Wi-fi signal tracks heartbeat without wearables
spectrum.ieee.org
spectrum.ieee.org
If you want more information about this whole thing as an engineering project, check this comment from a few years back with lots of links: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22480444
You would get uncomfortable seeing an IEEE 802.11dp that's able determine if you're wearing an underwear that day, but they are going in that direction.
IEEE has a whole working group for standards around this stuff: https://signalprocessingsociety.org/community-involvement/in...
Here's a paper about related standards: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/11142711
The paradigm itself goes back decades now. It used to be called "joint communication and sensing" in the 00s, and then it was called "integrated sensing and communications".
Is it? You require any wireless device to have open source firmware and then people can a) inspect what the existing firmware is doing and b) replace it if it's doing anything they don't want it to.
It's a matter of replacing the existing obscurity-focused laws discouraging them from doing this with the security-focused ones that require them to.
The benefits in terms of right-to-repair and ability to patch vulnerabilities in devices the OEM has abandoned redound on top of this.
That said, wireless devices are basically "light bulbs" in whatever spectrum they operate in. It's very hard to restrict people from driving by with a "camera". I believe these kinds of applications are called "passive" in the literature, and 5G is especially designed with this in mind. WiFi has been known to be good for this for a while.
In order to facilitate more privacy preserving communications that are less sensing friendly we would need highly directed packets using stuff like microwave lasers etc., so as to reduce the ambient radiation.
Restricting someone from having a device that can do that is basically a lost cause. Anyone could make one using a variety of existing commodity equipment or use SDR with multiple antennas. It doesn't matter what some future Wi-Fi device does in that respect because if it's their device they can do whatever they want. If that's your threat model you either need a law that bans them from doing that or a Faraday cage around your building.
2023, https://www.policemag.com/technology/article/15541542/first-...
> “Once you place it against the wall, it takes one scan to show you where everything is, then over time anything that moves will pop up.. It can detect someone moving through the room or someone sitting on the couch and breathing. The small movements of breathing are enough for the radar to discriminate between the couch and the person.”
2015, https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2015/01/19/police-radar-...'
> At least 50 U.S. law enforcement agencies have secretly equipped their officers with radar devices that allow them to effectively peer through the walls of houses to see whether anyone is inside.. The radars were first designed for use in Iraq and Afghanistan. They represent the latest example of battlefield technology finding its way home to civilian policing and bringing complex legal questions with it.
A lot of spaces you assumed were private are no longer so.
https://hackaday.io/project/204077-measuring-heart-rate-usin...
Like ages ago it was going to be Intels docking station standard (WiGig). It died, companies like IgniteNet bought up all the Dell wigig chips, and used them to prototype P2P wireless radios, ultimately building out a new class of metro p2p wireless used by every major vendor. Then it became a component of 5G, mostly used for backhaul but still capable in a lot of Massive MIMO handsets. Some handsets trialling it for in home wifi. And now the chips are probably going back into your laptops/Homes to detect your biometrics.
Intel laptop demo (shipping since 2023), https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45127983#45130061
WiFi signals can measure heart rate - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45127983 - Sept 2025 (262 comments)
opens article
> First, the researchers had seven volunteers sit in a chair at various distances of 1, 2, and 3 meters from two ESP32 microcontrollers that used Pulse-Fi to estimate the volunteers’ heart rates
Yup
Non-intrusive technology which can work at home to monitor people' vitals is a game changer, there are so many applications to this. Research is at the beginning.
Indeed there are privacy issues with big providers doing this, but then this really opens up so many possibilities if done well.
Radar technology isn't some kind of forbidden magic. Can you do radar sensing with 2.4GHz? Yes, absolutely. Now, can you do it well, with an off-the-shelf Wi-Fi chipset, and get down to heartbeat monitoring? Only if the chipset was designed for it. Very few existing chipsets are. Still a new experimental thing.
For practical applications today, I would look instead at things like dedicated mmWave 24GHz radar chips instead - they're getting cheap now. For the future? If chip vendors that ship the usual 2.4GHz/5GHz MIMO router chipsets start putting the relevant features in, the idea would be worth visiting.
If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. They're here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
And if they offer you enough money to acquire the company, you'll take it, because if not you then someone else will do it. Humanity is not in fact crying out for a better panopticon.
