[HN Gopher] Inside a $1 radar motion sensor
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Inside a $1 radar motion sensor
        
       Author : nothacking_
       Score  : 559 points
       Date   : 2024-06-30 00:44 UTC (22 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (10maurycy10.github.io)
 (TXT) w3m dump (10maurycy10.github.io)
        
       | transpute wrote:
       | Through-wall 2.4Ghz Wi-Fi CSI radar can be done with $20 ESP32
       | boards, https://github.com/Marsrocky/Awesome-WiFi-CSI-Sensing &
       | https://www.cnx-software.com/2022/08/08/esp-wifi-csi-detects...
       | 
       |  _> Espressif claims it can also capture subtle movements caused
       | by small movements such as breathing and chewing of people or
       | animals in a static environment.. works with all ESP32 series
       | microcontrollers including ESP32, ESP32-S2, and ESP32-C3, and
       | does not require any changes to the hardware_
       | 
       | 2024 AI/NPU laptops with Wi-Fi 7 from Intel and Qualcomm can
       | combine RF radar and on-device inference to identify human
       | activity.
       | 
       | Related:
       | 
       | DIY Radio Telescope: Building a Camera That Can See WiFi (2019)
       | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3LT_b6K0Mc
       | 
       | Wi-Fi devices set to become object sensors by 2024 via IEEE
       | 802.11bf standard (2021),
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40458766
       | 
       | How automotive radar measures the velocity of objects (2024)
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40768959
       | 
       | How Wi-Fi sensing of movement became usable (2024)
       | https://www.technologyreview.com/2024/02/27/1088154/wifi-sen...
        
         | throwup238 wrote:
         | _> chewing of people or animals_
         | 
         | The ESP32 can detect the difference between a cannibal and a
         | vegan?
         | 
         | That's impressive.
        
           | lopis wrote:
           | How can you tell someone is a vegan? Don't worry, this 1$
           | radar motion sensor can tell you.
        
             | silisili wrote:
             | I think you could go cheaper. A sound detection sensor is a
             | bit cheaper, and it just needs to detect the word 'vegan.'
        
               | tstrimple wrote:
               | Strangely enough I've heard far more people make this
               | "joke" than actual vegans speaking up. Even when living
               | in LA.
        
               | stavros wrote:
               | The issue with this joke is that it's 100% confirmation
               | bias. You know that all the vegans tell you they're vegan
               | because you don't know about the ones that didn't.
        
               | LoganDark wrote:
               | I think it's also survivorship bias. All the people who
               | tell you they're vegan being vegan does not mean that all
               | the people who are vegan will tell you they're vegan,
               | just like all the people who won the lottery probably
               | having bought lots of tickets does not mean that buying
               | lots of tickets will win you the lottery.
        
               | stavros wrote:
               | That's what I meant, maybe I used the wrong bias name.
        
               | TeMPOraL wrote:
               | I know this under "selection bias", so now we have three
               | contenders.
               | 
               | Still, I'm not sure if it's a big factor. You likely know
               | who is vegan in your circles, because veganism is unusual
               | enough to be a good topic for gossip, you can easily see
               | it when sharing a meal with someone, and it's also
               | something you'd like to know when inviting people over,
               | if you want to be a good host. So I think a more relevant
               | estimate would be number of vegans you know vs. how many
               | of them announce their veganism at the earliest
               | opportunity.
        
               | LoganDark wrote:
               | I believe survivorship bias is a specific type of
               | selection bias.
        
               | LoganDark wrote:
               | Confirmation bias typically refers to accepting very
               | little evidence or rejecting disproofs. Survivorship bias
               | is the one where you forget to account for the non-
               | survivors of a particular selection criteria.
        
               | marcosdumay wrote:
               | There are people that I discovered were vegans when
               | discussing what to eat. And there are people that loudly
               | announced they'd become vegans without any context.
               | 
               | The later group used to be larger, but I don't remember
               | anybody doing that recently.
        
               | nothacking_ wrote:
               | That's the trick, you invert the logic. If you hear the
               | word vegan, assume the person saying it is not.
        
