Okay, I'm having regrets. This is a really deep black.
It will like melt off the ceiling. No, it'll be fine. This paint is designed to block 5G waves.
And while it might be marketed to folks who are trying to protect themselves
from the dangers of the 5G,
when we tried it over a year ago, we found that not only did the EMF
blocking functionality work, it worked surprisingly well, which got us thinking,
if this paint can keep outside signals from penetrating our box,
could it also keep outside signals from penetrating an apartment,
eliminating interference from pesky neighbors?
Well, you may remember from our too much Wi-Fi video
that having even its view as six people broadcasting on the same frequency around you
can noticeably degrade your wireless internet.
Is this the solution? There's only one way to test.
Hey, who wants me to paint their house black?
Okay, I probably should have seen that one coming. Wait, I know someone with a weak backbone
who can't tell me no. Man, I'm stumped.
Our sponsor ASUS sent over their new Wi-Fi 7 routers
for us to run before and after we treat his apartment.
Hey there, Elijah. I'm here to paint your walls black and tear down your bookshelves.
No, please don't. All the intro.
Let's begin with a quick recap of how this paint even works.
RF-IE50 has a very high concentration of graphite,
which after applying and drying, helps to block almost all of the RF frequencies
that you would find in a typical home. Warmore, the brand of paint that we're using today,
graciously sent us all of the paint, which is good,
because otherwise it would have cost us about $3,000
to treat this apartment, and that's without the strapping lads we'll be applying.
Now, Warmore has products on their site that are obviously pseudoscience snake oil nonsense,
but this isn't one of them. It actually blocks RF,
which means that you really shouldn't use it to paint a wall that sits between your router
and where you'll want to use your devices. Say, for example, this one.
They also say that you need to ground your walls in order for them to be up to code.
More on that later. Before we go any further, I want to make a couple of things really clear.
One is that while we're using products from Warmore, we do not agree with any of the claims that they make
about the health benefits of blocking exposure to Wi-Fi and 5G cell towers.
Our goal is simply to reduce the signal strength of Elijah's neighbor's Wi-Fi
to try to improve the Wi-Fi performance within his apartment.
Number two is that we know that by not treating the Windows and the floor,
we are not going to be creating a Faraday cage-like environment here,
and there's going to be a lot of leakage. We just want to see if it helps at all.
For science! Before we can do any of that, Elijah needs to choose one of the two routers
that ASUS sent over. The RT-BE88U, which looks more like your typical router,
but has a whopping eight LAN ports, with four of them being two and a half gig
for fast connections between your wired devices, not to mention an SFP plus port for 10 gig.
It's kind of overkill. Yeah. Speaking of overkill,
the other option is the ROG Raptor GT-BE98 Pro.
It has few reports, but it does have dual 10 gig connections,
not to mention this delightful box.
Realistically, we know which one you're choosing, so you can put that one down.
But both of them feature blazing fast Wi-Fi seven speeds
and multi-link operation or MLO,
which allows multiple bands to be used at the same time for some truly shocking speeds.
This thing is the most extra Wi-Fi router
that I've ever seen. Holy cow. Oh, and it has four, two and a half gig ports too,
on top of the 10 giggers. Nice. How much is this thing worth?
Would you like to know? No, it's probably better not to. Okay.
Dude, this thing looks like a Wraith King crown on your freaking shelf.
And you gotta know ASUS knows they're doing it at this point.
Routers don't have to look like that. Anyway, once this fires up,
we're gonna use this RF Explorer Pro to get some before measurements
so that we have a baseline to compare against. This thing is really cool, but I haven't used it yet.
So it's gonna be a bit of an adventure. Alex gave me about a 30 second crash course on it,
so I'm basically an expert, but we'll be able to see all the DB levels
from wherever we measure, as well as all the channels and even the spectrum waterfall view
so we can see activity on the network. Cool. It's not really the activity that we're most worried about.
We're mostly worried about the sheer number of access points that are surrounding Elijah's space.
And this will be able to tell us that as well. Polluting his blood with their RF.
Yeah. Nambrisky 5G. I just want my 5G.
Dude, this is wild. I was like, no way there's this many devices
broadcasting near you. And then I was like, yo.
Yep. If everyone's using their ISP router, they're probably by default broadcasting 2.4 and 5 gig
just at full power already. This thing's got a ton of cool modes.
There's this power meter where you can just see the exact power that's being broadcast
on a particular frequency. There's the spectrum analyzer mode with a waterfall view
so you can see activity over time. This is super cool, by the way.
I set the range a little bit wider than 2.4 gigahertz Wi-Fi.
You can see it right there. Oh, that's kind of cool. Yeah.
And you can even set it up with this trippy 3D view of all the activity that's around us.
