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1Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errors2Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitches3Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problemsWi‑Fi sensing can infer that a room is occupied by measuring how people change wireless signals, even when they are not carrying a phone. It is different from checking whether a known device is connected to your router. To use it reliably, you need a compatible radio, firmware, sensing software, and smart-home integration; careful placement and testing matter as much as the hardware. Start with a low-consequence lighting or climate automation, validate the signal in your own rooms, and treat privacy and identity as separate questions.
What Wi‑Fi sensing actually measures
Wireless signals travel between transmitting and receiving stations. A person entering, leaving, walking through, or remaining in a room changes the signal’s measured characteristics. Sensing algorithms analyze those changes to estimate features such as presence, motion, proximity, range, angle, velocity, or micro-movement.
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IEEE’s 802.11 Working Group describes WLAN sensing as using physical-layer and MAC-layer features of 802.11 stations to obtain measurements about objects in an area of interest. Humans, animals, and homes are among the examples in the Task Group BF scope. NIST’s 2023 description of IEEE 802.11bf covers sensing procedures below 7 GHz, including the 2.4, 5, and 6 GHz bands, and discusses both bistatic and multistatic arrangements.
The result is an inference about an area, not a photograph or a direct reading of a person. A presence event may mean that something is affecting the radio path. It does not automatically say who is there, what they are doing, or whether a particular family member is present.
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Presence, motion, proximity, location, and identity are different outputs
- Motion: detects a change associated with movement. Someone sitting still may not generate a new motion event.
- Presence or occupancy: estimates that a person or object remains in an area. Stationary-presence support depends on the radio, firmware, and algorithm.
- Proximity: estimates nearness to a sensing point rather than a precise room location.
- Localization: estimates position or angle within the coverage area when the system supports those measurements.
- Identity: associates an event with a named person. Wi‑Fi sensing alone does not establish identity.
Do not describe an occupancy result as proof that a specific person is home. Identity-aware automations normally need another signal, such as a known phone or account, and still require testing.
Choose the right presence method before buying hardware
Many smart-home systems use the word presence for different technologies. Decide whether you need environmental occupancy or simply want to know whether a known device is connected.
| Approach | Signal being analyzed | Useful answer | Important limitation |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wi‑Fi sensing | Changes in radio measurements as people or objects affect wireless propagation | Whether an area appears occupied or active; some systems also expose motion, proximity, range, or angle | Requires a compatible sensing implementation and is sensitive to layout, interference, materials, band, and configuration |
| Router client tracking | Whether a known client is associated with the network | Whether a configured phone, tablet, or other device is connected at home | It follows the device, not the person; it can fail when the person leaves the device behind or the device sleeps, disconnects, or uses another network |
| Phone-based tracking | Location information reported by a phone and its app or account | Whether a person carrying the phone is at home or away | It is not room-occupancy sensing and depends on the phone, permissions, battery, and location service |
Home Assistant documents router and phone-based device tracking as separate paths. Those integrations can be the simplest answer to a whole-home “is this known device here?” automation, but they are not equivalent to sensing whether someone is sitting in a particular room.
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A compatible router or development board is only one part of the system. Check all four layers before purchasing anything:
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- Radio hardware: the access point, receiver, or sensor must expose measurements that its sensing software can use.
- Firmware and algorithms: the device must support an occupancy, presence, or motion feature rather than ordinary connectivity alone.
- Integration: the sensing result must be available to your automation platform as an entity, event, API, or Matter-compatible device.
- Deployment fit: the radio arrangement, room layout, operating band, and network topology must suit the area you want to monitor.
A Wi‑Fi 6 or Wi‑Fi 7 label does not prove that sensing is enabled or exposed to consumers. Confirm the exact model, firmware version, supported bands, integration method, and regional availability with the vendor. IEEE standards work defines capabilities and procedures; it does not make every consumer router interoperable with every smart-home platform.
Set up Wi‑Fi sensing with a compatibility-first process
- Define the automation outcome. Write down the area and decision you need: for example, “turn on the hallway lights when the hallway is occupied” or “reduce heating after a room has been empty for a period.” Avoid starting with an identity claim such as “detect Alex.”
- Identify the sensing type. Confirm that the proposed system performs radio-channel or WLAN sensing. If its documentation only lists connected-client information, it is router tracking rather than environmental occupancy sensing.
