Twenty PEMF spec sheet terms in plain words, each with what it tells you when you compare devices, plus four questions to put to the maker.

We measured our lab's Magnetic Pulser MP7 test unit at both settings. Here is what a full report shows beyond one peak Gauss figure.

A PEMF mat and a grounding mat can look nearly identical in photos. One is built around coils that make a changing magnetic field, and that field is what a lab can measure.

Three measurements describe what a PEMF device puts out: how strong the field is, how fast it changes, and how much heat the coil makes. Here's what each one means, using a device we measured.

Buyer guides now say a sealed mat can't be checked. It can: the field sits in the air above the pad. See every test point and its Gauss value, at the height a body actually lies.

The FEI is proposing to cut the permitted PEMF field at its events from 1,000 Gauss to 100, and to require battery power. A battery limits the current a device draws continuously rather than the energy it stores between pulses, so it does not set the peak field.

A higher Gauss number tells you a device's field strength, not the stimulus that reaches tissue. Here's how to weigh raw strength against a sharper waveform when two devices split the difference.

For a horse, a coil's coverage and how evenly its field spreads matter more than the biggest Gauss value on the spec sheet. Here's what to look for when comparing large-area PEMF accessories.

You're shopping for a full-body PEMF mat, and the spec that jumps out is the coil count. More coils sound like more field. But a count is a headline, and it leaves out two things that shape what your body actually gets: whether the coils fire all at once or one at a time, and how evenly the field is spread across the surface. Two PEMF mats holding the same six coils. On the left, all six coils fire together. On the right, the coils are numbered one through six and fire one at a time, with only coil one…

If you're about to spend a few thousand dollars on a PEMF device and the spec sheets all start to blur together, you don't need to become an expert in electromagnetics. You need six questions, and the discipline to ask all of them. Each question targets a value the brochure either left off or rounded into uselessness. Asked together, they replace marketing copy with a measured picture of what the device actually does. Question 1. Where was the peak measured? The reading depends on two things: how far the probe sits from the accessory surface, and where on the surface…