But the one I'm most interested in for our purposes is Wi-Fi analyzer.
This shows us how much Wi-Fi pollution is around us,
potentially gunking up your signal, making your router wait its turn.
So rather than do our before test the way that I had proposed before,
what I wanna do is turn off your router,
measure a baseline, then we paint everything
and we measure the baseline again. Then we can do a quick speed test or something like that
and make sure you're getting good performance. Nice.
I just wanna see if the paint works. Okay. Okay, so let's find a few key points.
I'm thinking in bed, on the couch and the kitchen.
Sure. Oh, you don't wanna get in bed with me. Well, not yet.
I was gonna propose in the bathroom because that's gonna be a really tight space
surrounded by a neighbor right away and we can paint the roof and the wall there.
And also because of the importance of, you know.
The bathroom.
Yeah, I don't wanna know what you're doing there on your Wi-Fi.
Stop. And we're done.
With that out of the way, we can get to painting.
Nice. Over there. I mean, I know you weren't playing dance games.
What's that supposed to mean? Nothing. What the heck is that supposed to mean?
Nothing. That you obviously haven't been playing dance games.
Had you considered maybe like doing a good job of this?
What? The patches and the wall. Those were there before I got the place.
Do you have sandpaper at least? Like can we? No, it'll be fine. Cause we're gonna put the TV back anyways.
It'll just cover it in the end. I'm not worried about it. We're painting.
And? And it's costing thousands of dollars.
Correct. So you take four seconds and sand it with sandpaper.
I don't have sandpaper. Timber!
Please, please kill me so I get the workers cop.
Are you the Star Wars kid? Yes.
See, the graphite in the paint can pick up and hold onto a charge for low frequency electrical fields
like from the wires in your walls. So by grounding it, we give that buildup somewhere to go.
So if we didn't ground it, does that mean my would have electric walls
to like electrocute people? Why would you want to do that? I don't know.
Someone like breaks in, just like, shh. Wow, good timing for that siren.
Okay, as cool as that would be though, no, it would not turn your house
into a home alone style trap. The issue is that if it's left ungrounded,
it can pick up some of the frequencies that we're trying to block.
And because radio waves and electricity can make electrons wiggle,
that wiggling can actually emit radio waves making the walls almost like a low powered antenna.
So that would defeat the whole purpose of applying this paint.
All right. This is GSX-50 tape,
and this is a GW grounding plate, also made by Warmore.
Judging by the pictures on their site, it seems like one strip running the length of the wall
is enough to keep it grounded. So I guess let's do it.
You're grounded. You know, there's speaker wire
that you can run like this too, hey? Oh yeah. For like surrounds, so then you paint over it,
it's super cool. It's called a ghost wire or something. Yeah, I wanna do a video on it at some point.
I have not looked at the instructions for any of this. Do you have any idea what we're doing?
Yeah, so we also need to have one piece of tape that goes vertical. What?
And then it looks like this actually goes over top of the tape. So the only thing that seems to matter
is that every surface that's painted
is connected to the tape in some way. So you can go up the wall if you need to hit the ceiling.
I see, so we could just run it all along the baseboards, it seems.
Yes. Okay, then let's do it that way. Bro couldn't figure out how to open sandpaper.
Sorry, my bad. And keeps calling it sanding paper. How do you do it?
Because it's bothering you. No, that's not why you do it. You do it because you don't know what it's called.
And then you continue doing it because it's bothering you.
Ah! That's what smooth is.
Oh. Nice, right? It looks about the same. No, it doesn't.
I really hope that doesn't bust open. Please pour the paint. Pour the paint, Elijah.
Pour the paint. Pour the paint.
Oh, God. I mean, look, it's not like we can make this carpet any worse.
Man, they really don't want kids to get into this.
Or Elijah. Oh my gosh! I'm like cutting up my hand.
That was a nice sound. That was a nice sound.
Okay, I'm having regrets now.
Oh, no, I touched it already. Nice.
Well, I can just like... No. Oh my God.
I mean, it's paint, you know. Yeah, but we're home, we're so cooked. It's supposed to turn things the color it is.
I was really tempted to like it. I can't believe you're painting this entire place black.
Thanks, ASUS. Well, full credit to them for coverage here.
This is actually comical. Dude, this is a really deep black.
Like this is black paint. Like it's nice and thick, but it spreads.
The coverage is really good. Like this is some really nice paint.
I like it. What are you doing? I'm painting! Do you see what I'm doing?
Does it look like what you're doing? Okay, I'll stop.
Okay, no, hold on. No, no, you can paint, but just jeez.
What's so bad about it? You saw what he was doing, right?
Glenn, do you paint? I don't. Okay, but can you tell that was wrong?
