back to article Amazon will know when its business, privacy practices keep you up at night – it has an FCC-approved sleep radar

The FCC has granted Amazon permission to use 60GHz radar in some future device to monitor people’s sleeping habits and sense gesture commands. Amazon requested a waiver [PDF] from the US communications regulator to build a gadget that emits radar waves and “operates at higher powers than currently allowed” in June. Ronald …

  1. JWLong Silver badge

    The bad thing is

    People will actually pay Amazon to microwave them in their own home.

    More power, more hertz. Gett'er done here and now

    Not in my house!

  2. Vocational Vagabond
    Big Brother

    Creepy AF ...

    Simply no.

    Think household tech now requires Advisories and Warnings on the box, like food has.

    "Warning: This device could be abused to provide external actors intimate details of your home or location" .... with a big 'efin Magnifying Glass Icon ...

  3. General Purpose

    Frequently bought together

    The radar's monitoring sleep and good enough to identify gestures? Alexa, order a foil-lined duvet.

    1. JDPower666

      Re: Frequently bought together

      I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that.

  4. aregross

    I wish LG wasn't going away

    "it approved a similar request from Google for radar to be installed in its Pixel smartphones."

    Huhwut?

  5. DS999 Silver badge

    If it detects a certain "gesture" in the dark

    You will start seeing ads for porno films and sex toys

  6. Falmari Silver badge
    Go

    Jaffer mode

    I think Amazon are missing a trick, why stop at just sleep monitoring? Maybe it could have a sleep mode and a mode for when you get lucky.

    So got lucky tonight but forgot to pack any condoms not to worry Amazon sleep radar has got you covered even if your tackle isn’t. Just go to the mode selector and switch from Sleep mode to Jaffer mode for a worry free 9 months.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Just No. No way in Hell

    Will I have any of this [redacted][redacted] bovine excrement in my home. Try again Bezos. Your cunning plan to rule everyone's lives is like Baldrick's doomed to fail.

  8. elsergiovolador Silver badge

    Zap

    Imagine that some time in the near future Amazon device will zap you if you stop buying from their store for an extended period of time.

    They could also zap you if you start asking Alexa difficult questions.

    Imagine the extent of psyops they'll be able to do. Make Alexa say something disturbing and then measure how people react based on their sleep pattern changes.

    I think people shouldn't trust a company that listens to them 24h and is also delivering their food. How big of a coincidence could it be when you commit a thought crime and then you receive a bad batch of broccoli the next day?

  9. Cuddles

    But why?

    Let's imagine a magic world where this could be made perfectly private and secure with no possible worries about who might be watching you or getting access to your data. Even then, why would anyone actually want this? I just don't understand this recent obsession with sleep tracking. It's not in any way difficult to know how well you slept. Are you tired? Probably didn't sleep too well. Job done. Having a radar tell you exactly how many times you turned over doesn't add any useful information.

    And before someone inevitably jumps in with a story about how this would be the perfect tool for monitoring their quadreplegic badger, I'm not saying that there is no possible use for this technology anywhere. Like many recent innovations, there very likely could be some niche use for it. But it's not useful for the average person to fill their home with surveillance cameras just because it could be useful for helping look after a frail old relative. It's not useful for the average person to continuously monitor their heart rate just because serious athletes do so while training. It's not useful for the average person to continuously measure and ECG just because it can be useful medical diagnostic for trained professionals. And it's not useful for the average person to have someone watching their sleep at all times just because their might be some use as a medical diagnostic or similar. I just don't understand why so many people think that because something can be useful for a small number of people some of the time, it's therefore a good idea for everyone to do it everywhere at all times.

    1. elsergiovolador Silver badge

      Re: But why?

      It's not in any way difficult to know how well you slept.

      I think you are missing the point. That information is not meant to be useful to you, but to corporations willing to pay for it. For example the fact that you don't sleep well may be crucial for your insurance company, especially if you had a car accident. This could be also useful to know for your employer - if an employee does not sleep well, it means they may have a problem and potential performance issues, so you could get fired pre-emptively.

      1. My other car WAS an IAV Stryker
        Mushroom

        Re: But why?

        "if an employee does not sleep well, it means they may have a problem and potential performance issues, so you could get fired pre-emptively."

        Causing extremely anxiety, enhancing the sleep issues, rendering the person unemployable, causing more anxiety and sleep issues -- downward spiral to the bottom (depression/suicide).

        Icon ----------> Kill ideas like this with ALL the fire, or the hordes of ex-workers will blow $h!t up instead.

  10. JWLong Silver badge

    The Real Issue

    ........is that we sleep 8 hours a day and now corporate America wants their noses up our ass'es during those hours.

    When are people going to wake up and see this as the crap it really is?

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    ** Alert sound **

    You, you there No 5,654,788,330!

    Stop that!

    Stop that immediately or you’ll go blind.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      "You, you there No 5,654,788,330!"

      "Who, me?"

      Winston Smith.

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