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The Technology That Seemed Destined to Connect Devices Has Now Gained a New Purpose. Scientists at the University of California Have Shown That Home WiFi Can Monitor Heartbeats with Clinical Precision, Without Relying on Expensive Equipment or Wearable Devices.
Now home Wi-Fi can do more than stream videos. Scientists at the University of California, Santa Cruz, have shown that it can also detect heartbeats. This innovation came with Pulse-Fi, a system that transforms common wireless signals into health monitors.
The researchers proved that a simple Wi-Fi transmitter and receiver can measure heart rate with clinical accuracy. This eliminates the need for smartwatches, chest straps, or hospital machines.
How Pulse-Fi Works
The technology leverages inexpensive hardware already present in homes and offices. Using machine learning algorithms, Pulse-Fi filters environmental noise and detects small changes caused by the heart.
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The tests involved 118 volunteers. In just five seconds, the system measured heartbeats with an error of half a point per minute. Longer monitoring increased the precision, even with people sitting, lying down, standing, or walking.
According to the engineers, commercial routers could enhance performance. Even ESP32 chips, which cost between US$ 5 and US$ 10, and Raspberry Pi boards costing US$ 30 were enough to achieve reliable results.
Wi-Fi with Beat
Heart rate is one of the most basic measures of health. It indicates levels of stress, hydration, and even fitness. Usually, it requires dedicated devices to be monitored. Pulse-Fi suggests that common routers could discreetly take on this role.
“We showed that this can work in normal environments, without special adjustments,” said Nayan Bhatia, a PhD student and one of the project leaders. Computer science professor Katia Obraczka coordinated the research.
Second Life for Wireless Signals
The principle is simple: radio frequency waves change as they pass through the human body. Each heartbeat generates small variations in these signals. The algorithms learned to identify this pattern by training with data from traditional oximeters.
To build the database, researchers set up experiments in the university’s Science and Engineering library. They compared Wi-Fi fluctuations with real measurements and taught the neural network to relate the two.
The team also validated the method with data collected by Brazilian scientists who used Raspberry Pi. This comparison confirmed the accuracy achieved by Pulse-Fi.
Beyond Heart Rate
The engineers are already working to make the system also track respiration. This could help diagnose issues such as sleep apnea. The initial results, still unpublished, are considered promising.
Another important discovery was the distance. Pulse-Fi managed to measure heartbeats accurately up to three meters away. Unlike previous methods, performance did not decline when the volunteer moved away from the router.
“What we saw was that distance made no difference, which was a challenge for other approaches,” said high school student Pranay Kocheta, who participated in the project through a science internship.
International Recognition
The results were presented at the IEEE International Conference on Distributed Computing in Smart Systems and the Internet of Things (DCOSS-IoT) in 2025. The event brought together cutting-edge research in the connectivity sector.
With the publication, Pulse-Fi enters the debate on how wireless networks can be used beyond the internet. The proposal indicates a future where the same network connecting computers and mobile phones also monitors people’s health.
The study shows that invisible signals can gain new functions. Wi-Fi, present in almost every home, now also pulses along with the heart.
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