Imagine this: your Wi-Fi router knows when you have fallen down the stairs, whether you are having trouble breathing, and exactly how many times you have visited the loo today.
It can also detect when your teenager is sneaking out at night and monitor your elderly parent's daily routine from across the country. Most unsettling of all, it can do this through walls, in complete darkness, and without your knowledge.
Welcome to Wi-Fi sensing, a technology that is about to transform every wireless device in your home into a sophisticated surveillance system.
From communication to surveillance
Twenty-five years ago, Steve Jobs waved an Apple laptop through a hula hoop, while streaming a film wirelessly during a presentation, and just like that, Wi-Fi was ‘born’. Now, those same invisible signals are about to become invisible eyes, watching our every move.
The technology builds on a simple principle: Wi-Fi signals bounce around rooms like an invisible octopus with tentacles reaching everywhere. When you walk through your living room, you are disrupting these signals in unique ways. Advanced algorithms analyse these disruptions to create a representation of your movements, turning your home's Wi-Fi into a motion detection system.
The same distorted channel state information read from the Wi-Fi router has also been integrated into Facebook’s OpenSource DensePose software by certain universities to create estimates of human pose in a wireframe-like image.
But this is not just about knowing someone's in the room. Technology developed at MIT in the United States monitors breathing patterns by detecting tiny chest movements, recognises specific gestures for smart home control, and even distinguishes between different people based on their gait and body shape.
The business case for digital snooping
The wireless industry is salivating over the commercial possibilities. IEEE 802.11bf – the specification that enables Wi-Fi sensing to become ubiquitous – requires no additional hardware, as the sensing software is loaded into the router via the OpenSync platform and managed in the cloud. Your existing router, smart TV, or even your WiFi-enabled kettle can become sensing nodes in an invisible surveillance network.
ISPs will be able to simply push a software update and offer premium ‘safety and security’ services. This could then enable ‘value-add’ services, such as monitoring elderly relatives for falls, child safety, and home security motion detection. It is brilliant: take infrastructure customers who have already paid for it, add cloud-based AI magic, and charge monthly fees for services that cost virtually nothing to deliver.
The privacy nightmare
Wi-Fi 7's rollout is laying the groundwork for this sensing revolution. Its party trick is using all frequency bands simultaneously, rather than hopping between them – much like having multiple conversations at once, rather than taking turns. It can even perform ‘channel puncturing,’ identifying interference and working around it. This will provide far superior sensing, but the reality is that basic WiFi sensing can already be achieved with Wi-Fi 5.
These improvements enable high-quality, low-latency connections, making real-time sensing applications possible. When your router processes signals from multiple bands simultaneously with minimal delay, it becomes far more capable of detecting subtle environmental changes.
Here is where things get creepy. This technology works through walls. Your neighbour's Wi-Fi signals are already penetrating your home, bouncing around your bedroom, and returning with information about your activities. With Wi-Fi sensing enabled, they could potentially monitor your movements, sleep patterns, and even your breathing.
What is particularly unsettling is how this democratises surveillance capabilities once exclusive to law enforcement. Previously, seeing through walls required expensive thermal imaging or ground-penetrating radar. Now, any tech-savvy individual with a standard router could potentially monitor their neighbours. For this reason, the commercial solutions available today only offer basic motion detection, not imaging.
At WAPALOZA 2025, we demonstrated this live, using a volunteer and a standard Wi-Fi 5 connection in my hotel room. We showed the audience how the technology detected someone ‘breaking in’ as soon as the network registered their movement.
Consider the data this could collect; when you wake up, bathroom duration, exercise habits, guest visits, and work schedules. This creates a comprehensive profile of your daily life, invaluable to marketers, insurers, or anyone willing to pay. The implications for domestic abuse, stalking, or voyeurism are chilling.
The road ahead
The IEEE 802.11bf standard will be finalised imminently, with mass market adoption following soon after. Unlike previous Wi-Fi upgrades requiring new hardware, sensing capabilities can be added through software updates to OpenSync-enabled routers. This means silent deployment without consumers realising their devices gained surveillance capabilities.
The industry is positioning Wi-Fi sensing as a safety and convenience technology, helping elderly people live independently, protecting children, and providing family peace of mind. These are compelling use cases that many will genuinely value.
We are entering uncharted territory regarding digital privacy and consent. When your internet connection monitors breathing, tracks movements, and potentially identifies activities, the line between helpful technology and invasive surveillance blurs.
As we stand on the brink of ambient surveillance, one thing is certain; the Wi-Fi router humming in your living room is about to become far more than an internet gateway. The question is: who will be watching?
For more information, go to wapa.org.za/
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