EMF Shielding paint

[Frank Cox]

https://www.homedepot.com/pep/WOREMO...0-5L/317398595

https://www.emrss.com/collections/emf-shielding-paint

I just came across mention of paint that blocks wifi and cell phone signals. I've heard of (but never seen) rooms that are built with RF blocking mesh behind the walls but this is the first time I've heard mention of paint for that purpose.

I wonder if anyone has painted their auditorium with this paint.

[Harold Hallikainen]

Interesting! Their attenuation specifications are for three layers, and the 1 gallon container is supposed to cover 400 square feet, so we'd be a little over 100 square feet for 3 layers. Even if the cellular signal can get through, if it's attenuated enough, it can drain the battery in the phone quickly. I found that years ago when I attended a seminar at Stanford Law School. It was in the basement of the building, and my cellphone died pretty quickly.

[Marcel Birgelen]

I'm always very skeptical with these kinds of products. It's very hard to create a perfectly EMF-shielded room that will keep out all mobile networks from entering the room. You only need a few small gaps in your shielding for it to more or less completely fail.

[Ryan Gallagher]

Their scientific methods leave a bit to be desired, but Linus Tech Tips did not one, but two videos on this stuff.

in the 2nd they try painting someone’s apartment to reduce neighbor WiFi interference.

it’s apparently not entirely snake oil, but results are going to very widely on coverage and holes in the barrior.

and in this application, anything short of total blockage is likely only to increase the amount of time people fiddle with their phones, due to slower loading of apps and content.

[Marcel Birgelen]

That's actually an interesting theory: People are most likely going to mess around more with their phones when you mess with their connectivity.

There's also a legal aspect to this, because you're potentially actively blocking people from calling emergency services...

The more I think about it, I'm convinced that lack of etiquette isn't a problem that's easily solvable with extra hardware.

[Mike Blakesley]

We (as an industry) probably need to face it: People want their phones. They feel disconnected from life without them. And they think that any emergency on the outside will end in complete catastrophe if they can't find out about it within seconds of it happening, even though in most cases that's a lot of nonsense.

There is a reason why most cellphone etiquette trailers use the phrase, Please Silence Your Phones. They don't say "turn off," because they know almost nobody will do it.

The key is to get people to SILENCE and DIM their phones, and also to get them to come out to the lobby if they get a call. We've got most people here doing that, in part because our sound is loud enough that you can't really carry on a conversation during a movie anyway. But people really don't call that much anymore -- they text.

The real challenge would be to get people not to text during movies. That's the gold standard, getting them to ignore incoming texts for two hours. It may not be possible. My wife considers it a grave mission that any incoming text must be answered immediately. I, on the other hand, will usually silence my phone and/or leave it in the lobby when we watch a movie. In all the years I've had a phone, I haven't missed an important message yet.

[Marcel Birgelen]

The interesting thing is that I've seen more people with their phone on non-silent and actually picking up when they're being called in shows with older demographics than with younger folks. I remember one show a few years ago already where a a certain elderly gentlemen kept answering his phone not just once but five times in a row, after which I told him that the next time I'd call security.

Meanwhile, it's not just text messages/IM that's a problem, I regularly see people just doom-scrolling on their phone through their social media, instead of watching the movie. I'm not sure if they even realize that the light coming off of their phone is highly distracting to everybody behind them.

[Ryan Gallagher]

Most phone OSes these days have something equivalent to “focus” or “do not disturb” modes, which are in some ways more potent that just putting it on silent. DND will actually suppress notifications including vibration for whatever time window you want (or manual).

it won’t solve fidget tendencies, but it would reduce the compulsion to answer texts.

[Harold Hallikainen]

I leave my phone on vibrate and in my pocket. My wife has to keep her phone lit up for the start of the trailers so she can adjust her hearing aids to use the induction loop. But then it goes in her purse (and I think she puts it in airplane mode).

[Marcel Birgelen]

I put mine on "DnD" mode, which reduces stuff to vibrations for "more important stuff" and a side-screen glow for the "less important stuff". Since the screen is an OLED, it really just lights up the sides a bit and doesn't really disturb anybody else in the room, even if it's lying out there instead of in my pocket. There are a few numbers marked "important", they will get the buzzer.

Like Mike indicated, people want to be "connected" all the time, weather or not that's healthy for their mind is another thing altogether. But there are legitimate reasons to be "always connected", like having a serious medical condition, having someone in your inner circle with some medical condition or maybe you're just someone who's on 24/7 standby. Those who worked in this very field might not be totally disconnected from the latter reality.

The important thing is that you don't disrupt the show for others. If it's that ONE important call for your replacement kidney, then, great, but even then, take it outside the theater, in the lobby, for example. And that WhatsApp group where your friends post "funny" memes all day long, well, that one really can wait an hour or two, can't it?

[Stefan Scholz]

With paint, in theory not totally snake oil, but it could also create tuned antennas and "amplify" the problem. WiFi is best blocked by water, as WiFi uses "useless" frequency ranges, those at water molecule resonance. Which makes the unattractive for commercial radio signal transmissions.

[Marcel Birgelen]

I guess you're referring to 2.4 Ghz WiFi, but modern wifi also operates at 5 Ghz and 6 Ghz frequencies.

You used to be able to block wifi with a badly isolated microwave oven, but most equipment nowadays can even roam between those frequency bands...

[Jack Ondracek]

There's also a legal aspect to this, because you're potentially actively blocking people from calling emergency services...

I'm not sure there's a legal right to access your personal phone on the basis of emergency situations.

That said, the FCC rules allow PASSIVE methods of cell phone reduction.. room-sized Faraday cages, paint (?), etc. They do NOT allow anything active, such as the powered jammers you can commonly find on sites like Ebay. Their reasoning is not so much that you have no right to restrict such signals within your building, but that you may not be able to corral the jammer to within the boundaries of your property. Affecting a cell signal outside your building or within a neighboring business or structure would be examples of such violations.

While not common, the FCC has gone after people who use active signal jammers.

Law enforcement is not bound to these restrictions.

[Ryan Gallagher]

We are on the cusp of every studio requiring screen interactions anyway of some form... with your phone... or alternative ADA based apps for things like closed captioning. Painting all your cinemas in 5g blocking black might backfire when those interactive elements are on screen. It's pretty hard to unpaint a room without removing all the drywall and ceiling tiles.

(Even though in principle I agree with your dream)

[Jack Ondracek]

We are on the cusp of every studio requiring screen interactions anyway of some form... with your phone..

I wonder how dramatic the comparison would be at a multiplex with shielded rooms... except for just one, where phone usage and patron behavior would be, essentially, a free-for-all.

My active imagination suggests it would be something like calm vs bedlam.

Perhaps being exposed to such a stark contrast might be a good thing...