               | 01100011 wrote:
               | It made more sense 20 years ago when it was more
               | generally true. Veganism seems to have spread beyond the
               | merely self-righteous now. It's a very old joke (possibly
               | from the 90?s).
        
               | NavinF wrote:
               | "Practically everyone knows what veganism is, but vegans
               | are actually a very small minority.
               | 
               | There are more Americans with gambling addictions than
               | there are people committed to vegan diets!"
               | 
               | Chart: https://x.com/cremieuxrecueil/status/1805367282270
               | 433791?s=4...
        
             | the_third_wave wrote:
             | Come on, that's simple, just use voice recognition since
             | the vegan won't stop telling the sensor about it.
        
         | slicktux wrote:
         | Great links! I recall seeing somewhere that AMEX was investing
         | in WiFi object detection...can't remember exactly for what or
         | how...
        
         | t0mas88 wrote:
         | Wifi sensing is interesting, but you can combine a $3 ESP chip
         | with one of these for a much easier project at lower cost:
         | https://www.dfrobot.com/product-2795.html
         | 
         | I use those for presence detection in my house. 3D print a
         | small case and for < $20 you have highly accurate presence
         | detection that also works when sitting still. Ideal for
         | automatic light and climate control.
        
           | stavros wrote:
           | My problem with similar sensors is that they don't work very
           | well if you're sitting still around 3m away. Maybe my sensor
           | isn't great, but when I'm sitting still at the computer, it
           | frequently thinks I'm not there any more, which ruins any
           | benefit.
        
             | squarefoot wrote:
             | Pairing them with PIR detection should help to also detect
             | stationary warm objects.
        
               | stavros wrote:
               | I did pair them, unfortunately PIR sensors are even worse
               | at detecting stationary objects (less sensitive to body
               | micromovements).
        
               | Avamander wrote:
               | It's difficult to find good PIR sensors though. The
               | commonly found cheap modules don't include a thermistor
               | to compensate for room temperature. Finding one with
               | analog output or continuous detection is even more
               | difficult, most detect changes.
        
             | Avamander wrote:
             | There are some that detect heartbeat, I guess those might
             | work. But those are mmWave, not just cheap 2.4GHz radars or
             | PIR.
        
               | stavros wrote:
               | I've got LD2410B, which are mmWave, so they should detect
               | heartbeat (and do), but not from more than 2-3m away.
        
               | transpute wrote:
               | Is the LD2410B sensing range limited by the PCB antenna?
        
               | stavros wrote:
               | I'm not sure, it always just made sense to me that the
               | farther away someone is, the harder it'll be to detect
               | their small movements.
        
               | transpute wrote:
               | Smallness detection depends on RF: higher frequency =
               | shorter wavelength = more resolution for imaging.
               | 
               | Detection range without obstacles depends on transmit
               | power and signal reception.
               | 
               | There are other models in the same family which might
               | have more power/range.
        
             | victorbjorklund wrote:
             | A hack is to put a sensor on the chair
        
               | stavros wrote:
               | Hmmmmm that's not a bad idea, I'll have to see how to do
               | that, though. I don't want cables restricting me.
        
               | swsieber wrote:
               | If your fine with zigbee, I could see having one of these
               | aqara door sensors in the cushion of the seat, triggering
               | to closed when you sit on it:
               | https://cloudfree.shop/product/aqara-door-and-window-
               | sensors...
               | 
               | Seems like it'd be finicky though.
        
               | stavros wrote:
               | Zigbee is great, but my chair has a mesh :/ I'll see if I
               | can print something below, so that the sensor is
               | activated, but yes, it does seem that it would be pretty
               | finicky...
        
               | transpute wrote:
               | Ceiling sensor is another option.
        
               | stavros wrote:
               | For now I've put a mmWave sensor under my desk, which
               | works fairly OK. It's not perfect, but definitely good
               | enough.
        
               | rpgwaiter wrote:
               | You can buy the sensors they use in car seats for like
               | $10 https://a.co/d/0dibAFxc
        
               | mytailorisrich wrote:
               | I solved the issue by linking my lights to a switch that
               | I turn on when needed. It has worked very well so far,
               | with no false detection at all!
        
