It looks like Apple wasn’t extra cautious when it warned in the iPhone 12’s new MagSafe charging system could affect not only magnetic stripe cards and RFID tags, but also “interfere with medical devices” like pacemakers and defibrillators. Why?
When we brought the iPhone 12 close to the patient’s chest the defibrillator was deactivated. We saw on the external defibrillator programmer that the functions of the device were suspended and remained suspended. When we took the phone away from the patient’s chest, the defibrillator immediately returned to its normal function.
We were all stunned. We had assumed that the magnet would be too weak in a phone to trip the defibrillator’s magnetic switch. We believe our findings have profound implications on a large scale for the people who live daily with these devices, who without thinking, will place their phone in their shirt pocket or upper pocket or their coat – not knowing that it can cause their defibrillator or pacemaker to function in a way that could potentially be lethal.
