WiFi signals can measure heart rate

This Hacker News discussion explores various facets of technology, drawing parallels with science fiction and examining the implications of emerging capabilities. Here's a summary of the key themes:

The Disparity Between Sci-Fi Depictions and Real-World Technology

A recurring theme is the ironic way in which science fiction, particularly Star Trek, often depicts highly advanced technology in specific areas while lagging in others, sometimes even being surpassed by contemporary real-world advancements.

• "Can't help but think of the Star Trek TOS episode where Kirk is accused of murder and they find the 'murder victim' in the ship by identifying and isolating heart beats until we discover he must still be aboard." - freedomben
• "Classic Star Trek (speaking as a fan). They can scan an entire planet to find a lost crew member, but can’t tell how many people are on their own ship. And they have universal audio surveillance on the ship but still have to use wall intercoms." - wrs
• "The Star Trek series require a lot of suspension of disbelief, especially since in the years after it came out real life technology surpassed the stuff depicted in there. Like, in TNG people walking around with glorified e-readers but having to go to the big computer or to ask Alexa things instead of just tapping on their screens." - Cthulhu_
• "My phone can hear me and answer whenever I talk to it, but I still prefer to push a button first (kinda intercom), or even just type :)" - deepsun

The Plausibility and Practicality of Sci-Fi Concepts

Some science fiction concepts that once seemed outlandish are now being reconsidered in light of new technological developments, while others remain firmly in the realm of implausibility.

• "One thing that I feel actually became more believable with new technology is the plot device where only one character can perform a certain task, but then all they really do is tell the computer to do it. For example, in Voyager, they make a big deal about how Harry Kim is the only one who's able to make complex holograms. That originally seemed unrealistic; but now, with the amount of work some people put into prompt engineering for LLMs, it actually seems kind of plausible." - eurleif
• "I mean, they have GRAVITY PLATING. We could many centuries from now have 'warp drive' but GRAVITY PLATING is completely implausible. Yet it makes every episode of each ST series watchable so we just accept 'the future'." - ck2
• "They invented the transporter because they didn’t have the special effects budget to handle landing a ‘spacecraft’ each time on the planet. Gravity plating is pretty mellow hah" - lazide
• "Why is something that applies a roughly uniform downwards force to things in an area above it (or maybe between two plates of it?) implausible. It doesn't come with nearly the same level of implausibility (causality problems) that FTL does IMHO." - gpm

The Appeal and Drawbacks of Physical vs. Touchscreen Interfaces

A debate emerges regarding the merits of physical buttons versus touchscreens, particularly in contexts like driving, with safety and usability being key considerations.

• "Physical buttons are tactile and easier to navigate while driving and thus safer. You don't have to take your eyes off the road and worry about a fussy touchscreen registering your tap. You just feel around for the control and manipulate it." - lo_zamoyski
• "The appeal of a touchscreen is that you can change the interface. It can assume a wide range of control panels, which, in a car, isn't always useful. For functions you need immediately, you can't beat a fixed physical widget." - lo_zamoyski

This leads to a discussion of hybrid or advanced interactive surfaces.

• "Now, what would be interesting is a surface whose physical texture and physical controls could be dynamically changed and reconfigured. So, a flat surface becomes a series of buttons, and then maybe a rotating knob in the next. Perhaps tactile holograms. I don't think something like this could beat physical controls for reliable and lasting function either, however." - lo_zamoyski

Surveillance and Privacy in the Age of Ubiquitous Connectivity

A significant portion of the discussion centers on the increasing capabilities of technologies like Wi-Fi to monitor individuals, leading to strong concerns about privacy and potential misuse.