Why was it wrong? First of all, you hold it like a pencil.
Okay, not like a, whatever that was.
Okay, yeah, not like a spoon. I mean, don't hold a spoon like that either.
What are you, a bohemian? Okay, the point is you hold it like a pencil,
you come down on it, so you have more control. You don't hold it up here.
No control, lots of control, okay?
And then you use the angle of the brush, okay?
So the bulk of the paint goes on here,
and that's your fine line. So you drag it across the very, very, very bottom,
like that. Okay. And then you're doing a straight line like that.
What? What, why are you judging me? Dude, you're lucky this wall is gonna be behind your TV,
and we're hiring professionals for the rest of it, because that is the most ass paint job
that I have ever seen. Like, it's bad and you should feel bad.
Elijah, I actually do need a taller stool.
I can't really reach the ceiling. What?
I can't cut in. Wait, you don't have to cut in, because we're painting the ceiling as well.
Oh, God, I forgot that. Yeah.
Oh, that's horrible. Yeah. This is gonna be so oppressive.
Oh, okay, well the other wall isn't gonna be...
What, this one's gonna be black. No, that's not an exterior wall.
Oh. Elijah, did you check if this...
What? This ceiling has not been painted before. Correct.
So, no, we can't get this on the ceiling. Yeah, we can.
No, we can't, this is a latex-based paint. It's a water-based paint.
Right, that's what I just said. This is a latex water-based paint.
Yeah. This is water-soluble.
Hmm. It will like melt off the ceiling.
Did the painters, like that's what it mentioned that? Well, they said they might have to treat it.
It's okay, they'll treat it after. What, no, they can't.
Stop it. It will melt off the ceiling if we paint it with this.
That's kind of cool. Okay, sorry, let's...
Okay, well then be careful. Okay, so can I have a chair then?
We've come full circle. I don't think that's stable, bro.
Only one way to find out. You may want to move that paint.
I worry less about me and more about the bucket of paint that's going to spill on your floor if I fall.
Linus at a normal height.
Look at me, look at me, look at me. I think we're basically done for today though.
That took too long. Is this where we have the professionals come in and actually paint your place?
Yes, they're going to do two coats. They're going to come back over and try to get it back to this white after.
This is a paint primer product. Yes. And here they are.
Man, this apartment is so dark now.
The funny part is Taylor and I actually kind of like the way the walls look.
We might just have to go over with like a regular a-shell black because as you can see,
if I rub my hands a little bit on it, there's the tiniest bit of sparkle on my fingers
from the actual graphite that's in the wall, almost if like a pencil was shaded.
So if we bump or move anything against it, we're going to want to make sure we protect it
with a proper egg shell coat. One thing we don't like though is the ceiling.
I'm not really sure if there was a miscommunication or what happened, but they did not apply any sort of primer
or protective coating to the ceiling before spraying the RF paint on it.
So my ceiling is falling apart now,
which sucks and we are working on a resolution with this, but it actually hasn't stopped the paint
from clearly working. When I was at the office, I texted my wife
to send some photos to me because I wanted to see what it looked like once it was blacked out,
only for her to respond to me on Facebook Messenger because she was saying her messages,
the photos weren't actually sending over text.
They were failing. That's because she was still trying to use a cellular connection to send those photos.
Some things still work such as texting and phone calls,
but anything that was a large file, loading a YouTube video, sending a photo
or trying to FaceTime over that cellular connection,
it was not a good experience. Thankfully though, the ASUS router has been picking up
the slack whenever we've needed to send like a large video file or a group of photos
or even FaceTime family. So at least I got that going.
Just because the router's fine though, doesn't mean I don't need to fix the issue
with cell reception. So I actually reached out to our friends over at Waveform
and they sent me the CellFi Go G41 smart signal booster.
These are actually the same guys who helped at Linus's house when he needed to get better cell service.
It's just a little antenna mounted on my balcony towards a cell tower somewhere,
which thankfully Marcus actually sent me over a map of the area, so I know which direction to point this antenna in.
Then I get to do my favorite thing, drill a hole through the wall, run a cable through to their signal booster,
which is the indoor antenna that'll sit inside mounted.
That way my wife can, you know, send more cat photos over text.
We're actually not gonna set that up right now and in fact, I need to make sure my router
is not broadcasting anything because if you remember in our before tests,
we just were analyzing our neighbor's Wi-Fi to see if it was interfering with ours.
So we're gonna set up our analyzer in the exact same spots. We're gonna take our measurements again
and then we'll go back to the office and give Linus the results. Okay, how'd it go?
Why don't we start with the ceiling? It's falling apart. Do you wanna see the pictures?
I already know what it's gonna look like. Remember, I professionally painted for a couple of years.
