Having no phone reception is definitely one of the biggest bug bears of the 21st century. I’m calling it. It has to be. Having a nice shiny phone that you can’t actually use to make contact or be contacted results in a very specific type of frustration. The type that makes you wonder how humans got by with nothing more than pens, paper and carrier pigeons when there was something really reaaaally important to chat to a mate about.
Now, usually when this happens we start manically waving our arms in the air, standing on tables and leaning out of windows in desperate attempts to gain a mere bar of signal, but thanks to a study by some super clever scientists, the solution to your reception woes could require a lot less effort.
A group of scientists were commissioned to find out if the signal received by some of the most popular mobile phones was affected by how they’re held, reports the International Business Times. They found out that something simple as the direction your phone is facing can have a huge effect on how well it’s able to receive radio signal which, let’s face it, none of us would ever have thought of.
They set up a lab and tested 26 different phone models, from the iPhone 6 through to the HTC 10, to see how well they were able to make calls and use data in poor signal situations. And of them all, iPhone 6S proved to receive a stronger signal if it was held in the user’s right hand. I know it sounds really odd and like something that would never actually make a difference, but when they tested it it turned out that signal improved by a whole 300% when they switched from the left hand over the right.
If you’re left-handed and own a Samsung though, don’t worry you’ve got slightly better news. The study found that signal was stronger when Samsungs were held in the left hand, but the difference wasn’t nearly as big as it was for the iPhone.
Apparently it’s all to do with the antenna design, the researchers explained. And I don’t know about you, but I find it pretty annoying to realise that so many of our signal stresses are actually because of the way our phones are made, not just because of how crappy your network might be.
More info on this sort of thing is the key. But at least this discovery might put an end to having to stand on one leg at a 48 degree angle in the back most corner of your office for the sake of a ten second conversation with your mum.
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.