IEEE Consumer Electronics Magazine - July 2015 - 101

Product Reviews

Sounding the Alarm
By William Lumpkins

aking up in the morning is
hard for me each day
because I am a late-night
worker. I find it easier after
the children have gone to bed and my
wife has settled into her nighttime reading
pattern to fully focus on complex writing
and researching tasks late into the night.
Thus, when I was sent the TCL Pulse
alarm (Figure 1) to test, I was intrigued
by some of the company's taglines, such
as: "Now, there's a wireless, radiationfree solution that conveniently fits in the
palm of the hand and under pillows" [1].
As a member of the IEEE Electromagnetic Compatibility (EMC) Society
and an active product designer, I was
intrigued with the phrase "radiationfree." That seems to imply that all those
other alarms on the market actively radiate electromagnetic radiation. Perhaps
this is some hidden revelation that no
one knew about? Maybe other alarms
that are not being tested are "frying" me
in my sleep! Whoa, Nelly! No need to
lose sight of reality here.
What many of my esteemed consumer
electronics colleagues may not be aware
of is that if electricity is running through a
product, it produces low levels of electromagnetic radiation; we normally encounter this as noise, which we try to avoid in
our products. There are two major tests for
this type of radiation: one set by the U.S.
government, Federal Communications
Commission (FCC) Federal Code of Regulation Part 15, and one by the European
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MCE.2015.2421632
Date of publication: 15 July 2015

Union (EU), Conformité Européenne
(CE) Mark Comité International Spécial
des Perturbations Radioélectriques 22,
which is an analog standard to European
standard EN 55022. If a product is sold in
the United States, it must be measured
against the FCC test and be so labeled; if it
is to be sold in the EU, it must be evaluated with that body of tests and be so
marked. Most other countries have their
own tests as well.
Well, if everyone is being tested, then
where does their claim come from? An
overzealous marketing person per chance?
I was able to finally get the long-soughtafter answer: they are radiation free in this
sense: If you use your cell phone near your
head as an alarm, the cell phone is normally actively trying to connect to Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and cell towers, meaning that there is
15-30 dBm of radiated power being broadcast into your head or body. There is actually an FCC/EU test for this called the
specific absorption rate (SAR) as identified
in the ANSI/IEEE C95.1-1992 guidelines.
Hmm, why should we care? Well, the
majority of these radiating waves are in the
2.4-GHz frequency range (as used in a
microwave oven, see Figure 2), which happens to be the optimum frequency to make
water (H2O) molecules torsion and, thus,
release excess energy (not oscillate as one
physicist friend was eager to point out).
This is because the water molecule is a
dipole molecule, and the dipole molecule
tries to rotate toward the polarity of the
microwave alternating frequencies being
radiated, which rotates the dipole very
quickly. So, what is mostly in our bodies
and brains? Water. Biological sciences are

Alarm
Button

FIGURE 1. The TCL Pulse alarm. (Photo
courtesy of Amplicom, Inc.)

not my field, but it probably would be good
to limit the exposure to 2.4 GHz going into
our biological tissues (body).
The alarm is sleek and small; after
downloading the free application from
the Apple iTunes site and connecting to
the device via Bluetooth low energy, we
were able to use the simple user interface
to set up the device. "Each iOS device
can control five pulse units, while up to
ten alarms can be programmed on each
of them. Additionally, vibration strengths,
sound levels, and snooze length can all be
customized. Once the Pulse is paired and

FIGURE 2. A microwave oven, which produces radiation in some of the same frequencies as a cell phone.

(continued on page 103)
july 2015

IEEE ConsumEr ElECtronICs magazInE

101

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Consumer Electronics Magazine - July 2015