               | banku_brougham wrote:
               | plz let us know how it goes after sufficient testi g
        
         | 037 wrote:
         | The "Vital Sign Detection & Healthcare"[1] section is very
         | interesting, thank you! I am looking for a way to measure the
         | heartbeat of a single person in a completely non-invasive
         | manner (so without contact) and I see that it can be done with
         | Wi-Fi (2019 Paper [2]). However, I've noticed that there are a
         | lot of methods (video analysis, thermal camera, etc.), but they
         | are hard to find as ready-made products at a reasonable price.
         | The simplest solution is under-mattress sleep trackers, but
         | unfortunately they are not an option for me.
         | 
         | 1. https://github.com/Marsrocky/Awesome-WiFi-CSI-
         | Sensing#vital-...
         | 
         | 2. https://arxiv.org/abs/1908.05108
        
           | amelius wrote:
           | Interesting. I'd be interested in a breathing sensor that can
           | work on someone working at a computer.
        
             | 037 wrote:
             | I'm sure it can be done with a normal camera and enough
             | light, especially with the advancement of AI technologies
             | in recent years. I haven't had time to experiment, but if
             | you have an iPhone, you can try this app [1] I installed
             | yesterday to study its feasibility.
             | 
             | On the homepage, there is a video [2] explaining more as
             | well, and their paper [3].
             | 
             | 1. https://www.rouast.com/vitallens/
             | 
             | 2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0HHjovI8hc
             | 
             | 3. https://arxiv.org/pdf/2312.06892
        
             | transpute wrote:
             | Intel Meteor Lake+ platforms can use NPU for WiFi 7
             | Sensing.
             | 
             | Presence (commercial):
             | https://community.intel.com/t5/Blogs/Tech-
             | Innovation/Client/...
             | 
             | Breathing (research): https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/
             | en/research/respiration...
             | 
             | For older Intel wifi radios, there is custom firmware and
             | many research papers:
             | https://dhalperi.github.io/linux-80211n-csitool/
        
           | transpute wrote:
           | _> measure the heartbeat of a single person in a completely
           | non-invasive manner_
           | 
           | NIST, "Monitoring Respiratory Motion with Wi-Fi CSI" (2022),
           | https://www.nist.gov/news-events/news/2022/12/wi-fi-could-
           | he... & https://doi.org/10.1109/ACCESS.2022.3230003
           | 
           | Google: Nest Hub sleep sensing for one person, with Fitbit
           | Premium, https://www.techradar.com/health-fitness/how-to-
           | track-your-s...
        
         | amelius wrote:
         | These $1 boards also work through walls (I tried this).
        
           | withinboredom wrote:
           | I always go through walls.
           | 
           | -- kool aid man
        
         | roger_ wrote:
         | You can also use a single ESP and your WiFi AP as a source of
         | packets.
        
         | utensil4778 wrote:
         | The gesture recognition sounds incredibly interesting. I work
         | with vision based band tracking, and performance really isn't
         | good enough for my application.
         | 
         | I wonder what kind of resolution you can reasonably achieve? Is
         | it good enough to detect finger pose?
         | 
         | Aside: is there a way around IEEE paywall? I'd really love to
         | read some of these papers
        
       | wisty wrote:
       | Reminds me of the HB100 teardown, but at least this one has an IC
       | to make it more soothing that I don't really understand how it
       | all works. https://www.allaboutcircuits.com/news/teardown-
       | tuesday-hb100...
        
         | metadat wrote:
         | Too fantastic not to submit:
         | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40834960
        
         | transpute wrote:
         | I don't know who designed this, but they were a master of the
         | black art of Radio Frequency waveguide engineering. I am
         | impressed. The PCB, itself, is a major component. Not only for
         | the patch antennas but also several RF filters, the local
         | oscillator, and the mixer are all largely made from peculiarly-
         | shaped PCB tracks. Apart from the PCB, there are only five
         | "components" on the board. Five passive components to implement
         | a Doppler radar module. C'mon. You have to be impressed by
         | that!
        
