Signal Causing Headache from 16 Pro off or on

I’m sorry you’re experiencing headaches. What you’ve described doesn’t establish that a signal from the iPhone is causing them, or that the phone caused the microwave’s clock problem. Continuing symptoms while the phone is enclosed are not a measurement of a signal passing through the enclosure.

Please don’t put the phone in a microwave, even for testing, the risk is that someone could accidentally turn it on. Metal objects inside an operating microwave can cause arcing and damage.

For recurring or persistent headaches, please seek medical advice rather than relying on additional shielding experiments. The symptoms deserve attention, but research has not established low level electromagnetic exposure as the cause of symptoms attributed to “electromagnetic hypersensitivity.”

Headaches do not establish that a phone’s radio emissions caused them. World Health Organization and Australia’s radiation protection authority distinguish between genuine, sometimes disabling symptoms and the proposed electromagnetic cause. Scientific evidence has not established that low level electromagnetic exposure causes these reported symptoms. Medical assessment is appropriate. So, rather than dismissing the symptoms or assuming their cause you should discuss the headaches with trained medical professionals. No one here has the medical training or proper test equipment to prove or disprove your suspicions. A medical professional will. E your best resource at this point.

AI used for spelling and grammar only.

So far, you have provided no convincing evidence that an iPhone which is powered off is affecting your health.

You are aware that you are constantly being bombarded with signals from satellites, television, radio, cell towers, emergency services like police and fire, aircraft and the list goes on and on.....correct?

How is that you have eliminated any and all of these other possibilities and narrowed your iPhone down to the only possibility as a cause for your headaches?

Power off the iPhone and leave it in the car for a few days. Don't go near the car. If you cannot do this, leave the phone at a friends house for a few days.

Still getting the headaches? If you are, it's not the iPhone.

If the headaches go away, sell your iPhone and try another brand.

Even when an iPhone is turned off, the iPhone will normally emit a brief intermittent Bluetooth signal, as long as the battery has some charge remaining.

This feature allows a user to still possibly locate his iPhone using Find My if it has been stolen and the thief has turned off the iPhone......(thinking that the owner cannot locate the phone if it is off).

No promises, but you can disable this feature on an iPhone as follows:

Tap Settings app on your iPhone.

Tap on your Apple Account (Name/Profile) at the top of the menu.

Select Find My.

Tap on Find My iPhone.

Toggle off Find My Network (or it might read "Findable After Power Off") on earlier iOS versions

Enter your Apple Account password when prompted

Tap Turn Off.

A Faraday Bag will not allow the Bluetooth signal to be recognized when I've tried this in the past, so if your Faraday Bag will still allow the signal through, then there must be other things in play.

Theo528 wrote:

Hi, thank you for the information! Where is a sound wave laboratory in Howard County, MD? My phone is mostly off which my family hates. I don’t use it very often except to read messages or make necessary calls. I spend approximately 1 hour, if that in total on my phone every other day.

I will try to find out about the sound laboratory. I will have to search around online, which is something you can try as well. Or enlist a family member or friend who likes such detective hunts!

Meanwhile I do have a suggestion. For serious scientific and medical testing, it is standard protocol to do "double blind" testing. This means that the researcher and the subject do not know which is the real item and which is a "placebo." In this case, you are both the researcher and the subject. But you know where the phone is at all times. Enlist someone to help you test your sensitivity who won't let you know where the phone is. So instead of leaving the phone at home when you depart, have someone else either bring the phone or leave it in the building from which you have departed. But don't have them inform you where it is. So you won't know if you are close to the phone or not. See when you have a headache or not.

I would do five trials of this. This will be a serious attempt to determine if the phone is physically causing your headache or discomfort. You can carry a bag but the bag must be closed and you should not be allowed to know if the phone is in the bag or not. If it is not, something about the same mass should be in the bag. And part two of each trial is that you return home but do not know if the phone is in the home or not, but your helper will know. Record when or if headaches occur. Your helper will then help you determine if the phone was in your proximity when the headache occurred.

The knowledge that the phone is nearby may be triggering a headache. This is a known medical effect that can be measured. When drugs are involved it is called the "placebo effect" but it is real.

As for some sort of very high pitched (or low pitched) sounds that the phone might be emitting that your physiology is very sensitive to, I think that is a real possibility. Since you ruled out microwaves with the Faraday container, etc. But I have a coffee grinder that when plugged in to the wall but not "on," emits a very faint high pitched whine. I can hear it if I put my ear on top of it, but no one else in the family can. Something like that could be happening with the phone, it is connected to power with its battery, even when powered off. In fact you might not be able to knowingly hear the sound but it could be there irritating your nervous system.

