When Aaryan was three weeks old, the router in our flat was on a shelf in the living room. The nursery was directly above it. I didn't think about it until I plugged in the Ova Meter and watched the reading drop from 18 μW/m² to 3 μW/m² the moment I moved the router to the opposite corner of the flat. Same Wi-Fi signal. Same connection speed. A 6× reduction in the nursery's overnight RF exposure. That's the router problem in one sentence.

Why routers are the biggest source

A typical home Wi-Fi router transmits continuously at up to 100mW (100,000 μW) of RF power across 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands. Unlike a baby monitor — which a parent might move or turn off — the router runs 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, through walls, floors and ceilings without any attenuation that meaningfully reduces exposure at typical indoor distances.

The inverse square law means exposure drops with the square of distance. Double the distance, you get roughly one quarter the exposure. But most families don't double the distance — they place the router in the centre of the home for signal coverage, which often puts it directly adjacent to a bedroom wall.

How to find the best position

With an Ova Meter: plug it in at the head of your child's bed. Note the reading. Then systematically move the router — first to a different wall in the same room, then to an adjacent room, then to the furthest corner of the flat. Log the reading after each move. Most families find a position that reduces bedroom exposure by 50–80% while maintaining full Wi-Fi coverage throughout the home.

Without a Meter: the simple rule is maximum distance from bedrooms, minimum height (routers on the floor emit upward; on a high shelf they emit at head height into the room above). An internal wall rather than an external wall will also reduce the signal reaching a room above.

Reduce the router's own output power

Almost every router sold in the UK allows you to reduce its transmission power in the admin settings (usually accessed at 192.168.1.1 or 192.168.0.1 in a browser). Most routers default to 100% power — designed for maximum coverage range. Reducing to 50% or 25% maintains full coverage in most flat and house configurations while cutting RF output proportionally. This change takes approximately 3 minutes and is reversible.

5G rollout across UK cities has accelerated significantly since 2023. New mast infrastructure has appeared near schools, playgrounds and residential areas, and parental concern — entirely understandable — has been substantial. What's often missing from the conversation is a clear, honest explanation of what the measurements actually show.

What 5G actually is — and what it isn't

5G is not a single technology. The UK's current 5G rollout primarily uses sub-6GHz frequencies — specifically the 3.5 GHz band, licensed to EE, Vodafone, O2 and Three. This frequency behaves similarly to 4G in terms of penetration and propagation. The 5G you walk past near a school is almost certainly sub-6GHz 5G.

Millimetre-wave 5G (mmWave, 24–100 GHz) — the type that produces much higher frequencies and the basis of many media concerns — has extremely limited penetration even through glass, and is currently deployed only in very specific high-density areas (large train stations, stadiums). A 5G mast near a school in the UK is not mmWave.

What the ICNIRP guidelines say

ICNIRP's 2020 guidelines — the international standard adopted by the WHO and UK government — were updated specifically to account for 5G frequencies including mmWave. The guidelines establish reference levels based on demonstrated biological effects, with a significant safety margin applied. Current 5G deployments in the UK operate at a fraction of these reference levels.

The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) issued guidance in 2023 stating that current 5G deployments do not present a risk to public health when operating within ICNIRP guidelines — and all UK network operators are legally required to comply.

What reasonable precaution looks like

The evidence does not support alarm about 5G towers near schools. It does support a general precautionary approach to children's overall RF environment — of which a distant 5G mast is typically a small component. The Ova app's outdoor mapping feature uses OpenCelliD data to show the nearest towers and their frequencies, giving parents an informed picture rather than a frightening one.

The bedroom is where your child spends the most continuous time in a single location — typically 10–12 hours for infants and young children. It is the highest-leverage room to focus on when reducing cumulative RF exposure. These seven changes are ranked by the reduction in exposure they typically produce, based on measurements taken in UK family homes.

1. Move the router further away

Already covered in our router placement article — but worth repeating as the single highest-impact change. If your router is within 5 metres of your child's bed (including through walls and floors), moving it to the furthest point in your home is the most effective free action you can take.

2. Turn Wi-Fi off at night

Most modern routers have a scheduled Wi-Fi off setting in their admin panel. Setting Wi-Fi to turn off between 11pm and 7am eliminates router RF exposure during sleep entirely. It has no effect on wired internet connections, smart TVs that are off, or any device not actively using Wi-Fi. This single change can reduce a child's overnight RF exposure to near-zero from the router source.

3. Remove smart speakers from the bedroom

Amazon Echo, Google Nest and similar devices emit continuous RF and are always listening (always-on microphone processing). A smart speaker placed on a bedside table runs at close range all night. Moving it to a common area — or removing it from the bedroom entirely — eliminates this source without affecting its functionality.

4. Move the monitor further away

As covered in our baby monitor article — the monitor shelf position matters significantly. Moving from 30cm to 100cm reduces exposure by approximately 75%.

