What is mmWave, and what does it mean for your smart home?

Millimeter-wave (mmWave) technology is rapidly gaining traction in the smart home market, which isn’t surprising as it offers a range of benefits over traditional motion sensors.

If you’ve been keeping up with the smart home news over the past couple of years then you’ll have heard about the likes of Meross and Aqara launching smart sensors, and it’s also likely to be the smart sensing tech that Samsung has been waxing lyrical about with regards to the new SmartThings Home AI platform.

But, even then, you’d still be forgiven – unless you’re an electrical engineer with a passion for high frequencies in the electromagnetic spectrum – for not really knowing exactly what mmWave is, and how it is set to change the smart home in the very near future.

But fear not as this guide will give you a decent overview – without getting too bogged down in the science – of what mmWave is, its advantages, and how we’re likely to see brand’s using it for innovative, futuristic, smart home solutions.

What is mmWave Technology?

Millimeter-wave (mmWave) operates in the Extremely high frequency (EHF) area, as defined by the International Telecommunication Union, and encompasses the range of radio frequencies from 30 to 300GHz.

This means it falls within the microwave portion of the electromagnetic spectrum, plonked between super high frequency (SHF) and the terahertz band.

It’s most commonly used, in the past few years at least, for the 5G cellular network as it offers both high speeds and increased bandwidths, making it an ideal for what our media-intensive, speed-hungry smartphones need.

In terms of the smart home though, we’re seeing mmWave radar tech using those radio waves to detect motion and, more accurately, presence.

This technology is highly sensitive and can detect even the slightest movements, making it ideal for a variety of smart home applications.

How does mmWave sensing work?

Unlike traditional motion sensors, such as PIR movement sensors, the new arrivals in the mmWave sensor market don’t just look for a basic motion to kick-start an automation, they are capable of detecting even subtle movements, such as breathing, making them more reliable than traditional motion sensors; and that’s why they are often called presence sensors, rather than motion sensors.

Take Aqara’s flagship FP2 sensor, for example. It is capable of, using a single mmWave radar sensor, of monitoring rooms up to 430 square feet.

But it’s not just a bigger area for motion detection. In that room you can create up to 30 zones and set up individual automations for each zone. And it can do all this for up to five people at a time. This means that you can get super detailed with regards to what sorts of movement trigger what actions.

You could have an automation, therefore, where someone sits on a sofa in the evening and a TV-time routine kicks in – think lights dimmed, Netflix on, 5.1 system powered up – while at the same time having it turn on the lights in the kitchen, and turn the heating on in that room, if someone approaches the kitchen door.

You could then have it so as the TV and the AV system power down if it detects you have fallen asleep on the sofa.

I’ve been using an Aqara FP2 in my garden office for a while now, and I have it configured to do a bunch of different stuff, depending on where I am in the room, and at what time.

For example, if I sit at my desk in the morning it’ll turn on my computer and tell my smart speaker to play my favorite morning radio station (KEXP, in case you care).

If I’m still at my desk typing away after sundown, it’ll turn some lights on, but if I sit on the sofa after dark, it’ll fire up my Fire TV.

Your routines and automations are only limited by your own imagination. Brands like Aqara do offer some suggestions though, building automations such as fall detection directly into its devices and accompanying apps.

Samsung wants to take things further though, with the newly announced SmartThings Home AI, which aims to create a smarter, more intuitive home that adapts to your lifestyle with very little effort on your part.

The big idea is that your smart home will work for you, in the background, using sensors in everyday devices – think TVs, speakers and kitchen appliances – without you even needing to know that they are there.

The best mmWave sensors

As mentioned, Aqara is already in the mmWave game and actually has a trio of mmWave sensors on the market.

The first one to land, the FP2, is still the top dog despite being launched in back in 2023. For a smart sensor it is on the pricey-side though, at $80.

And that’s where the FP1E sensor came in; it’s a slimmed down version of the FP2, still boasting mmWave tech but at a sub-$50 price-tag.

A third mmWave presence sensor from Aqara, the Presence Multi-Sensor FP300 (pictured above) was revealed at CES 2025 and, unlike the FP2 and FP1E, it is battery powered and doesn’t need to be plugged in.

Aqara’s rival Meross has also launched the MS600, boasting mmWave, and was described by its makers as “the first Matter-compatible presence sensor.”

That statement rings true as the Aqara’s presence sensors aren’t native Matter device; they live in an Aqara smart home system and need a native hub to operate.

The LifeSmart mmWave Human Presence Sensor actually launched before all of these, and goes in the ceiling like a kitchen/bathroom spotlight and, if you shop around on the usual Chinese electronics stores, you’ll also find a bunch of lookalikes to this, all seemingly compatible with the Tuya smart home system.

However, for now, I’d recommend sticking with Aqara or Meross but the list of brands in the mmWave space will definitely expand rapidly in the next year or so.

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