- Verify the complete device-and-software combination. Check the exact radio model, firmware, sensing package, and smart-home integration together. A sensor that works with one controller may not expose an entity to another. For a Matter-based product, verify which occupancy or motion data the device actually publishes.
- Map the target area. Mark access-point and receiver locations, walls, doors, large furniture, and the normal walking paths. Decide whether you need one room, a corridor, or a larger zone. Do not assume that a placement pattern that works in one floor plan will work in another.
- Follow the maker’s placement and sensitivity guidance. Then account for the variables identified in the Wireless Broadband Alliance’s 2024 residential deployment guidance: access-point placement, network topology, floorplan, sensitivity settings, interference, construction materials, signal propagation, and Wi‑Fi band. Record the initial settings so that later changes are traceable.
- Expose the result to your automation platform. Add the vendor integration or Matter device using the platform’s normal device-setup flow. Confirm that the resulting entity reports the intended state, such as occupied, clear, motion, or presence, rather than merely reporting that the radio is online.
- Start with a reversible automation. Use lighting, a notification, or a modest climate adjustment. Set a conservative clear-timeout if the product offers one. Do not connect an unvalidated signal to locks, alarms, emergency responses, medical decisions, or other safety-critical actions.
- Test normal household behavior. Observe the target room while one person walks in, walks out, sits still, lies down, and moves between rooms. Repeat with doors open and closed, household devices active, and more than one person present. Test both occupied-to-clear and clear-to-occupied transitions.
- Measure false triggers and missed occupancy. Keep a short log of the physical situation and the event reported by the system. Look for triggers caused by activity outside the target area and missed events when someone remains still. No universal accuracy or false-alarm percentage applies across products.
- Tune only documented controls. If the integration exposes sensitivity, zones, confidence, or timeouts, change one setting at a time and repeat the same checks. If those controls are absent, do not invent a threshold in the automation layer that masks unreliable sensing.
- Document the final installation. Note device models, firmware, radio bands, placement, sensitivity, automations, and the date of your last test. This makes it easier to diagnose a change after an access point is moved, a wall is added, or a firmware update arrives.
Placement and household conditions determine the result
Wireless sensing is an environmental measurement. The radio path changes when furniture moves, doors close, people gather, or another access point is added. Building materials and wall construction can attenuate or reflect signals differently, while neighboring networks and household electronics can add interference.
Plan the radio geometry
Follow the product’s instructions for transmitter and receiver separation and orientation. If the system uses multiple stations, treat their topology as part of the sensor rather than as a generic network detail. A room may be easier to classify when a useful path crosses its normal occupancy area; a doorway or open-plan layout may produce events from adjacent spaces.
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Wi‑Fi sensing procedures can involve 2.4, 5, or 6 GHz below 7 GHz, but bands propagate differently through walls and furnishings. Use the band and channel arrangement supported by the product, and retest after changing band selection or access-point placement.
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Expect changes over time
Seasonal furniture, closed doors, a new television, a mesh-node relocation, or a busy neighboring network can alter the signal. Treat a placement change as a new installation: check both stillness and movement before trusting existing automations.
Product and implementation paths
Purpose-built Wi‑Fi occupancy products
TOMMY markets a Wi‑Fi sensing occupancy sensor for Home Assistant and says its ESP32-C5 and ESP32-C6 implementations can detect stationary presence, while older chips detect motion only. The vendor also describes pairing with Apple Home, Google Home, SmartThings, Home Assistant, and other Matter-compatible controllers. These are vendor capability statements, not an independent performance certification. Verify current availability, exact firmware support, controller compatibility, privacy behavior, and performance in your floor plan before relying on the device.
DIY ESP32-C6 development board
An ESP32-C6 development board is a plausible starting point for a technically inclined build because the cited vendor uses ESP32-C6 hardware for stationary-presence sensing. The board itself is not a complete occupancy sensor. You still need suitable firmware, signal processing, a radio arrangement that produces usable measurements, and an integration that publishes a stable presence result to your smart-home platform. A generic board listing should therefore be treated as a component, not as a ready-to-install kit.
Wi‑Fi motion services using existing infrastructure
Cognitive Systems describes a Wi‑Fi Motion platform that can provide motion, presence, and micro-movement insights using existing wireless infrastructure. Treat this as a potential provider path, not a universal feature of ordinary routers. Confirm supported access points, deployment geography, subscription or service requirements, cloud processing, data retention, and the integration available to your controller before committing.
