> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.waveyhq.dev/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Frequently Asked Questions About Wavey and WiFi CSI

> Practical questions on hardware, detection accuracy, privacy, and getting started with Wavey WiFi CSI sensing.

This page answers the most common practical questions about WiFi CSI sensing and Wavey. For technical depth, see [how it works](/concepts/how-it-works), the [sensing pipeline](/concepts/sensing-pipeline), the [detection ladder](/concepts/detection-ladder), and [technical deep-dives](/posts/introduction-to-wifi-csi).

## WiFi CSI Basics

<Accordion title="What is WiFi CSI sensing?">
  Measuring how WiFi signals travel across OFDM subcarriers and inferring environmental changes — occupancy, motion, presence — from those measurements. See [how it works](/concepts/how-it-works) for the physics.
</Accordion>

<Accordion title="What is the difference between CSI and RSSI?">
  RSSI is one power number. CSI is amplitude and phase per subcarrier: dozens of measurements per packet. See the [glossary](/reference/glossary).
</Accordion>

<Accordion title="What is IEEE 802.11bf?">
  The WiFi standard amendment for native sensing. It signals that WiFi sensing is becoming a first-class capability.
</Accordion>

## Wavey and Hardware

<Accordion title="What is Wavey?">
  An open-source WiFi CSI sensing system: ESP32 nodes capture CSI, a Python pipeline processes it, and the Console visualizes results. Code at github.com/waveyhq.
</Accordion>

<Accordion title="What hardware do I need?">
  CSI-capable ESP32 modules plus a host for the Python pipeline. Any ESP32 family chip works. Details in [getting started](/getting-started) and the GitHub repo.
</Accordion>

<Accordion title="Is Wavey open source?">
  Yes. github.com/waveyhq, Discord community, [mail@waveyhq.dev](mailto:mail@waveyhq.dev).
</Accordion>

## Detection Capabilities

<Accordion title="Can WiFi really detect people without a camera?">
  Yes: bodies perturb multipath, which shifts CSI amplitude and phase. What you can detect depends on the task; see the [detection ladder](/concepts/detection-ladder) for feasibility by task type.
</Accordion>

<Accordion title="Does WiFi sensing work through walls?">
  Partially. Interior drywall allows zone-level motion detection in adjacent rooms. Concrete and metal block most signal. Precise through-wall mapping is not realistic on commodity hardware.
</Accordion>

<Accordion title="Does the person need to carry a device?">
  No. Wavey is device-free: it senses the body's effect on WiFi, not phones or wearables.
</Accordion>

<Accordion title="How accurate is WiFi CSI sensing?">
  Occupancy and motion are robust with good node placement. Presence and HAR need preprocessing and often per-site tuning. Pose, identity, and headcount are research-frontier tasks.
</Accordion>

<Accordion title="Can Wavey tell multiple people apart?">
  Not reliably. Multipath superposition from multiple bodies is ambiguous without dense spatial sampling.
</Accordion>

<Accordion title="How does Wavey handle multiple floors?">
  Each floor needs its own nodes and baseline. WiFi attenuates heavily through concrete floors.
</Accordion>

<Accordion title="What about busy or crowded spaces?">
  Occupancy and coarse motion remain strong. Per-person separation and exact counts degrade. See the [detection ladder](/concepts/detection-ladder).
</Accordion>

<Accordion title="Can WiFi sensing measure breathing?">
  CSI can detect periodic chest motion after phase sanitization, but reliability depends on range and environment. Awareness, not medical vitals.
</Accordion>

<Accordion title="How is this different from WiFi MAC tracking?">
  MAC tracking follows device identifiers. Wavey reads CSI: how bodies disturb the signal, producing anonymous occupancy without tracking phones.
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## Privacy and Compliance

<Accordion title="Is WiFi CSI sensing private?">
  Wavey captures no images and no device identifiers. It reads radio channel measurements, not appearance or MAC addresses.
</Accordion>

## Getting Started

<Accordion title="How do I get started?">
  Read [how it works](/concepts/how-it-works), the [sensing pipeline](/concepts/sensing-pipeline), and [getting started](/getting-started). Follow the GitHub repo for current setup steps.
</Accordion>