Industrial & Energy Physics limit

EmberWatch

Smoke-Blind Fire Watch & Post-Hot-Work Sentinel

People wish WiFi could feel the heat of a fire starting after welding work.

Read the physics limit Open explanatory blueprint See how it works

Readiness Physics limit

Retained for transparency, but blocked from execution because the catalog physics review rejected it.

Evidence Unvalidated concept

An early research proposal with no capability-specific product validation yet.

Runtime family Presence

Calibrated motion and presence score from CSI variance and change statistics.

Why live sensing is unavailable

The core observable - RF scintillation from a hot convective plume - is negligible at cm wavelengths; hot-air density changes produce sub-0.1 degree phase perturbation over indoor paths, far below the CSI noise floor. Smoke being RF-transparent is true but irrelevant when there is no detectable thermal signal. WiFi cannot sense temperature.

Intended capability

Document why this proposed outcome is blocked by the reviewed physics: Detection of incipient fire conditions (thermal plumes, smoldering) during the fire-watch window after welding/hot work, in exactly the conditions where cameras and human watchers fail: smoke, dust, darkness, obstructed bays.

This describes the intended outcome. Readiness is physics limit, evidence is class C, and a catalog mapping or recording is not proof of this outcome at a real site.

Solution blueprint

See the environment before installing it.

This exact kit is one of 191 first-class designs. It includes geometry, objects, nodes, wording, scenarios, installation, limitations, and catalog-bound readiness.

Physics limit

No rendered revision is available yet.

Bundled recording

A related Industrial scene

This is one recorded vertical scenario. It is not separate validation of every capability in the catalog.

01 The physics

A developing heat source drives a buoyant convective plume; the turbulent hot-air column has a refractive-index deficit that fluctuates, producing characteristic low-frequency amplitude scintillation (0.1-10Hz, distinct spectral slope from human motion) on RF paths crossing it. Smoke and dust are RF-transparent, so the observable survives when optics are gone. Meanwhile presence detection confirms whether a human fire-watcher is actually posted.

02 Shared processing path

Path-resolved scintillation spectra (stage 2 on stage-1 separated paths) -> anomaly manifold vs the room's thermal baseline (stage 3) -> RTI localization of the plume column (stage 4). Axis discovery (stage 7): teach the plume axis with a controlled hot plate during commissioning.

This is a capability design path. Components may be shared with other catalog entries; it is not presented as a unique algorithm.

03 Validation plan

Own-hardware: 1-3kW hot plate / heat gun generating plumes between ESP32 nodes in a cluttered workshop, detection latency and false-alarm rate vs HVAC drafts and walking humans as confounders; smoke-machine session to demonstrate camera-failure superiority.

04 Commercial hypothesis

A four-hour automated fire watch after every hot-work permit — sold to the site fire marshal as 'the watcher that sees through smoke.'