Wi-Fi Router's 'Pregnant Women' Setting Sparks Vendor Rivalry In China

colinneagle writes: When one Chinese technology vendor, Qihoo, launched a new Wi-Fi router with a safety setting for "pregnant women," a rival vendor took offense to the implication that their routers might be dangerous. Xiamo, which also sells Wi-Fi routers, took to its page on Chinese social media site Weibo to denounce Qihoo's pregnant women mode as a "marketing tactic," and clarify that "Wi-Fi usage is safe."

Zhou Hongyi, chief executive and president of Qihoo, acknowledged in a statement to the South China Morning Post that there is no evidence supporting claims that Wi-Fi routers pose a risk for birth defects. But he said the company is appealing to consumers' beliefs, whether they are supported by science or not.

"We are targeting people who are afraid of radiation," Hongyi said. "We aren't scientists. We haven't done many experiments to prove how much damage the radiation from Wi-Fi can cause. We leave the right of choice to our customers."

Comments

If they're really worried about radiation

[satsuke]

If someone is really worried about radiation from wifi, they'd be well advised to not have _any_ wifi devices in the home, if not actually living some large distance from anyone else with same devices.

They'd also want to avoid cell phones too..

Actually, such a person would just become a hermit.

Call it "nice neighbor mode"

[davidwr]

Or maybe "small apartment mode."

If I could, I would configure my WiFi router to be smart about its transmit power:

I would have a "low power" mode on the router so it could be "seen" within a relatively small radius, but it would increase power as needed to stay connected to a device once that device authenticated. Once all authenticated connections went out of range or disconnected, it would drop back to "low power" mode.