• "I mean, they have GRAVITY PLATING... Yet it makes every episode of each ST series watchable so we just accept 'the future'." - ck2
• "I mean, they have GRAVITY PLATING, but GRAVITY PLATING is completely implausible" - ck2
• "Yeah, I mean, just the fact that WiFi can essentially 'see' through walls and detect movement/breathing/heartbeat is pretty wild. It's been around for a while in research, but now it's hitting commercial products." - transpute
• "I haven't followed any evolutions in this area, but there's a cool paper from 2014 about using WiFi channel state information to detect 87%(!) of falls in an experimental condition [1]. It's been a while since I read the paper, and I no longer have access, so caveats aplenty, but it's one of those things that pops into my head sometimes and I wonder if it's seen any real-world deployment." - snet0
• "This is all to say 'it doesn't matter if it's ionizing, it still heats things up'." - genewitch
• "It's galling that this press blurb only focuses on happy (supposed) health monitoring benefits, and fails to address the privacy concerns in the slightest. This can be abused in so many ways, like watching how people's heart rates change then watching an add, or browsing a selection of goods in the shop, and making viscerally targeted advertising. Or burglars detecting whether people are at home." - elric
• "Soon we won't just have to worry about unpatched wifi routers being parts of botnes, we'll have to worry about them tracking our locations and excitement levels and selling them off to whoever." - elric
• "Are we sure that the ability to detect a 'heartbeat' via WiFi is safe and a good application for humanity? Or is it just another step towards total surveillance state?" - xorlord
• "I guess it is good to be aware of what’s possible. But all this stuff about using WiFi to measure things about people—it’s a bit creepy, right? I mean, to state the obvious, we (as a society) have got a bunch of poorly patched or corporate controlled WiFi routers attached to the network. What a surveillance catastrophe waiting to happen." - bee_rider
• "I mean, heart rate? Do we have a giant network that can tell where everybody is and whether they are having a strong emotional response to anything?" - bee_rider
• "It's an excellent time to buy your own device for wifi broadcasting and disable any ISP provided broadcasting (or maybe put it in a faraday cage?) - it's relatively simple to set up with off the shelf components though less technically minded people may struggle with it." - munk-a
• "So we can expect that comcast will soon be selling per-household sexual activity rate data to advertisers?" - nullc
• "The RF is used for a lot more than that. The spec was introduced by pagan pedophile snowflakes" - paganpedos
• "When I'm old and going to die, 'in my sleep' would be top of the list of ways I would want to go, (during sex is likely not going to be an option)" - boznz
• "If it’s during sex, would you want your sex partner to also die at the same time? Seems like it would be a troubling experience for the other person." - lotsofpulp
• "Find your target by heartbeat. Fly to heartbeat. End heartbeat. Wake me up when it can find me in the crowd." - MomsAVoxell
• "Tracking people walking through malls. Or even better: tracking everyone in the sidewalk of a NYC street after they commit a crime and where they end up at." - nashashmi
• "I wonder, if this would work with bluetooth, too. Would be nice to hack e.g. the new, cheaper version Pebble watch to measure heart-rate this way." - jijijijij
• "It's a really impressive tech demo but the article is selling it as if this might actually work in the real world and it clearly won't." - IshKebab

The Ethical and Security Ramifications of Advanced Technology

The discussion also touches upon the ethical considerations and potential security implications arising from these technological advancements, particularly concerning data ownership, control, and the possibility of government or corporate misuse.