       | boguscoder wrote:
       | MCU rp2040 from Pi Pico also costs 1$. We really are in great
       | time for affordable hacking
        
         | amelius wrote:
         | Now if only the GHz-range oscilloscopes came down in price ...
        
           | mastax wrote:
           | The competition between Siglent Rigol and Uni-T will most
           | likely drive down the cost. From a high baseline but still.
        
       | robertclaus wrote:
       | I've played with these all the time! Great to know how they work!
        
       | zer00eyz wrote:
       | USB C mm wave "radars" that hook to home automation are a thing.
       | 
       | Priced between 11 and 20 bucks they are fairly feature rich...
       | 
       | If you want to roll your own check out what the folks over at ESP
       | home have going on (google esp home mm wave).
        
         | stavros wrote:
         | The actual component costs about $5, if you want to roll your
         | own with an ESP32.
        
       | mrcsharp wrote:
       | The LD2410 (B) is another option and it operates over UART. It is
       | a bit more expensive ~$5 but has more configuration options.
        
         | stavros wrote:
         | Get the B variant, you can configure it over Bluetooth from
         | your phone. Otherwise it's a huge hassle.
         | 
         | That said, it doesn't work very well for me when sitting still
         | 4-5m away, it thinks I've left.
        
           | amelius wrote:
           | These radars are designed to detect motion, not someone
           | sitting still.
        
             | mianos wrote:
             | Wrong, most of these radars are 24Ghz and specifically
             | designed to detect body micro movements. They specifically
             | give both human 'occupancy' and dynamic ranging
             | information.
             | 
             | I wrote low level drivers for the ESP32 for all the ones I
             | could buy and have tested all of them. The only one that
             | does not try to give a human occupancy position is the car
             | speed sensor.
             | 
             | The ld2450 can track three people at once.
             | 
             | https://github.com/mianos/hk-heltec-radar/tree/main/src
        
               | stavros wrote:
               | This sounds very interesting, how do your drivers work?
               | I'd love to try them out, but there's no documentation.
               | I've made a sensor board with various sensors, I could
               | really use some occupancy detection improvements on the
               | LD2450B.
        
               | mianos wrote:
               | All the boards provided by HiLink have an on board MCU
               | and offer a serial protocol of some sort. I wrote a
               | finite state machine based decoder for each them from the
               | basic info on some documents,random example code and the
               | textual description of the protocol from the aliexpress
               | page. They are all wrapped in an outer state machine that
               | provides entry and exit triggers. If you can read C++ the
               | code is nothing fancy.
               | 
               | I have another more complete project for just the 2450 in
               | another repo for the esp-idf with wifi provisioning and
               | publishes presence to mqtt. I have 3 of these around the
               | house.
        
               | stavros wrote:
               | That's great, I'll have a look, thank you!
        
       | 037 wrote:
       | A little tangential, but are these things safe for humans? I have
       | a couple of LD2410 devices and I'd like to use one of them with
       | ESPHome in the bedroom. I did some research and they seem to be
       | very low power and safe, but you know, before sleeping with a
       | radar pointing at us all night long, I'm looking for as much
       | feedback as possible.
        
         | 05 wrote:
         | Some phones have a SAR of almost 2W/kg, compared to that
         | milliwatts of 10GHz RF are nothing. Not to mention that with
         | standard energy dissipation formula of E~R^(-2) you're getting
         | into microwatts at any practical distance from the antenna.
        
         | t0mas88 wrote:
         | I have these all around the house, but not in the bedrooms. I
         | use weight sensors to detect that someone is in bed and
         | traditional PIR for motion in bedrooms.
         | 
         | Probably overly careful, but I didn't want to point a radar at
         | my sleeping kids (and myself) for 12 hours per day. Similar for
         | the WiFi access point upstairs, it's only in the hallway and
         | not at maximum power.
        
