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The next big Wi-Fi standard is for sensing, not communication (2021)

staceyoniot.com

101–110 of 235 posts

Re: The next big Wi-Fi standard is for sensing, not communication (2021)

#101
post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't be as negative. Frequently we create the tool in order to kill with it. After that we also use to tool to create. We're equally capable of good and evil and yes, we are frequently good, too.

It's not negative , it's true .

I'd say it's both ways: inventions perceived as positive at first were later used for nefarious things and the technology used to create military technologies found many civilian applications that turned out very beneficial to the society at large.

Over these years I also realized how little you can do to actually stop research, no matter what your opinions of it are. Even if something is officially forbidden, you can be sure someone else works on it if it's interesting enough, so in the end you're at a disadvantage. There are many examples of it nowadays.

Re: The next big Wi-Fi standard is for sensing, not communication (2021)

#102
post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tell us more about the home sensors why ir? And what is the fft data for?

I feed fft data into machine learning system for signal classification. It’s a nice real time system with midrange Xilinx ZynQ SoC. Some Xilinx IP blocks with hand written classification engine. I guess author wants to classify sounds in his environment too.

Correct, the ultimate goal is to perform automatic activity logging.

For example my bathroom has two IR sensors (https://www.amazon.de/dp/B08LBDYPYD), one inside the shower, one outside of it. This lets me log the time and duration of when I take a shower or how often I shave.

It also has an I2S MEMS microphone which collects the data for the FFT where the goal is to replace the IR in the shower with it since the water sound is enough information.

Also temperature and humidity, where the latter also gives a good indication of when I showered and when I forgot to close the window some time after showering.

My bedroom also has the same "setup", where the FFT shows me how big of a problem I have with snoring. Eventually I can add some logic on the server to slightly wake me up if I snore, but currently I'm just logging. The PIR serves as a measurement of how much I'm moving at night without requiring a camera for this. Though I have another ESP32 under my bed fixated at the slatted frame which contains an 9dof-IMU and logs any significant movement which may be related to quality of sleep. Also the magnetic field which is why I have a strong magnet attached to my bed tablet, so I know when it changed position. Even though the tablet knows that itself because it is logging its own accelerometer every minute.

I live alone, so all of this is no problem.

At this point I'm mostly only logging, and only using the shower and bed data to see when I used them, which I can then see in Grafana. I think the data will only gain value when watched over a long time frame.

Re: The next big Wi-Fi standard is for sensing, not communication (2021)

#103
post #82

This is not a future I'd like to see. What bothers me even more, is that if the neighbors above me decide to join an "Apple Security Sensing Program" by toggling it on, it may as well be sensing and logging my activity. Other than that, I do have a lot of ESP32s at my place sensing for activity via IR as well as by creating an FFT-"audio" log. No sound just FFT aggregated over one second, but all these devices store…

I remember when first contactless payment options appeared, many people started buying anti-RFID wallets and bags. I'm not sure if they're still a thing, but the people who need "radio-privacy" will definitely find a way.

Re: The next big Wi-Fi standard is for sensing, not communication (2021)

#104
post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m skeptical there are customers really asking for this.

If there's one thing I learnt the last decade, it's to not underestimate how even the shittiest of tech, like a smart fridge or an iot juice press, will become must-haves for the consuming class. In this case, perhaps it's "find my keys", "alert me when my toddler wakes up", "metaverse body tracking", etc/whatever.

Yeah, I realized we are on a far side of the bridge when I saw how many people in the USA decided to buy their Echos. It is estimated the USA has ca. 140 housing units, and that there are 40 millions of Echos in use now. A device I would refuse to install in my house even if someone paid me a lot for it.

Re: The next big Wi-Fi standard is for sensing, not communication (2021)

#105
post #80
post #2

I don't know. Maybe I'm just getting old. It seems this, like a lot of new tech these days, will end up offering little benefit while providing new malicious capabilities.

It's been the same throughout history. Invent a tool...use it to kill.

...also the other way: a lot of inventions were used in the civil world just after being designed and developed in the military one.

Re: The next big Wi-Fi standard is for sensing, not communication (2021)

#106
This is great because, finally we can start selling ads with verified "proximal views" to advertisers and make more money! In fact we can think of all the wonderful product synergies here. For example, we can increase the number of proximal views by automatically locking the smart lock in their room so they can't get out for the duration of the ad. Or we can lock the doors of our smart cars while the ads are playing, that's up to 6 verified viewers all at once! We can have ad screen on toilet stalls that autoplay when someone s(h)its. Your phone can start playing ads whenever you come near it! The possibilities here are endless

Re: The next big Wi-Fi standard is for sensing, not communication (2021)

#107
post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feed fft data into machine learning system for signal classification. It’s a nice real time system with midrange Xilinx ZynQ SoC. Some Xilinx IP blocks with hand written classification engine. I guess author wants to classify sounds in his environment too.

Correct, the ultimate goal is to perform automatic activity logging. For example my bathroom has two IR sensors ( https://www.amazon.de/dp/B08LBDYPYD ), one inside the shower, one outside of it. This lets me log the time and duration of when I take a shower or how often I shave. It also has an I2S MEMS microphone which collects the data for the FFT where the goal is to replace the IR in the shower with it since the w…

I remember seeing a Hackaday post that uses FFT/spectogram to infer IoT things such as boiling kettle without cameras. Is this related?

Re: The next big Wi-Fi standard is for sensing, not communication (2021)

#108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But tracking your position allows it to give you fast internet access.

I don't need more than a few hundred megabits on the go, thank you very much. If I want to go faster, and Ethernet cable is always a faster solution with less moving parts.

When it comes to consumer gear, modern WiFi equipment is often faster than even Ethernet. I agree with your overall point, though.

Re: The next big Wi-Fi standard is for sensing, not communication (2021)

#109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correct, the ultimate goal is to perform automatic activity logging. For example my bathroom has two IR sensors ( https://www.amazon.de/dp/B08LBDYPYD ), one inside the shower, one outside of it. This lets me log the time and duration of when I take a shower or how often I shave. It also has an I2S MEMS microphone which collects the data for the FFT where the goal is to replace the IR in the shower with it since the w…

I remember seeing a Hackaday post that uses FFT/spectogram to infer IoT things such as boiling kettle without cameras. Is this related?

No, it's not related. I'm trying to get notified when my noodle water has started boiling, but even with an humidity sensor in the kitchen it's pretty hard to tell when it's about to boil, so that the heat can be lowered before it splashes around. And the FFT in the kitchen is somewhat broken so I can't use it, there may be a lot of noise in the mains or something like that. In any case I've planned to replace the setup in the kitchen months ago, but never moved on to doing it.

Re: The next big Wi-Fi standard is for sensing, not communication (2021)

#110

I'm surprised that there's not a single comment here about 802.11ay which is also 60GHz. Each channel on that standard can do something like 40Gbps, which is nuts. From Wikipedia[0]: > The link-rate per stream is 44 Gbit/s, with four streams this goes up to 176 Gbit/s. Yes, it can't penetrate walls, but is huge for point to point communication. Think VR headset bandwidth, file transfers between devices, wireless back…

> It's not just for spying on your cat.

Can we stop downplaying privacy issues please?

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