5. Don't charge phones in the bedroom

A phone charging in the bedroom is a phone that is periodically syncing data, receiving notifications and occasionally transmitting at full power. A charging phone on a bedside table at 30cm emits comparably to a baby monitor. Charging phones in a hallway or kitchen is the simplest solution.

6. Check for an electric underfloor heating cable

Properties with electric underfloor heating — particularly common in newer UK builds and bathroom-adjacent nurseries — have ELF magnetic fields that the Ova Meter will detect but the Ova Blanket will not block. If your Meter shows elevated ELF readings that don't respond to removing wireless devices, check whether underfloor heating cables run beneath the room. Raising the bed slightly off the floor increases distance from the cable and reduces ELF exposure meaningfully.

7. Use the Ova Blanket during sleep

Once you've made the free environmental changes above, the Ova Blanket addresses the remaining RF that reaches the cot or bed — particularly from sources you can't move (a neighbour's router, an external smart meter, a nearby street-level 5G node). It doesn't replace the environmental changes — it completes them.

Q: Should I be worried about EMF?

Not in the way the wellness industry presents it. There is no scientific consensus that everyday EMF exposure at current levels causes demonstrable harm to healthy children or adults. The evidence suggests precaution is reasonable — particularly for developing tissue — but it does not support the catastrophising you'll find on most EMF product websites, including, I'm sorry to say, many of Ova's competitors. Informed precaution, not fear, is the appropriate response.

Q: Is 5G more dangerous than 4G?

Not meaningfully, for the 5G currently deployed in UK residential areas. Sub-6GHz 5G behaves similarly to 4G in terms of RF propagation and biological interaction. The ICNIRP guidelines were updated in 2020 specifically to account for 5G and continue to establish reference levels well above current exposure measurements at typical distances from infrastructure.

Q: Is the Ova Blanket proven to improve health outcomes?

No, and I won't claim it is. The blanket is independently verified to reduce RF exposure by up to 99% in laboratory conditions. Whether reduced RF exposure improves health outcomes is a separate question the science has not definitively answered. What we can say is that precautionary reduction of unnecessary RF exposure in infants' sleeping environments is consistent with the recommendations of the American Academy of Pediatrics and the UK Health Security Agency.

Q: My child's nursery is next to a smart meter — should I be concerned?

Smart meters transmit periodically (typically every 30 minutes to the network, with a continuous local signal to your in-home display unit). They emit in the 2.4 GHz band. Measurements taken adjacent to smart meters typically show RF levels of 10–50 μW/m² at 30cm, dropping to 1–5 μW/m² at 1 metre. Moving a cot to the wall furthest from the smart meter is the simple precautionary step. The meter cannot be repositioned, but the cot can be.

Q: Are there specific times of day when exposure is highest?

Yes. Evening hours (6pm–10pm) typically show the highest household RF readings due to simultaneous use of multiple devices — streaming, phone use, smart speakers. This is also when many infants are being settled to sleep. Turning off non-essential devices during the bedtime routine, and ensuring the bedroom is in its lowest-RF state before the child is put down, is a practical and evidence-consistent step.

Q: What should I actually prioritise?

In descending order of impact: router position and transmission power; baby monitor type and placement; phone charging location; smart speaker removal from bedrooms; and then passive shielding with a product like the Ova Blanket for the residual RF you can't eliminate. The free changes first — products after.

The first time most Ova families look at their Meter data, they have one of two reactions: either "that seems very low, is it working?" or "that seems very high, should I be worried?" The answer to both, almost always, is: it depends on what's happening in the room at the time. Here's how to read the first week properly.

What normal looks like

A nursery or bedroom with the router in another room, no smart speakers, and phones not present during sleep will typically read 0.1–2 μW/m² overnight. This is well within the ICNIRP reference level and at or near the Building Biology Institute's precautionary sleeping standard.

A living room during an evening with a router, TV, streaming device and phones present will typically read 5–40 μW/m² — still within ICNIRP guidelines, but 5–40× above the Building Biology sleeping standard.

Understanding spikes

RF readings spike when a device transmits. A reading that jumps to 80 μW/m² briefly and then drops back down is not the same as a sustained 80 μW/m² reading. The Ova Meter shows average readings over 15-minute windows — so spikes are smoothed. If your average overnight reading is above 10 μW/m², something is continuously transmitting nearby.

Don't ignore the ELF reading

The Ova Meter measures both RF and ELF. ELF (extremely low-frequency magnetic fields) comes from electrical wiring, not wireless devices. If your ELF reading is elevated, turning off wireless devices won't change it. Common ELF sources in nurseries: extension cables run under the cot, electric underfloor heating, a fridge or washing machine on a shared wall. Moving the cot away from the wall containing electrical circuits is the most effective response.

What to look for in week one

Day 1–2: establish baseline readings in each room. Day 3–4: do the isolation test to identify the highest-contributing source. Day 5–6: make one change (router position, device removal) and observe the reading shift. Day 7: compare your nursery overnight average to Day 1. Most families see a 50–80% reduction after a week of informed changes. That's not the Ova Blanket working — that's you, using the data.