           | 037 wrote:
           | I agree with you, especially regarding children and anyone
           | who hasn't explicitly made this choice, which is why I asked
           | the question. The only thing is, I suspect we get scared by
           | certain words, like "radar" and "microwaves", and then we
           | might spend all day with our heads next to a Wi-Fi router or
           | a phone constantly downloading files on 4G.
           | 
           | For example: maybe the ESP32 transmitting the bed weight
           | exposes us to more danger than the radar sensor (that can
           | also be placed very far from the bed)? Maybe with our
           | smartphones charging on the nightstand too.
           | 
           | I'm not a big fan of fear-based, illogical decisions. But,
           | again, I understand perfectly.
        
           | Avamander wrote:
           | > Probably overly careful, but I didn't want to point a radar
           | at my sleeping kids (and myself) for 12 hours per day.
           | 
           | While I understand the sentiment. It's very very unlikely to
           | be dangerous and there are plenty of other environmental
           | dangers.
           | 
           | The biggest being the sun. But the most common man-made ones
           | are probably auditory. Like toys and TVs being too loud or
           | high-frequency sounds blasted from speakers in malls or under
           | bridges to avoid "loitering."
        
             | davidwritesbugs wrote:
             | Loud toys are definitely dangerous for my children, they
             | make me angry.
        
             | moffkalast wrote:
             | Yeah on one hand you have people afraid of wifi and
             | simultaneously sending their kids to play all day outside
             | in UV index 11 without a hat or sunscreen. Things that are
             | "natural" being inherently safe and anything technological
             | literally death itself.
        
         | perlgeek wrote:
         | Non-ionizing radio waves are generally safe for humans.
         | 
         | The only mechanism besides ionization that could harm humans is
         | through the transfer of lots of power into the human body
         | (think soldiers keeping themselves warm by stepping in front of
         | a radar emitter).
         | 
         | So let's try to do a ballpark estimate of how much that could
         | matter.
         | 
         | I haven't found (from a quick search) any data regarding the
         | transmission power, but the data sheet at
         | https://fcc.report/FCC-ID/2AD56HLK-LD2410B-P/6620025.pdf says
         | the average current consumption is 79mA at 5V, which means it
         | uses 0.4W.
         | 
         | How much of that is actually transmitted? I'd guess 10%-50%
         | (likely much less, but let's go with this more conservative
         | estimate, from a safety perspective), so now we're in the range
         | of 40mW to 200mW.
         | 
         | If you absorb 1/4th of that (again, somewhat conservative
         | estimate; you'll likely also reflect some, and most of it is
         | going to pass you), we're at 10mW to 50mW extra power that is
         | absorbed by your tissue.
         | 
         | Again, this is a super high (and thus for our purpose,
         | conservative) estimate. Somebody else in this thread mentioned
         | microwatts being absorbed, which sounds much more plausible.
         | 
         | To put this into context, the base level of power that an adult
         | human operates on at rest is about 100W. This is a factor of
         | 500 to 2500 more than the power absorbed from our millimeter
         | wave radar. Unless all the absorption happens by a very
         | specific and sensitive part of the body (like your eyes or so),
         | this should just be background noise.
         | 
         | If you want another perspective, you could try to compare it
         | with whatever radiation (both RF and heat) that your phone
         | emits, that you likely carry in your pocket for hours at a
         | time.
        
           | lpcvoid wrote:
           | >soldiers keeping themselves warm by stepping in front of a
           | radar emitter
           | 
           | Holy, did people actually do this? A quick search yielded no
           | results. Not sure if thankful or not.
        
             | simondanerd wrote:
             | Works, it's a weird feeling, speaking from experience. HF
             | antennas can give some respectable burns too.
             | 
             | But the effects are debated and not entirely scientific: ht
             | tps://www.reddit.com/r/army/comments/13r6hod/i_keep_being_.
             | ..
        
             | moffkalast wrote:
             | Weren't microwave ovens invented because someone's
             | chocolate melted in their pocket while operating a radio
             | transmitter? Maybe it's just a lady godiva story since it
             | seems weird that the person wouldn't feel overly hot as
             | well, but maybe.
        
