Three dominant threads in the discussion
| Theme | What users said | Representative quote |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Technical limits vs. hype | Participants repeatedly pointed out that the reported “image‑like” reconstructions are far from realistic, that the method needs a tightly‑controlled lab setting, and that accuracy drops sharply outside the experiment. | “Resolution and positional accuracy are very poor. It’s more like ‘an approximate bag of water detector’.” – brk |
| “The paper says, in a somewhat contrived scenario, with dozens of labelled walkthroughs per person, they can identify that person from their gait based on CSI and other WiFi information.” – avidiax | ||
| “The results for CSI can also be found in Figure 3. We find that we can identify individuals based on their normal walking style using CSI with high accuracy, here 82.4 % ± 0.62.” – mhitza | ||
| 2. Privacy & surveillance concerns | Many users expressed alarm that Wi‑Fi sensing could be used by ISPs, governments, or private firms to track people’s movements, sleep patterns, or presence without consent. | “It feels rather more than a little bit creepy to realize that Comcast et al, and thus the US government, knows if you’re sleeping and knows if you’re awake.” – fragmede |
| “Modern phones connect with a randomized MAC address. So yes, you can track a person around, but you will need another system (like the Wi‑Fi login page) to match MAC to identity.” – avidiax | ||
| “I wonder how that would be at scale, with a few millions people. I’m don’t think that would remain as accurate.” – elias_t | ||
| 3. Comparison to existing tech & skepticism | Commentators compared Wi‑Fi sensing to cameras, microphones, and existing presence‑detection features, arguing that the hype over “images” is misleading and that the technology is already in commercial products. | “All of these stories using Wi‑Fi to detect things with high accuracy are just extreme machine‑learning demos.” – Aurornis |
| “The devices that reported BFI information were also stationary, and there were no extra devices transmitting information that would be conflicting.” – sponaugle | ||
| “It’s a turnkey function for any modern managed Wi‑Fi system right now.” – josefritzishere |
These three themes—technical feasibility, privacy implications, and the reality versus hype debate—capture the bulk of the conversation.