It's worse than you can imagine. I can imagine a lot.
If you paint a stipple ceiling with water-based paint,
it disintegrates, which I warned Elijah about. So really this is on him.
To be fair, the contractor said, well, probably need to spray this with something or prime it.
I was like, okay, we're now in talks about getting it scraped because...
Yeah, you have to. Yeah.
This is not my fault. No, it's not. I brushed it a little bit and was like,
oh shoot, this isn't coated. And I told him, roll the footage.
This is what... And it cut the footage. No, no, roll the footage.
This is not on me. This is water-soluble.
It will melt off the ceiling. Yeah, it's the entire apartment.
That's a disaster, dude. It's pretty bad. That's stipple ceiling for you.
It was the worst home decor trend of all time.
They were asking me, they're like, well, do you wanna re-scraper it or do you wanna re-texture it again?
I was like, well, let's just scrape it now. Oh, re-texturing it.
They'd have to scrape it to re-texture it anyway. That's why I was like, let's just scrape it.
Yeah, and then they would have to put an oil-based coating on.
Then they would have to put the RF blocking stuff on again. Then they'd have to paint it again.
It'd be like a six-step process. Yeah, we're just getting it scraped.
Cool. But I want you to guess though, did it have any effect?
And if you think it had an effect, what kind of percentage do you think we saw?
Well, you already spoiled that with the coating on the walls, Taylor couldn't send M&S messages anymore,
right? Yeah, photos. That's crazy. She could still text, she could still take phone calls,
but actual large chunks of data could not go through. Interesting.
Yes. As for the Wi-Fi access points around you,
I'm gonna guess 15 dB.
Okay, I have it in percentage, not dB. It's not quite that much though.
Okay, well just. If you scroll down though, that's where it's on the script. I need to read it.
Oh, I see. There you go. What?
So sadly on the five gigahertz spectrum, we actually saw no improvement,
maybe one to 2%. Oh, that would be within margin of error anyway.
That's kind of what I thought. But on the 2.4 spectrum,
we saw a 20% improvement in the bathroom, and a 27% improvement in the living room,
and then the kitchen was somewhere in between that. That's actually not bad.
Yeah. And is that just in the attenuation of the nearby signals?
Yep. Well, that's awesome because 2.4 gigahertz
is the problematic one. 100%. That's the one that you're stuck using
for your IOT devices and stuff like that, and they'll just, they'll be flaky.
And you won't realize while they're flaky. They're flaky because all your neighbors
have all of their crap broadcasting on it. I mean, I, I wouldn't spend this kind of money on it.
It wasn't groundbreaking, but again, like you said, it was the walls and ceiling.
The price was right. Yeah, for free, for me.
Right, so. But I think this is actually an example
if we had gone all the way and on the floor, I have more neighbors below me.
You're already here first. Elijah wanted to go all the way.
Below me. If we had painted the actual floor,
we could have probably seen even more of an improvement. Right, cause there's a lot of people below you.
Yeah. And another thing we noticed with both measuring the 2.4
and the five gigahertz spectrum is they appeared more stable.
There wasn't crazy, you know, cliffs and valleys on each of the channels.
Interesting. I had one other note, which was, I guarantee there was more people home that day.
I don't know. Really? Because we filmed the after results on boxing day
and we filmed our before results on a typical work day.
And judging by my parking lot, there was definitely more people home.
Oh, well that's cool. So what that means is that, A,
we definitely got a good result. And B, our good result is probably more betterer.
Yeah. Than what we thought. Yeah, exactly. So I wouldn't recommend spending this kind of money
for this outcome. But at the price you paid,
I mean, it seems like a pretty clear upgrade. Yeah, it was sick. And okay, as for the ASUS router.
The ASUS router was fine. And I think that would probably be a better investment
is like actually upgrading your network inside, whether it's a mesh system or wiring everything.
Well, realistically, the bigger one is probably gonna be getting a router and devices
that support six gigahertz. Yeah. Especially if you're in an apartment
where the range is not gonna be as important
as using a frequency that no one else is using. And for the kind of money you would spend
on a home renovation like this, you could literally buy yourself a new router,
buy your, you and your whole family new phones that all support six gigahertz.
I didn't even think about that. Right? But you could, yeah.
But that wasn't the point of our exercise here. No, yeah.
The point of our exercise was, hey, does this stuff that worked on a small scale,
painting a box, actually scale up to an entire home?
And the answer is less effectively.
But it's clearly not entirely snake oil.
Yeah, which is actually kind of cool. Yeah, very cool.
Yeah. If you guys enjoyed this video, be sure to tell a friend about it.
It was a big undertaking getting contractors out
to paint Elijah's house. Contractors who did a great job.