               | marcosdumay wrote:
               | It's a well known story, he was doing maintenance:
               | 
               | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microwave_oven#Discovery
               | 
               | The thing is, you don't need a lot of extra heat to melt
               | a chocolate bar on your pocket. It's perfectly possible
               | that everybody felt hot when working on an active radar,
               | but didn't discuss it or maybe even notice the
               | correlation.
        
               | moffkalast wrote:
               | Oh wow it's even known what brand of a bar it was, funny
               | that.
               | 
               | > The first food deliberately cooked with Spencer's
               | microwave oven was popcorn, and the second was an egg,
               | which exploded in the face of one of the experimenters.
               | 
               | They were having a blast I see.
        
           | wyager wrote:
           | > The only mechanism besides ionization that could harm
           | humans [is heat]
           | 
           | This claim is, IMO, too strong given available evidence.
           | 
           | There are many chemical interactions with characteristic
           | energies well below 1eV, or any reasonable threshold for
           | "ionizing". Photons can couple with these interactions
           | without ionizing anything. 4GHz range is probably fine,
           | because the per photon energy is a small fraction of a mEv,
           | but even then I would not rule out the possibility of
           | multiple photons coupling to a structure without the imparted
           | energy immediately being dispersed as heat.
           | 
           | Any time you have EM with low entropy/etendue, it is always
           | theoretically possible for interactions to occur outside of
           | the thermal regime.
        
       | hippich wrote:
       | Almost not related, but reminded me about recent RC hack I was
       | working on.
       | 
       | I have an driveway alarm from mighty mule, which uses 433Mhz
       | radio powered by two AA batteries to communicate signal from the
       | coil sensor detection sitting next to the driveway to the base
       | station in the house using OOK modulation. The stock PCB antenna
       | was not very good at the distance I had it to work with, so I
       | started experimenting with external antenna. I tried loaded
       | antenna (i think it is what it is called - the one with the coil)
       | and straight piece of wire.
       | 
       | I quickly realized that formula for 1/4 length is more of a
       | starting point, and a lot depends on actual output components of
       | the RC circuit (I have little to no understanding of how all of
       | that works). I tried to cut slightly different sets of wires
       | trying them next to HackRF/PortaPack showing me signal strength
       | in the real time. Basically was eyeballing how strong and clear
       | OOK bursts are, and how well or noisy they sounds through the
       | built-in speaker... (again, I have no idea what I am doing...)
       | 
       | At some point I got tired of cutting wires and soldering them, so
       | I tried to cut slightly longer wire and use thin piece of copper
       | tubing to cover end of the antenna at various depth, hoping to
       | simulate the antenna length changes. But at some point something
       | weird to me happened - when just the tip of the antenna was
       | covered by the tube, signal increased dramatically. I am talking
       | about -55db - -50db to -36db on HackRF at the lowest usable gains
       | settings...
       | 
       | I ended up with the antenna length slightly below 173mm ideal
       | antenna length with a about 5mm-10mm "cap" made of aluminum foil
       | tape (used for air ducts and such) at the very tip of the
       | antenna. I also closed the other end of this wrap (in my
       | imagination so that the signal does not escape this cap???). The
       | cap itself is electrically disconnected from the antenna, it is
       | just that - a cap.
       | 
       | I have no idea why it worked this way. I suspect by adding such a
       | "cap" I modified something related to the capacitance or perhaps
       | there is some resonance thing coming to play - no clue. But it
       | became much more reliable at communicating over the distance I
       | have it installed.
       | 
       | Perhaps someone who knows about such things, might give me a clue
       | what I was dealing with.
       | 
       | Another thing that probably plays a role in this hack - outdoor
       | transmitter is in the plastic box sitting vertically on a pvc
       | pole, with batteries inside the same box. 1/4 straight antenna
       | would not fit into it, but I also did not want to cut a hole at
       | the top of the box to avoid water intrusion, so I pointed it
       | down. But it also means it goes in parallel with the "USB" cable
       | that connects to the coil-sensor next to the driveway. While
       | system is not grounded, I suspect this USB cable is somehow
       | became part of the antenna, since the best signal was when the
       | line of sight between the antenna and base station, the usb cable
       | was right behind the antenna. Distance between the antenna and
       | usb cable running inside PVC pole is probably about 20-30mm.
        
