There have been many theories on the effect of aluminum foil on mobile phones. Many of these theories speculate that aluminum foils affect the functionality of phones. Read on to confirm if there is any truth to this claim.
Aluminum foils can ruin the network reception of a phone. By causing a barrier known as Faraday cage around the phone, the phone will be unable to connect to the nearest network base. Hence, aluminum foil causes the inability of phones to make or receive calls.
There are many effects of aluminum foil on phones. Some of these effects affect the functionality of your phones, while others may pose health risks to you. There are details on these effects and many more below.
How Does Aluminum Foil Affect the Connectivity of Phones?
When you wrap an aluminum foil around a phone, you create a barrier around it. This barrier, which is also known as Faraday cage, blocks out all radio signals. As a result, the aluminum foil’s presence prevents the phone from connecting to the network base.
This implies that your phone cannot be used to make calls, receive calls, and browse the Internet. The aluminum foil is able to do this to your phone due to a property known as attenuation effectiveness. Attenuation effectiveness is the ability of a material to absorb a radio frequency or electromagnetic field.
By absorbing these fields or frequency, the radio signal to the phone is reduced to a very poor stage or eliminated totally. This means that in cases where the aluminum foil is not thick enough, or the radio frequency is very strong, your phone may still be able to receive calls. You may notice in this case that the reception will be poor.
Due to the attenuation effectiveness of aluminum, it is also used as an EMF blocker. An EMF blocker is a material that is used to block the emission of EMFs from gadgets and electronic appliances. EMF blocking has recently gained popularity as one of the ways of protecting people from the dangers of EMFs emitted from appliances and gadgets.
Other materials used as EMF blockers include silver, copper, zinc, and lead. These materials have a varying degree of effectiveness with regard to blocking EMFs.
Just as aluminum attenuates EMFs and radio signals, these materials also reduce the intensity of incoming radio signals and EMFs. By virtue of this property, these materials can also be used to block radio signals for your phones.
Effects of Aluminum Foil on Phones
It is important to note that phone networks’ loss is not the only effect that aluminum foils have on your phone. There are many effects of wrapping your phone in aluminum foil. These effects range from harmless to harmful effects.
Below are some of the effects of wrapping your phone with aluminum foil:
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Loss of Network Connection
This is the major and most important effect of wrapping your phone with an aluminum foil. The aluminum foil blocks all radio signals trying to connect to your phone. This renders your phone unreachable and out of service.
You can carry out a small test to confirm this effect. Wrap your phone with some sheets of aluminum foil. Ensure that these sheets are thick, or you can use multiple sheets. This is to ensure that the aluminum provides enough blockade against the radio signals.
You can then try calling the phone. You will discover that the phone will not ring. You can also confirm this by removing the phone after about five minutes. When you remove the phone, you will discover that the phone has lost its connection to the base network.
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Battery Dissipation
When you wrap your phone in an aluminum foil of sizable thickness, you will discover after removal that the phone battery is far spent. The rate of dissipation of the battery, as you will discover, will be higher than the usual rate.
There are multiple possibilities for this situation. However, the most likely reason is the effort of the phone to reconnect to a base network.
The phone battery will be far spent when wrapped in an aluminum foil of sizable thickness because the phone is trying to reconnect to the base network. The phone would want to reconnect because the cut from connectivity was abrupt.
Moreover, the method of disconnecting the phone from the base network is foreign to the phone, as against the normal method (use of airplane mode).
Therefore, in a repetitive bid to reconnect to the base network, the phone battery gets dissipated faster.
You can test for this effect on your phone by wrapping your phone in aluminum foil. Check for the battery percentage before wrapping it. After five minutes of wrapping, remove your phone and check for the battery percentage.
You will find out that the battery of the phone is drained faster than normal.
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Overheating
Another effect of wrapping your phone in an aluminum foil is heat generation. As explained in the last effect, the phone will repeatedly try to reconnect to a base network when wrapped in an aluminum foil. This activity leads to the generation of heat.
If the phone is left for a long time in the aluminum foil, it will be discovered that the phone is overheating. This effect has the potential of damaging some internal parts of the phone if left for a very long time.
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Blocks GPS Signals
This is another effect of wrapping your phone in aluminum foil. As it is with the blockade of radio signals and electromagnetic fields, wrapping your phone in aluminum foil also blocks out all GPS signals. This should not be a surprising effect, as GPS signals also use radio frequency, and thus, it is transmitted in almost the same way.
This means that whenever your phone is wrapped in aluminum foil, it is untraceable. You will also not be able to use applications that require your location. This effect could be harmful or harmless. It depends on the person and the reasons behind the use of aluminum foil.
Why Do People Use Aluminum Foil on Phones?
After examining the effects of aluminum foil on phones, it is important to discuss the reasons behind using aluminum on phones in the first place. You should not be surprised to see people wrapping their phones in aluminum foil. Perhaps you have a friend that does, and you wonder why. This part of the article helps you answer that question.
Below are two reasons people wrap their phones in aluminum foils:
1. Protection from EMFs
The dangers that are inherent in the emission of electromagnetic fields are numerous. From cell mutation to lack of sleep and persistent and recurring headaches, EMF radiation’s adverse effects are different from person to person and portend different health risks.
Most of the gadgets and electrical appliances that we use at home are emitters of EMFs. These gadgets include mobile phones, laptop computers, pieces of cooking appliances, and many more. Because of the inevitability of most of these gadgets, their use cannot be stopped or reduced.
Thus EMF blocking has been identified as one of the effective options to protect people from the dangers of these EMFs.
Aluminum foil has been regarded as one of the best EMF blockers in the industry. As we have explained in the previous parts of this article, aluminum foils attenuate radio signals, as well as EMFs around phones. Therefore, one reason people wrap aluminum foils around their phones is for the foil to block their phones from emitting EMFs, thus protecting them from the dangers of EMF emission.
2. Staying off the Grid
Some people use aluminum foils around their phones whenever they want to stay off radar or be unreachable. This method seems effective, as they will not be able to receive calls, and their locations will not be traceable.
However, this method of staying off radar may harm the user of the phone or damage the phone itself is used for a long time since, as explained earlier, whenever a mobile phone is wrapped in aluminum foil, overheating sets in. This is as a result of the phone’s repeated attempts to reconnect to the base network.
This overheating can cause damage to some internal parts of the phone. And in extreme cases, this overheating may pose some health risks to the user of the phone.
These are some of the reasons people use aluminum foils for their phones. So the next time you see a phone wrapped in aluminum foil, these are some of the possible reasons.
Conclusion
By wrapping your phones in aluminum foils, you risk ruining your phone’s network reception and connectivity. Moreover, overheating can also occur when your phone is wrapped in an aluminum foil for a long period. Other effects of wrapping your phone in an aluminum foil include loss of GPS signal and fast battery dissipation rate.
People wrap their phones in aluminum foils for different reasons. Some people want to stay off-grid while some people want to protect themselves from the dangers of EMF radiation.