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Router and phone tracking
If your real requirement is “is a known device at home?”, Home Assistant’s router and phone-based tracking integrations may be simpler than sensing. They can be useful for whole-home arrival and departure automations, but they cannot tell you reliably that an unaccompanied person is sitting in a room. A phone left on a charger can produce a home state after its owner leaves, while a person without the configured device may disappear from the tracker.
Privacy and access controls
Radio sensing does not require a camera image of the room, but camera-free does not mean monitoring-free. Before enabling it, establish:
- What measurements leave the sensing device, if any.
- Whether inference runs locally, on a home server, or in a vendor cloud.
- What event history, raw measurements, or derived occupancy states are retained and for how long.
- Which accounts, integrations, and household members can view the data.
- Whether firmware, analytics, or support services transmit information outside your home or region.
Do not infer these properties from a product’s lack of a camera. Read the current privacy and data-processing documentation for the exact implementation, then agree on acceptable rooms, retention, and access with everyone who lives in or visits the home.
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What Wi‑Fi sensing cannot promise
- It does not work with every router. Hardware, firmware, sensing software, and integration support must line up.
- It does not identify people by itself. An occupancy event is not proof of a named individual.
- It is not a reliable mind reader or camera substitute. Radio changes can indicate activity without revealing a person’s thoughts or a complete description of the scene.
- It should not be described as dependable through-wall vision. Propagation through walls depends on materials, geometry, band, and the implementation; consumer behavior is not uniform.
- It has no universal accuracy figure. The reviewed material does not establish a cross-product range, false-positive rate, or adoption statistic.
- Standards do not guarantee interoperability. The Wireless Broadband Alliance has identified technology and interoperability gaps, and proprietary approaches can limit integration and deployment.
Standards and technology maturity
IEEE Task Group BF defines WLAN sensing work around measurements from 802.11 physical and MAC layers, including estimates of range, velocity, angle, and motion. NIST’s 2023 publication presents IEEE 802.11bf as work intended to enhance the standard for sensing applications such as user-presence detection and describes procedures below 7 GHz. The Wireless Broadband Alliance’s 2024 deployment guidance focuses on practical residential variables rather than promising one universal configuration.
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Standards support and vendor implementations continue to evolve. The cited material does not establish the formal publication or ratification status of the complete 802.11bf amendment, nor does it show that arbitrary consumer routers can be mixed and matched. Check the current status and product documentation for the equipment you intend to deploy.
Troubleshoot by symptom
The system never reports presence
- Confirm that the selected device and firmware support environmental sensing rather than only client tracking.
- Check that the sensing integration is enabled and that the automation uses its occupancy or presence entity.
- Review radio placement, obstructions, band selection, and the vendor’s minimum topology requirements.
- Test movement first, then stillness; some hardware reports motion but cannot infer stationary presence.
It reports occupancy after everyone leaves
- Check the clear-timeout and sensitivity settings documented by the product.
- Look for activity in adjacent rooms, open doorways, pets, fans, or other moving objects.
- Repeat the test with doors and household equipment in their normal positions before changing the automation.
It misses someone sitting quietly
- Verify that stationary-presence sensing is supported by the exact chip and firmware. The cited vendor distinguishes newer ESP32-C5/C6 stationary-presence capability from older motion-only chips.
- Review whether the person is outside the strongest sensing path or shielded by furniture.
- Use a longer documented timeout if available, and do not treat a missing motion event as proof that the room is empty.
Results changed after a network update or room rearrangement
- Record what changed: access-point location, mesh topology, channel, band, furniture, doors, or nearby electronics.
- Restore the previous arrangement if possible, or repeat the baseline walk-and-sit tests and retune one variable at a time.
The automation identifies the wrong person
Separate the occupancy signal from identity. Use a known-device or phone signal only for the identity condition, and test cases where the phone is left behind, powered off, or carried by someone else.
When this approach is a good fit
Wi‑Fi sensing is worth considering when you want room-level or area-level occupancy without placing a camera and are willing to validate a product-specific implementation. It is especially attractive for automations that tolerate occasional misses, such as lights, ventilation, or comfort settings.
Choose router or phone tracking when the decision is simply whether a configured device is home and room-level occupancy is unnecessary. Choose a conventional dedicated room sensor when you need a well-defined local trigger and do not want to depend on wireless topology. Whichever method you use, keep safety-critical decisions independent of an unvalidated presence event.
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