rate of oscillation within the range of about 3 Hz and 300 GHz. RF is a magnetic field which the earth its self has a very strong magnetic field. Also, even though UPB and other powerline modules don't produce an RF signal I'm sure they radiate a small amount of magnetic flux. Television and Cell towers both emit huge amounts of RF which you can't escape. Your car you drive everyday emits magnetic flux. All of the 120v AC power lines in the world emit magnetic flux.

So my point is that the stuff we can't control is putting out much greater RF than what we can control and my life is much more miserable without RF. So I think I will just continue to use it. But I do know where steve is coming from and don't think he should change his mind about how he lives his life. I'm sure hes done plenty of his own research on the topic and has plenty of reasons to not use ZWave.

On the topic of drywall. If it were me I would rip the drywall out. "When in doubt rip it out". I am dealing with a situation right now where my ceiling in textured and I'm having to pay someone $1500 dollars to patch it so that it blends nicely. In my next house there is no way in the world I will have a textured ceiling. If you ever did need to patch you plaster it would be a big pain right? Drywal is not hard to patch. Thats just my opinion.
 
On the topic of drywall. If it were me I would rip the drywall out. "When in doubt rip it out". I am dealing with a situation right now where my ceiling in textured and I'm having to pay someone $1500 dollars to patch it so that it blends nicely. In my next house there is no way in the world I will have a textured ceiling. If you ever did need to patch you plaster it would be a big pain right? Drywal is not hard to patch. Thats just my opinion.

In my home I ripped out every sheet of sheetrock on the walls and reinsulated and ran all new wire and plumbing. I re-rocked the walls and sheetrocked over the existing ceiling sheetrock and called in a spackler (doing 4 or 5 rooms at a time). The spackler charged me $10 per sheet of sheet rock to spackle (65 sheets of sheetrock cost $650 to spackle) and he supplied the spackle and tape. Usually took him about 1.5 to 2 hours a day for 3 days to do a typical group of 4 or 5 rooms. If I was to do one room with 15 sheets of rick it would cost me about $400 since he had a minimum charge.

I WAS SO LUCKY to get a great deal like this. He is a professional spackler and did a fantastic job. It pays to pay someone for some tasks.
 
I had a convo with Steve @EHX, still trying to determine what my opinion is.
His basic theory about how to approach his own house is that all this RF/wireless stuff bombarding our house/bodies could be a bad thing, and that as long as there's an option (ie, UPB), he was going with that route. Not that zWave is bad for others, just not his personal decision.

The electrical power lines in our houses are 'bombarding' us with much more energy than any FCC accepted RF control/protocol device. Non-US countries allow greater power to be used in the RF devices. I would not even worry about those that are rated below about 100 milliwatts (the US generally has a 10 milliwatt transmit limit). I have spent some time staring at a spectrum analyzer. In my area, the local AM radio station (5KW at three miles) showed average power peaks that were above anything that I had in my house, legally, that generated RF. I respect this man's theory, I also respect VOODOO. Neither of the two are provable facts but there might be some little truth in them. B)

As far as future licensed communications interfering with the low power RF HA protocols... I remember back in my CB radio days. A 5 watt transmitter, several miles away, would not prevent my little 100 milliwatt (27 Mhz) AM radio transmission from getting through. The RF HA protocols use digital transmissions and most have good error correction built in. They are just not going to get jammed by say, a cell phone tower, a few miles away, on exactly the same frequency.

Ken

edit corrected grammar
 
The electrical power lines in our houses are 'bombarding' us with much more energy than any FCC accepted RF control/protocol device. Non-US countries allow greater power to be used in the RF devices. I would not even worry about those that are rated are below about 100 milliwatts (the US generally has a 10 milliwatt transmit limit). I have spent some time staring at a spectrum analyzer. In my area, the local AM radio station (5KW at three miles) showed average power peaks that were above anything that I had in my house, legally, that generated RF.

Now that is an interesting point that I wasn't aware of. I guess the powerlines that are 20' up and 10' from the front of the house, as well as the ancient and god-knows-how-badly-shielded electrical circuits in my house might be more of an issue...
 
to patch it so that it blends nicely. In my next house there is no way in the world I will have a textured ceiling.

In my last house, which I built, I made the drywaller give me the stipling brush he used to do the ceiling. So when I had to do a patch, I was able to match it pretty dang close.
 
In my home I ripped out every sheet of sheetrock on the walls and reinsulated and ran all new wire and plumbing.
Would I not love to do this. B) I had to redo one room because the wallpaper was so hideous and could not be stripped (we tried and tore up the walls so badly we had to replace them). Just the thought of how much new HA I could do with open walls would boggle the mind.
 
Ok, I have never posted about this specifically because I knew it would generate this kind of response. And I wish Vivek would not have either. But since its out there now I am going to make this one post and thats it. I really do not care what anybody thinks. Unless you have been in my shoes for the past 15 years and have studied, experienced and talked to many people about it, you simply will not get it or believe it. And you know what, that's ok. I have never pushed this knowledge on anyone, I never tell anyone what is right for them or what to do. I have simply shared knowledge that I have and my opinions based on that. I, like most of you, am a very technical and scientifically oriented person. That, in and of itself makes this stuff hard to believe. But, in my exposure to it my mind was opened. Seeing it firsthand has given me different perspective. And just because you do not understand something, does not mean it does not work, or can not be. At least being intelligent people you should be able to believe that.

You know, I typed out several paragraphs of info and just decided to not post it as it would do nothing but either generate more questions or controversy. Let me just say a few things:

1. The comments on OTHER things like power lines, tv, radio, cell phones, etc are absolutely correct. They all lead to RF pollution and health consequences.
2. Squintz, no this is not about my daughter who is Autistic along with several other issues. While RF does not help her at all, it was not the root cause. I will not get into details. She is 6, I have been dealing with these issues like RF for almost 15.
3. Please don't be naive enough to believe the FCC or FDA or other agencies have YOUR best interests at heart. I won't get into details.
4. Don't show your immaturity, ignorance and disrespect with comments like "Are you serious?"

I did not tell Vivek and I will never tell ANYONE not to use any electrical device, appliance or technology. But the FACT is that RF/EMF radiation negatively impacts your bodies energy and ultimately health. Cancer and other disease is a process, it does not happen overnight. You will not walk into a house with Zwave or RadioRA or Zigbee or whatever and come out with green hair and skin problems. But it will make a negative impact on your health at different levels, some of them very subtlety and at different timeframes.

But life is full of choices and everyone needs to make their own. My whole point is simply that based on what I know as fact, an RF solution will produce more negative health consequences than other technologies, so if I have the choice, I personally choose to go with 'less risky' solutions. It's a shame that technology is progressing in such a way as to be detrimental to the health of the human body. But hey, life is short, enjoy it. I too use modern technologies such as a cell phone in moderation. You all know that cigarette smoking is dangerous to your health (and how long did it take to get those warning labels), yet you smoke anyway. So please continue to go on and make the decisions for yourself and your families as you see fit - I totally respect your decisions and reasoning, just respect mine in the same vein.
 
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