The EMF conversation has been, for a decade, distorted at both ends. At one end, an over-reaction that treats every wireless signal as an existential threat. At the other, a dismissal that treats the entire question as not real. The literature, in fact, sits in between, the large-effect claims are not well-supported; the small-effect claims, particularly during sleep, have a reasonable evidence base; and the architectural mitigation, where it matters, is straightforward and inexpensive.
What the literature says
The strongest evidence base concerns:
- WiFi, mobile, and DECT signals within 1–3 metres of the head during sleep. Multiple studies have shown small but consistent effects on sleep-architecture metrics, REM time, deep-sleep time, melatonin synthesis. Effects are not large, but they are repeatable.
- Smart-meter and Powerline-Carrier (PLC) signals. Less well-studied; the dirty-electricity literature is messy but suggestive.
- Magnetic-field exposure from grid wiring. Above 0.4 microtesla at sleeping height, there is a long-standing IARC classification as a possible human carcinogen. Below that threshold, no signal.
The weakest evidence base concerns claims of acute symptoms (electromagnetic hypersensitivity) attributable to specific frequencies. The double-blind literature has not produced reliable findings.
The pragmatic position is therefore: take the bedroom seriously, do not over-engineer the rest of the home.
The bedroom EMF audit
A MAVI-specified bedroom ships with a defined EMF posture:
- No WiFi router within 5 metres of the bed. Where building topology requires, a hard-wired Ethernet drop with the WiFi switched to off-mode at night via an automated schedule.
- No DECT phone in the bedroom. Modern DECT-Plus and CAT-iq phones broadcast continuously at base; if a bedroom phone is required, specify a unit with eco-mode plus.
- All bedside electronics on a battery basis or hard-wired, never on a switched-mode power supply within 1 metre of the head. SMPS (‘wall-warts’) generate dirty-electricity harmonics that propagate up through the wall to the bed-head.
- Mobile phones charged outside the bedroom, or, if in the bedroom, switched to airplane-mode at night.
- Wired-Ethernet bedside if data access is required. A simple Cat-6 keystone behind the bedside table; the WiFi stays off.
- Magnetic-field survey at the bed-head. Below 0.2 microtesla at sleeping height. Where the survey reads above this, the cause is typically a wiring fault (knob-and-tube, neutral-current return paths), fixable by an electrician.
The rest of the residence
Outside the bedroom, the EMF conversation is, in our reading, less consequential. The body is awake, the cortex is processing many signals, and the small biological effect of an additional wireless field is below the noise floor of the rest of the day’s environmental load. We do not specify whole-house Faraday cages; we do not specify dirty-electricity filters as a baseline; we do not avoid smart-home systems on EMF grounds. The cost-benefit ratio does not justify it.
The case for caution
Where the architecture meets the body for eight unconscious hours a night, conservative practice is justified even on a weak evidence base. The cost of getting the bedroom right is small, a few hundred pounds in cabling, a routine to switch the router off at night. The cost of getting it wrong, if the small-effect literature is correct, is sub-clinical sleep-architecture disruption over forty years of nights.
Wherever the upside is large and the cost is small, the architectural answer is: yes, do it, even if the literature is unsettled.
A final note on uncertainty
Longevity architecture is an empirical discipline. We act on the best available evidence and we do not over-claim. The EMF question, as of 2026, sits in a space of partial certainty: the bedroom is worth specifying conservatively; the rest of the home is not. Future work may sharpen the picture in either direction. Until it does, the bedroom rule stands and the rest of the residence stays sensible.