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I've been following and building mmWave radar stuff for a little over a year now and I wanted to write an intro to help anyone get up to speed on how it works,

by hornej 5y ago

I've been following and building mmWave radar stuff for a little over a year now and I wanted to write an intro to help anyone get up to speed on how it works, why it's special, and what's been happening in the space.

synthos 5y ago
How is the power consumption? Is it sensitive to noise or interference? The VR headset application appeals to me. If headsets could be dumb terminals they would be a lot lighter and untethered wouldn't suffer from performance loss.
- hornej 5y ago
  Power consumption for radar can get down to around 0.5mW (edit) But I imagine for 60GHz WiFi it's probably pretty power hungry. At this point there's not much noise in the mmWave spectrum (it won't be competing with 2.4GHz and 5GHz anyways). And mmWave doesn't travel that far which is one of the main reasons the FCC unlicensed it in the first place. Might be worth keeping an eye on UWB for AR/VR headsets https://www.embedded.com/wireless-transceivers-use-uwb-for-low-power-low-latency-data-transfer/ https://www.embedded.com/wireless-transceivers-use-uwb-for-l...
  - BenjiWiebe 5y ago
    Checking some point to point wireless radios and it doesn't look like 60Ghz needs much more power. Well, it might be a few times as much, but definitely the same order of magnitude.
mateo1 5y ago
Please write up how to make a simple passive detector so people can have a chance to know if they are being tracked. This is going to be in every home in 10 years embedded in phones, TVs, smart speakers. All public venues. Trams, buses, subways. Everywhere. But most importantly homes. Every. Single. Person. 24/7. Breathing rate. Abnormal motions. Current location. Current activity. Maybe, just maybe if we raise a some awareness we can curb the proliferation a bit. Surely I can't be the only one who sees this as a nightmare.
- nexuist 5y ago
  How is this any worse than smartphone tracking today? What does it matter if I buy technology that tracks me because I feel like it'd be useful to me?
- vasco 5y ago
  If it's going everywhere, making a detector won't be very useful. Perhaps a jammer / shield.
hooande 5y ago
great article, I really appreciate it! sorry that the knuckleheads here got caught up on privacy instead of discussing this interesting technology

by hornej 5y ago

synthos 5y ago

How is the power consumption? Is it sensitive to noise or interference? The VR headset application appeals to me. If headsets could be dumb terminals they would be a lot lighter and untethered wouldn't suffer from performance loss.

hornej 5y ago
Power consumption for radar can get down to around 0.5mW (edit) But I imagine for 60GHz WiFi it's probably pretty power hungry. At this point there's not much noise in the mmWave spectrum (it won't be competing with 2.4GHz and 5GHz anyways). And mmWave doesn't travel that far which is one of the main reasons the FCC unlicensed it in the first place. Might be worth keeping an eye on UWB for AR/VR headsets https://www.embedded.com/wireless-transceivers-use-uwb-for-low-power-low-latency-data-transfer/ https://www.embedded.com/wireless-transceivers-use-uwb-for-l...
- BenjiWiebe 5y ago
  Checking some point to point wireless radios and it doesn't look like 60Ghz needs much more power. Well, it might be a few times as much, but definitely the same order of magnitude.

mateo1 5y ago

Please write up how to make a simple passive detector so people can have a chance to know if they are being tracked. This is going to be in every home in 10 years embedded in phones, TVs, smart speakers. All public venues. Trams, buses, subways. Everywhere. But most importantly homes. Every. Single. Person. 24/7. Breathing rate. Abnormal motions. Current location. Current activity. Maybe, just maybe if we raise a some awareness we can curb the proliferation a bit. Surely I can't be the only one who sees this as a nightmare.

nexuist 5y ago
How is this any worse than smartphone tracking today? What does it matter if I buy technology that tracks me because I feel like it'd be useful to me?
vasco 5y ago
If it's going everywhere, making a detector won't be very useful. Perhaps a jammer / shield.

hooande 5y ago

great article, I really appreciate it! sorry that the knuckleheads here got caught up on privacy instead of discussing this interesting technology