If some of this sounds odd or far-fetched, maybe it is, but you can test for these things with the controlled experiment that is double blind, with your helper.

Meanwhile I will see if I can search online and found a suitable sound lab. A medical facility might be able to help with this, except usually they have equipment to emit sounds of different frequencies (to test subjects' hearing), not receive and categorize them.

One last question: when you are near other people with their cell phones, do you develop a headache? iPhones are mass produced and should be identical, basically, and you said you already replaced yours but had the same problem with the replacement. That implies it is common to all those iPhones, so being near other people with phones should also trigger it.

Theo528 wrote:

As I stated the device emits this frequency and it increases over time. It is undetectable through just a general diagnostic test. It emits this frequency even when the phone is turned off. Perhaps the technicians at Apple can explain how a phone emits a frequency or call it signal with a phone turned off? I would like the answer to that question. If this is possible, which I know it is, how do you turn it off?

This is a user to user only forum, NOT Apple Support. We cannot diagnose such an issue from our sofas. It would make more sense to schedule an appointment at your Apple Store Genius Bar to have your phone tested as opposed to asking only other users what this could be.

You can schedule an appointment at the Apple Store Genius Bar here --> Genius Bar Reservation and Apple Support Options - Apple

Theo528 wrote:

My 16 Pro is emitting a signal of some kind that cannot be contained in a Faraday bag, aluminum or microwave oven that is turned off. When I placed the phone in the microwave it stopped the time and it hasn’t been right since. At the Apple Store and Apple on the phone all that was done was a diagnostic test. Can anyone suggest a way of stopping or preventing the signal from coming through while the phone is off or on?

How do you know that the phone is causing the headache symptoms?

Placing the phone in a Faraday bag or microwave oven will prevent microwaves from escaping. However sound waves can still escape. To my knowledge, cell phones when powered off (or on) do not emit sound waves when in a quiescent state. You could have yours measured in a sound laboratory for that.

Your headaches could come from looking at the screen and its contents.

Whatever is getting through when it is turned off Apple should look into it and fix the Bug.

Nothing that is identifiable or measurable is "getting through" if the iPhone is powered off and the Find My Network option is not enabled, so I don't think Apple is going to be able to help you if they cannot find something to fix.

As an interesting test though.......ask Apple to disconnect the battery in your iPhone.....as if they were replacing the battery.......and have them hold onto the battery until you return. Take the phone home for a few days and see if the same symptoms exist with your headaches.

Report back when you can.

You need help, not the phone.

As you possibly have an unusual sensitivity to RF, you might consider ditching personal wireless comms altogether.

FYI: There’s a whole area in West Virginia and Western Virginia — the NRQZ — inhabited by many with similar sensitivities.

Theo528 wrote:

Hi, I have the Find My feature turned off already, thanks for the information. There is something else at play or going on with my device. I have already replaced it, and reset it. Whatever is getting through when it is turned off Apple should look into it and fix the Bug.

You may be one of the very rare people who is hypersensitive to RF. And if you are one of those people, it's not a bug Apple can fix. If this was a common issue, this forum would be literally blown up with people complaining, but they're not. The tech press would be all over this, but they're not. The fact you've had your phone replaced, points to you as the one who has an issue, not iPhone's in general.

As for some sort of very high pitched (or low pitched) sounds that the phone might be emitting that your physiology is very sensitive to, I think that is a real possibility. Since you ruled out microwaves with the Faraday container, etc. But I have a coffee grinder that when plugged in to the wall but not "on," emits a very faint high pitched whine. I can hear it if I put my ear on top of it, but no one else in the family can. Something like that could be happening with the phone, it is connected to power with its battery, even when powered off. In fact you might not be able to knowingly hear the sound but it could be there irritating your nervous system.

Just pointing out that the OP is claiming that the iPhone emits these damaging "tones" even when the iPhone is powered off completely and the option to have the iPhone send out a brief Bluetooth signal has been turned off as well.

So the task here would be to not only discover and detect the "tones", but also to figure out how the tones are being emitted when the iPhone is removed from power and completely powered off.

I don't think your coffee grinder "whines" when it not connected to any power source at all.......does it?

Bottom line.......it will be a waste of time to continue here unless it is first proven that the iPhone is still emitting damaging tones when it is completely powered off.