Low cost mmWave 60GHz radar sensor for advanced sensing
25 comments
·July 24, 2025scoreandmore
I’ve played around with this (the KIT-CSK-BGT60TR13C). It is a very interesting gadget and the kit doesn’t need much configuration. In an afternoon I made a car detector for my bike that detects the presence of an approaching car from behind. I thought I had a winning startup idea then found out this idea has existed for years. :(
purpleidea
I'd like to know about this product, got more info? Not a bot, just a cyclist who's fed up of drivers who don't care about my safety.
blutack
Garmin do one called Varia
ivape
Those implementations might still suck.
thebruce87m
They don’t suck. The Garmin one is also a rear light. It integrates with the bike computer to show detections.
When a car approaches from behind you get a visualisation on the bike computer showing you how far away the car is and an audio alert. If the car is approaching fast you get a different audio alert and the light flashes differently to warn the approaching car. It also detects up to three cars.
There might be improvements to be had but the implementation is pretty solid.
ivape
Ah. The Garmin Varia looks like it’s $200-300. Would be hard to go up against a brand like that, but wonder if you could compete on cost. The margins look great.
Animats
What's cute about this is how far they went to make hobbyists happy. There's a way to connect it to Bluetooth and WiFi, and an Android app. There's compatibility with some Adafruit products. That's unusual for IC data sheets.
This is a phased array device. Angular resolution 20 degrees, range resolution 1 meter. It's not a Doppler radar, so it can detect fixed objects. So if you're using it for people detection, you have to tell it where the fixed objects are. A ceiling mounted unit will see the floor. OK for people counting and such. Range is only 10 meters.
If you just want a motion detector to turn on a light, and IR isn't working for you, there are cheaper microwave detectors.
Liftyee
Pleasantly surprised to see electronics parts manufacturers on front page HN. The advancement of sensors nowadays is staggering - I'm reminded of the recent airborne dust sensor that's literally orders of magnitude smaller because it uses a new backscatter detection mechanism. All this technology available at very reasonable prices too.
monksy
It is nice to see more technically oriented things on the main page. It is frustrating to see very high level more businessy topics.
integricho
And webtech topics are equally boring and/or frustrating.
0_____0
It is fascinating to me how 'hackers' went from being people who operated at the margins of established technology (2600, Capn Crunch anyone?), to being the literal establishment, in the sense that probably a good chunk of the 'hackers' here work at one of the big 5 or plausibly could.
transpute
"What Is mmWave Radar?: Everything You Need to Know About FMCW" (2022), 30 comments, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35312351
"Inside a $1 radar motion sensor" (2024), 100 comments, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40834349
"WhoFi: Deep Person Re-Identification via Wi-Fi Channel Signal Encoding" (2025), https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44685869
actinium226
Feels like various companies have tried sticking this in smartphones and no one has yet found a use for it. At least in the smartphone form factor.
reflexe
Tie that chip to a beamformer (silicon labs have a few) and you have a phased array radar, which is a radar that does not move at all (pretty cool in my opinion)
Also, 15usd is not cheap for this kind of chip. You can buy a full wifi 7 rf/modem or a 4 core arm64 soc with this kind of money.
therein
Interesting that it happens to be the harmonic frequency of oxygen. For these power levels it is probably fine but something to keep in mind.
isopede
That band is often chosen _because_ of the absorption band of oxygen. Significant attenuation at those frequencies means it limits range, allowing for higher frequency reuse and less interference over a greater area.
parsimo2010
If you’re worried about things exploding or something, don’t worry. Unless you were exciting a fuel/air mixture up to the combustion point you have nothing to worry about. So that would take a deliberate change to the chemical makeup of the air and much much much higher transmit power levels.
But I guess you should be careful if you are trying to modify this into an RF pulse welder and someone left their cutting torch gas cylinders venting nearby. </s>
transcriptase
“Quick! How can we use this to gather data for ad targeting?”
belZaah
Amazon with all its power and incentive still can’t figure out there’s a limited number of toilet seats I might need. Linkedin is still offering me (50ish male, 30+ years in it, 15+ years of teaching in universities, board member etc) jobs as a kindergarten teacher. If anything, I’m amazed they are still so bad at this.
actinium226
Don't worry, with the new AI tools they're going to get a lot worse
NitpickLawyer
Heh, people detection, gaze detection and people hotspots detection (i.e. where people mostly stand, say at an intersection) have been a thing for 15-20 years now, I consulted on such a project in the 2000s, using simple mobile cameras that were placed in a van, the van moved, and they'd make "maps" and sell that data to advertisers who chose where to place fixed/changeable ads banners. They eventually got that data from cell providers, and didn't need the cameras anymore.
mitthrowaway2
So much data collected for targeting ads, only to finally conclude that the only product I'm interested in buying is a handful of cool mmWave sensors from Infineon.
Have a look at Hi-Link from China (on Aliexpress).
They offer 50GHz, 10GHz, 24GHz and 60GHz FMCW radar module boards for 10-30€ which are easy to reverse engineer on firmware and PCB level.
A lot of them are CW radars, a few FMCW and they also use the Infineon 60GHz radar chips. Very unusual for Infineon: with all tools and datasheets available without signing a NDA. Down to the register level.
There's an interesting Chinese company around (ICLink with their ICL1122/ICL1112) which offer highly integrated radar ICs. They can spit out raw ADC measurements of their downmixed baseband using Quad SPI at 20 or 40MHz when switching on their debug mode. Price range: ~10€. But datasheets are difficult to find.
The analog ones are easy to play with. You just need a DAC to drive their VCO and then can sample the I/Q pins. That how a lot of the 24GHz modules (like the LD1125H) work.