• "I don’t want the data under my control - I want it under my doctors control. Except if it detects a coming heart attack or such, then notify every emt." - bluGill
• "IF there's something unethical that they choose not to do, you can be sure Sisko is doing it." - protocolture
• "My headcannon for this is that even though it's technically possible, it's so unethical they just choose to never do it." - varenc
• "The mirror universe captain of the Enterprise-C uses that exact functionality, in conjunction with a disintegration beam to quietly disappear problem crew members." - vkou
• "Humans are ethical and behave morally' is a core idea behind every Star Trek episode featuring the Enterprise. Its relentless optimism is almost innocent in nature... DS9 is great because it showed us the darker side of the federation. They can afford to be like this because they've got Space CIA committing atrocities behind the scenes since day one." - matheusmoreira
• "For now" - bookofjoe
• "How thick a concrete wall is needed to stop wifi? Or does the concrete wall contain fine wire mesh?" - transpute
• "If by 'fine' you mean minimum ~10mm rebar then yes" - dilyevsky
• "You can get RF burns from VHF/UHF/microwave frequencies with milliwatts if you somehow short the transmission line across yourself, even though the actual voltage and amperage going across your skin is practically infinitesimal. the amount of contact - if any - needed decreases with the RF power. wifi is 'legal' up to 1W EIRP, which means a unity gain antenna capable device can output 1000mW at the terminal." - genewitch
• "Yes, what do those doctors know anyway... /s" - jacquesm
• "I'll just quit breathin" - 01HNNWZ0MV43FF
• "This is nothing new. Wifi signals have been used to detect objects, people and animals, gait analysis [1], read keystrokes [2], monitor breathing and heart rates [3], 'hear' conversations [4], etc for at least a decade now." - er0k
• "The common retort is 'well, I heard it was being used at .' and a client never contacting me again, which is fine." - genewitch
• "I have a superficial radial artery. You can take my pulse just by looking at the shadow on my wrist moving in the right lighting. Does this have 'harmful effects' on my physiology?" - ceejayoz
• "As far as we know, it really doesn't, at least not at the energy levels used in practice. Blasting 2.4GHz at the same energy levels as a microwave oven would cook your flesh if you were sufficiently close to the emitter. But that doesn't happen." - elric
• "Yes, what do those doctors know anyway... /s" - jacquesm
• "I don’t think having them stand under low flying aircraft is much safer." - _kb
• "The most selfies I've ever taken in a weekend." - bobmcnamara
• "The appeal of a touchscreen is that you can change the interface. It can assume a wide range of control panels, which, in a car, isn't always useful. For functions you need immediately, you can't beat a fixed physical widget." - lo_zamoyski

The Evolution and Application of Sensing Technologies

The discussion touches upon the historical development and potential future applications of sensing technologies, from early sci-fi concepts to cutting-edge Wi-Fi-based environmental and biological monitoring.

• "In new TV series Alien Earth, the low resolution CRT monitors and clunky keyboards aboard interstellar spacecraft really stand out. Presumably it's an homage to the 80s' movies." - lovemenot
• "You can buy them on Aliexpress for $5. YouTube and a cursory google search will give you many many options to choose from for examples and tutorials." - yurishimo
• "But think of how much money they can make by selling your health data to insurance companies!" - wlesieutre
• "So, A flat surface becomes a series of buttons, and then maybe a rotating knob in the next. Perhaps tactile holograms. I don't think something like this could beat physical controls for reliable and lasting function either, however." - lo_zamoyski
• "I can’t tell if this ever became a reality; I know of more modern approaches attempting to use thermal and multi spectral imaging to achieve the same goal." - bri3d
• "But I still prefer to push a button first (kinda intercom), or even just type :)" - deepsun
• "Either Kirk or Spock should have hung for that episode - not for the thing Kirk was on trial for, but for leaving the entire ship unmanned, and for allowing that guy to terminally sabotage it, all to do some theatrics for the judge and jury. That is a criminal level of negligence - surely it was in violation of some minimal crewing requirement for a vessel of that size." - vkou
• "True, the level of and attention to security on the Enterprise-C was shameful. In 'The Conscience of a King' (an excellent episode), one of the traveling actors manages to - not only steal a weapon - presumably from the armory - but also rig it to explode and plant it in the Captain's quarters. Starfleet in that era should have seriously formed an independent, no-bullshit, no-nonsense commission to ask the relevant enlisted and commissioned officers pressing questions, like 'Did you, or did you not leave the hatch coaming on Deck C open, thus allowing an enemy agent access to the arms locker? Are you in collusion with enemy agents?'" - vkou
• "One thing that I feel actually became more believable with new technology is the plot device where only one character can perform a certain task, but then all they really do is tell the computer to do it.... That originally seemed unrealistic; but now, with the amount of work some people put into prompt engineering for LLMs, it actually seems kind of plausible." - eurleif
• "In the new TV show Alien Earth, the low resolution CRT monitors and clunky keyboards aboard interstellar spacecraft really stand out. Presumably it's an homage to the 80s' movies." - lovemenot