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This page answers the most common practical questions about WiFi CSI sensing and Wavey. For technical depth, see how it works, the sensing pipeline, the detection ladder, and technical deep-dives.

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WiFi CSI Basics

Measuring how WiFi signals travel across OFDM subcarriers and inferring environmental changes — occupancy, motion, presence — from those measurements. See how it works for the physics.
RSSI is one power number. CSI is amplitude and phase per subcarrier: dozens of measurements per packet. See the glossary.
The WiFi standard amendment for native sensing. It signals that WiFi sensing is becoming a first-class capability.

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Wavey and Hardware

An open-source WiFi CSI sensing system: ESP32 nodes capture CSI, a Python pipeline processes it, and the Console visualizes results. Code at github.com/waveyhq.
CSI-capable ESP32 modules plus a host for the Python pipeline. Any ESP32 family chip works. Details in getting started and the GitHub repo.
Yes. github.com/waveyhq, Discord community, mail@waveyhq.dev.

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Detection Capabilities

Yes: bodies perturb multipath, which shifts CSI amplitude and phase. What you can detect depends on the task; see the detection ladder for feasibility by task type.
Partially. Interior drywall allows zone-level motion detection in adjacent rooms. Concrete and metal block most signal. Precise through-wall mapping is not realistic on commodity hardware.
No. Wavey is device-free: it senses the body’s effect on WiFi, not phones or wearables.
Occupancy and motion are robust with good node placement. Presence and HAR need preprocessing and often per-site tuning. Pose, identity, and headcount are research-frontier tasks.
Not reliably. Multipath superposition from multiple bodies is ambiguous without dense spatial sampling.
Each floor needs its own nodes and baseline. WiFi attenuates heavily through concrete floors.
Occupancy and coarse motion remain strong. Per-person separation and exact counts degrade. See the detection ladder.
CSI can detect periodic chest motion after phase sanitization, but reliability depends on range and environment. Awareness, not medical vitals.
MAC tracking follows device identifiers. Wavey reads CSI: how bodies disturb the signal, producing anonymous occupancy without tracking phones.

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Privacy and Compliance

Wavey captures no images and no device identifiers. It reads radio channel measurements, not appearance or MAC addresses.

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Getting Started

Read how it works, the sensing pipeline, and getting started. Follow the GitHub repo for current setup steps.