Tyler August writes that The Masked Bear's open-source wifisense-pi project uses an ESP32-S3 sampling the 2.4 GHz WiFi channel 100 times per second with a Raspberry Pi 4 for signal processing to detect subtle body motions via WiFi disturbances, effectively sensing breathing or presence through walls without dedicated hardware.
- Can detect a perfectly still human by breathing, but presence can be hidden by holding breath
- Single sensor provides no position information and cannot reliably distinguish one vs multiple people
- Works by sniffing existing 2.4 GHz signals and functions through walls
- Not the first WiFi-based presence project; prior work includes ESP32 person sensors and millimeter-wave alternatives
- Can detect a perfectly still human by breathing, but presence can be hidden by holding breath
- Single sensor provides no position information and cannot reliably distinguish one vs multiple people
- Works by sniffing existing 2.4 GHz signals and functions through walls
- Not the first WiFi-based presence project; prior work includes ESP32 person sensors and millimeter-wave alternatives
>"Orange Pi is an open source single-board card computer, a new generation of arm64 development board, which can run operating systems such as Android TV 12, Ubuntu and Debian. The Orange Pi Zero 2w development board uses the Allwinner H618 system-on-chip, and can optionally have 1GB or 1.5GB or 2GB or 4GB LPDDR4 memory."
Getting started with WiFi on Raspberry Pi Pico W board
