Hi! I’m Shane Reilly, a professional EMF inspector and certified Building Biologist. I’ve worked in this field since 2017 in hundreds of homes, vehicles, and offices. I do this work across the US, and I have also helped thousands of people via online consulting.
What is "Smart" Technology?
These days, many devices in and around our homes are marketed as "smart". In a nutshell, this means they send and receive data over the air, or wirelessly, as microwave radiation. The digital components inside smart tech also create what is colloquially referred to as dirty electricity, or DE. There are a number of reasons to be concerned about both DE and wireless radiation, or electromagnetic field (EMF), as well as privacy concerns over where the data collected about your life is going and who can see it. That's why many think "smart" technology isn't really smart at all, suggesting an acronym for is "Surveillance Marketed As Smart Technology".
However, those concepts are beyond the scope of this article. You can poke around on my blog and website to learn more about them.
What I wanted to focus on today are potential remediations if you find yourself with a "smart" fridge emitting wireless radiation into your home (and onto your food). It's all too common these days for a new kitchen appliance like a fridge to have this technology built in. In fact, it's much more difficult to find new ones without the tech than one with the tech.
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As an aside, when you're shopping for a new fridge, it will usually be fairly obvious if it has wireless smart tech. The manufacturers make a big deal out of it because they think everyone under the sun wants this tech. You'll see the word "smart" or the WiFi or BlueTooth symbols on the sticker or product page.
The good news is that outside of the annoying process of returning the fridge to the store, there is usually a way to disable the wireless (WiFi or BlueTooth). I'll lay those out below.
And one important note, a common misnomer is that the device won't emit WiFi if you don't connect it to your WiFi, or don't have WiFi at all. This is 100% FALSE! The fridge is going to transmit around the clock, as long as it has power.
How to Turn my Smart Fridge's WiFi Off
Use a quality EMF meter set to RF to measure the sound and radiation from your fridge. This is the best one for the job (use code ODS05) for a discount. Try to turn off cell phones, wifi and other sources of wireless nearby so that you can clearly see what the fridge is doing.
Find the fridge manual and read about the wireless features. They may mention how to disable it but probably not. Never hurts to try. You can also search on YouTube by make/model of your fridge for disabling the WiFi.
Using the manual, see if you can find a schematic showing the different parts. You may have to search online or call a local small appliance repair shop to see if they know where the wireless module is.
Once you have located the module, have the repair person come out and unplug it. If you are feeling DIY, you can try this, just make sure you completely unplug the fridge from electric power first. Then make sure you have one hand on the outside metal of the fridge before your other hand gets anywhere near any of the interior circuit boards of the fridge. *WARNING* opening up your fridge may void parts of the warranty.
Once the wireless module is unplugged, test with your RF meter again. The sound you heard before from the fridge should be gone, and the peak value should come way down. Now we know the remediation has worked! If you still hear noise on the meter, you may have additional antennas in your fridge. Rinse and repeat the discovery process listed above.
Video Demonstrations on how to Disable Fridge Wireless Radiation
Here's one example on a Sub-Zero fridge:
Here's one example on a Samsung fridge
With that info, you should be off and running. Happy hunting!
Feel free to setup a free discovery call with me if you have questions about this or any other EMF topics.
