World Brief with Zach McCormick

Wifi Tracking Your Movements In-home?

Zach McCormick Season 3 Episode 26

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 Xfinity (whose parent company is Comcast), now offers a service called “WiFi Motion” which allows users (in select areas) to monitor motion inside their home using nothing more than the WiFi signals. 

Functioning like radar, the system depends upon special internet routers which have new high-performance processors.  These powerful chips have the capacity to use AI and machine learning to analyze how the WiFi signals interact when an object moves through them and generate a “motion” warning. 

Currently the tech is not that precise, requires a special WIFI router and it doesn’t work with every set-up. That said,  it’s still fairly new and refinements will undoubtedly happen quickly  as the service matures. 

Generally speaking, WiFi motion tracking has tremendous potential but whether for good or evil has yet to be seen. Legitimate privacy and security concerns clearly exist - for example, will this let governments track citizens in their own homes? Could a hacker gain critical  insight into security measures at a sensitive facility? 

Or will this simply be used to let you know when your Amazon packages have arrived or whether the dog has gotten loose in the front yard. 

What do you think the future of WiFi motion tracking will look like?