Checking if your phone is attached to their router is much less signal processing!
I assume some places already use thermal cameras to detect people who are sweating profusely.
Using both together might be a decent way of flagging people who might otherwise slip through security.
Of course there would be many false positives, so it wouldn't be good enough on its own.
Edit: after looking through the rest of the thread, it appears that you are. Happy Saturday I guess.
Your claims made very little sense. In my view, this potential new technology in no way increases the power of security personnel beyond what they already posses.
Today you’re among the people to avoid searching; tomorrow, well… maybe you’ll have a reason to be nervous.
What do you even mean here? Seems entirely incoherent.
Oh good lord. Now it's no longer even "have you read a history book on the 20th century?" anymore, it's "have you been paying attention to the world for the past 15 years?".
Spare me the hysterics and the insults. What exactly is your claim?
That body cavity searches have increased rapidly over the last 15 years? That it's a common occurrence? That security personnel actually has an incentive to do them more rather than less?
Give me the books you read and sources you read that support your claim. I doubt they exist. I suspect you're going off "vibes" here, but I'll gladly read them if you can cite them.
I think it's plain enough. That giving the state security apparatus more tools to arbitrarily harass people at their discretion is a Bad Idea™.
> That security personnel actually has an incentive to do them more rather than less?
I have absolutely no idea where you're going with this or what makes you believe this is how the world works. Are you from the US? Certain "security personnel" have been working overtime since the start of the current presidency as I'm sure you're aware... And again: picking up a history book will lead you to realise how mistaken your quaint belief is ("incentive to work less"?).
Measuring heart rate, using a computer which can log its data, is the exact opposite of arbitrary. It's an objective measurement. You don't seem to understand the words that you're using.
Are you somehow unaware of the fact that security personnel, for example TSA at airports, are already empowered to use their own discretion in deciding that particular people seem to merit extra scrutiny?
Any TSA officer can flag any person as suspicious for almost any reason. They don't abuse this power generally because they have very little incentive to and there are checks on it.
> I have absolutely no idea where you're going with this or what makes you believe this is how the world works.
Do you think TSA officers are incentivized to do more or fewer body cavity searches? Do you think they get bonuses for doing them? It's beyond ridiculous that you can't keep your argument straight and have to reference Trump in the context of a discussion about secure environment screening technology.
> And again: picking up a history book will lead you to realise how mistaken your quaint belief is ("incentive to work less"?).
I've almost certainly read far more than you on history and law. I'm likely more experienced, well traveled, and much more concerned about actual infringement on liberties.
Which, I'd argue, is why I'm less concerned about this technology than you. I know what kinds of things actually infringe on people's liberties.
Your weak attempts to talk down to me, while at alluding to non-specific events in history, would embarrass you if you knew enough to be embarrassed.
> Measuring heart rate, using a computer which can log its data, is the exact opposite of arbitrary. It's an objective measurement. You don't seem to understand the words that you're using.
There is NO correlation between that measurement and criminal activity, that's the point. It's NOT OBJECTIVE like a polygraph test is not objective even though it's recording objective measurements. This would be just a tool for the state apparatus to harass arbitrary citizens with a veil of plausible deniability ("ah but my sensor says you're nervous, what are you hiding citizen??"). I would also do well without the condescending attitude tyvm.
> Do you think they get bonuses for doing them? It's beyond ridiculous that you can't keep your argument straight
Did ICE need bonuses to ramp up their actions over the past 9 months? Did the SS need bonuses, did the Stasi, the NKVD, any of the repressive apparatus of any totalitarian regime of the 20th century? Jesus h christ.
> I've almost certainly read far more than you on history and law. I'm likely more experienced, well traveled, and much more concerned about actual infringement on liberties.
> Your weak attempts to talk down to me, while at alluding to non-specific events in history, would embarrass you if you knew enough to be embarrassed.
Ahaha okay this is one step below a navy seals copypasta, so let's leave it at this. Enjoy your weekend!
Hysterical slipper slope nonsense.
Using RF to passively detect someone's heart rate at close range is objectively less intrusive than cameras are.
Google even ships it in some Nest displays for sleep tracking...
A good security system will use multiple signals to filter out false-positives.
It's like me telling you: With using just audio I can trace your exact coordinates! ... By using an array of microphones in a room.