         | aeonik wrote:
         | I need to see a picture, but fyi some of components of an
         | antenna are "electrically" disconnected, but still play a role,
         | wave guides being one example.
         | 
         | Also note, if you are just receiving signals you have more
         | freedom to experiment. Antenna tuning matters a lot more when
         | transmitting (especially at larger powers). (Not implying that
         | it doesn't matter with reception)
        
           | hippich wrote:
           | Just to clarify - I changed transmitters antenna.
        
       | perlgeek wrote:
       | Since the user manual for this sensor mentions security
       | monitoring as a possible application, I'm wondering: is there any
       | simple way to prevent detection from such a mm wave radar?
       | (Assuming for simplicity that we know where it's mounted, and in
       | which direction it's pointing).
        
         | lindboe wrote:
         | Depends on the definition of "simple", imo. The first thing
         | that comes to mind is research into materials with good (tens
         | of dB), wideband absorption in the mmWave bands. It's an area
         | of active research [1] [2] (just a couple articles from a quick
         | google, so caveat emptor).
         | 
         | [1] https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/international-
         | journa...
         | 
         | [2]
         | https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2022/tc/d1tc0...
        
       | Havoc wrote:
       | LD2410 work well too (do by the cable too, they have tiny non-
       | standard pins)
        
       | farceSpherule wrote:
       | You cannot try to rationalize the prices that China charges for
       | goods. Everything is, more or less, state-owned and state-
       | controlled.
       | 
       | If the Chinese government wants to undercut an American product,
       | they will tell the manufacturer to drop the price to X, and the
       | manufacturer will comply.
       | 
       | This also does not take into account Chinese currency
       | manipulation.
       | 
       | Profit or loss be damned.
        
         | marcinzm wrote:
         | Isn't the US basically the same? The US government gives
         | massive subsidies, tax breaks or just has the military buy
         | components for 10x the price (to offset commercial loses and
         | R&D).
        
           | ein0p wrote:
           | And creates regulatory capture for the rest, e.g. healthcare
           | and big pharma ($4T a year), both of which too charge
           | nontrivial multiples of what the rest of the world pays.
        
         | What2159 wrote:
         | You make China sound like a VC,
         | 
         | Uber, AirBNB, etc ran at a loss to try to own the market.
        
           | dclowd9901 wrote:
           | The government also stands to benefit greatly if they throw
           | their weight behind smart ideas, just like VCs. It would be
           | interesting if the government could fund itself with
           | investment.
        
             | marcinzm wrote:
             | VC returns are overall much worse than the S&P 500. The top
             | firms are potentially better but that's a very limited
             | investment pool. Softbank has shown what happens if you try
             | the VC approach with a massive pool. Not good returns. The
             | core value of VC has historically been due to it being
             | uncorrelated with the stock market. That allows it to be a
             | risk hedge for investors. The perception is that it is no
             | longer uncorrelated so even that value is mostly gone.
             | 
             | The US government invests in growing the economy, or tries
             | to, which increase tax revenue which gives the government
             | more money.
             | 
             | edit: Also it's not that top VCs are better at finding
             | investment but rather that their social capital means they
             | provide values to companies beyond the investment money. As
             | a result companies that are doing well which choose to take
             | money from top VCs versus other VCs. As a result the model
             | doesn't scale since there's a limited pool of top companies
             | to invest in.
        
         | Aurornis wrote:
         | The BOM of this circuit really is very minimal because it's a
         | clever circuit.
         | 
         | It's not without flaws (regulatory approval is non-existent for
         | this) but they really did combine some dirt cheap components on
         | to a dirt cheap PCB.
         | 
         | You, too, could assemble this circuit at scale for extremely
         | low prices, no government intervention necessary.
        
       | m3047 wrote:
       | Wiener functions. I love 'em. An analog application too, top
       | secret in WW II. Now also used in handset to eNodeB comms.
        
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