I came across this article tonight which shows a proof of concept system that can allow you to control devices in your home based on body movement and gestures that are detected by wireless client devices working in conjunction with wireless access points. The main project site is found here and is called WiSee. Here is the video showing the technology:
This is a really neat idea! As I was watching the video, I couldn’t help but remember a presentation I was fortunate enough to attend at Ruckus Wireless’ headquarters as part of Wireless Field Day 2 in January of 2012. Victor Shtrom and GT Hill gave a presentation on the RF side of wireless that was fantastic. I highly recommend watching the ENTIRE presentation, but I wanted to point out a specific part of the presentation where Victor talks about how our movements around a room affect the RF pattern. His presentation helped me wrap my head around the RF side of Wi-Fi in a way that nothing else ever did. Configuring hardware for Wi-Fi is one thing. It is an entirely different thing to actually understand the RF aspect.
The link to the part of the presentation I wanted to focus on is here. Or, if you want to watch the entire presentation, it is shown below. The part to focus on begins at 4:19.
I hope it helps you as much as it did me in terms of understanding the physical layer aspect of Wi-Fi!