Claim:

High-pitched sounds made by smart plug adapters can cause stress, discomfort and illness in pets.

Rating:

Context

Although academic research shows that high-pitched sounds in general can negatively affect pets, no studies exist to determine whether, or to what extent, smart plugs specifically cause such problems. A veterinary expert told Snopes that he and his colleagues are aware of pet owners’ concern, but there is no credible evidence that proves the devices cause harm. Additionally, there are no widely accepted guidelines from veterinarians regarding the use of such products.

Several Snopes readers asked us to check whether smart plugs — those power outlet adapters that let you control electrical devices over WiFi with an app or voice command — emit high-frequency noises undetectable by the human ear but which can cause stress, discomfort or even illness in pets.

Since November 2023, readers sent Snopes a Facebook post that went viral for highlighting the alleged risk. of smart sockets. The post alleged that a dog named Rowdy began behaving differently – he began licking his foot, panting and pacing – shortly after his owner installed new smart plugs:

When my vet called and I gave her an update, she suggested that maybe there was a new electronic device in the house that was emitting a high frequency noise that was hurting his ears.

We had just installed new smart plugs in the house about a week ago. His pacing and panting were worse when the lights were on, so I unplugged all the smart plugs. He stopped panting, stopped pacing, and ate his food. His tail was still up and wagging again.

When I plugged all the smart plugs back in and asked Alexa to turn on the lights, he immediately started panting and pacing again.

My husband used an app to test the frequency of smart plugs. It was out of the ordinary. We left the plugs unplugged for two days and confirmed that it was indeed the smart plugs that were causing his stress and discomfort.

He is a completely normal dog again now. I really thought this was the end for Rowdy, based on the way he was acting.

This post was no longer available at the time of writing and its original author was unknown. However, another Facebook user shared the same message more than a year later, in early December 2024, and this new version has also gone viral. WI contacted this user to see if there was any information we could use to trace the origin of the story for independent verification. We will update this report when or if we receive a response.

The claim that plug adapters could pose health risks to pets has been circulating online for years. For example, people repeated the complaint on a community forum for customers of Hubitat, a smart home company, And Reddit Users have detailed alleged cases of dogs reacting strangely to smart plugs.

However, although academic research shows sounds, In general, may negatively affect pets, no studies have been conducted to determine whether, or to what extent, smart plugs specifically cause such problems. A veterinary expert told Snopes that he and colleagues are aware of pet owners’ concerns, but there is no credible evidence that the devices cause harm.

When an electrical current passes through a smart plug, the device can emit high-pitched noises that even humans can hear. Manufacturers call these sounds “moaning coil.”

Dogs and cats can hear higher frequencies than humans, and some of our household appliances, like smoke detectors, emit ultrasound sounds that animals can hear and humans cannot. While humans can only hear frequencies up to 23,000 Hz, dogs can hear frequencies up to around 23,000 Hz. 45,000 Hz, and cats up to 64,000 Hz, according to a 2017 compilation peer review research by George M. Strain, professor of neuroscience at Louisiana State University School of Veterinary Medicine, specializing in hearing loss in companion animals.

As for the impact of these sounds on pets, a 2021 peer-reviewed study by researchers at the University of California Davis discovered only intermittently, High-frequency sounds, like smoke alarms, can cause intense fear and anxiety in dogs. This study refers to what it describes as a “particularly extreme example” of a dog disturbed by a high-frequency sound that its owners could not hear, a story that originally appeared in a book titled “Canine Enrichment for the Real World“:

Dog behavior consultant Emily Strong describes a case of working with a dog exhibiting signs of intense, chronic anxiety (rolling, whining, agitation, lack of interest in interacting with his owners). The owners of this dog were intrigued by the dog’s behavior and had spent thousands of dollars to rule out any medical problems with this dog; no medical problems were noted. The behavior had started suddenly a few months before the first to consult and continued to get worse; the owners had lived with the dog since childhood and prior to this change, the dog had never exhibited any anxiety or behavioral problems. Tellingly, the dog was relaxed and happy when away from home, but reluctant to return home after a walk. After much questioning, it was discovered that the owners had installed a sonic (very high frequency) pest control device in the house a few months previously; after turning off the device, the dog immediately began to relax and returned to normal behavior over the next few days. These owners were obviously very dedicated to their dog’s well-being, but they couldn’t hear the device; the dog, on the other hand, was very embarrassed.

Strong could not tell Snopes the name of her client, but she said the dog was a neutered male lab and that the incident occurred in 2011 or 2012 in the Rosedale neighborhood of Austin, USA. Texas.

Even though the dog “appeared to be affected by a sonic pest control device,” Strong said, she added that she had only encountered this situation once – although she knew many owners of dogs with pest control devices sonic. Strong believes the device was defective or there was a problem with the device and the outlet connection. “I’m not an expert on sonic devices, but in my experience and opinion it seems more likely that this is a situation where people hear about an event once and overindex the problem, thereby overestimating the risk, rather than actually talking about it as a common or systemic problem,” Strong wrote in an email.

Another 2015 study published in the peer-reviewed Journal of Feline Medicine and Surgery found that high-frequency noises can trigger seizures in cats that suffer from a type of epilepsy syndrome.

But there doesn’t‘t been any Credible research has not yet been done to determine whether noise from smart plugs, in particular, bothers pets, said Katherine Houpt, a professor at Cornell University’s College of Veterinary Medicine who studies welfare. domestic animals.

Ken Gordon, CEO of the Washington State Veterinary Medical Association, said he and some of his colleagues to have heard of this concern regarding smart plugs – but they “have no evidence of the good faith of this claim”.

Additionally, there are no widely accepted guidelines from veterinarians regarding the use of such products. A spokesman for the American Veterinary Medical Association, Mark Rosati, said the organization had not heard of the problem before.

TP-Link, which produces the popular Kasa Smart Plugs, said it has not received any reports from pet owners of noises negatively affecting their pets’ health. The company said in a statement that while all smart plugs produce noise, the company “places great importance on the sound performance of smart plugs, with each of our products undergoing six-sided noise testing.”

In the meantime, Lenovo smart plug support page says the devices’ coil whine can be “particularly annoying for many users.”

The logic follows: if a noise bothers you, it probably is. to your pets too. Yet because there is no scientific research to determine the impact of smart plugs on pets. well-being and because there is no widely accepted advice from veterinarians regarding the use of such products, we have evaluated this claim. as unproven.