Get Wi-Fi CSI from a home router
A hands-on lab: 256 subcarriers, 80 MHz, 8 Tx/Rx chains on a GL-MT6000 (MT7986) router. Full reproduction guide, raw datasets, Python tooling and a measured A/B investigation into Wi-Fi slowdowns.
Measured CSI amplitude heatmap (256 subcarriers; vertical = subcarriers, horizontal = time)
Latest
- Browser-local CSI capture quality checker (GL-MT6000 / mt76)
Load a .bin capture produced by this project's csi_capture script and check framing, closed measurement groups, chain consistency, subcarriers, timestamp gaps and I/Q integrity in the browser. Files stay local and reports can be exported as JSON or Markdown. · 6 min read
- Do 256 CSI subcarriers mean 256 independent dimensions? A two-capture GL-MT6000 redundancy audit
A reproducible PCA audit of two public GL-MT6000 captures: on the 10-minute data, 6 components explain 90% of variance, 9 explain 95% and 20 explain 99%, while adjacent bins have a median correlation of 0.901. The result is limited to amplitude correlation structure, not physical frequency mapping or human-sensing performance. · 7 min read
- Wi-Fi CSI chain selection: 8-chain health and missing-chain audit
A reproducible Wi-Fi CSI chain selection audit across two GL-MT6000 captures: 6,714 of 7,609 ten-minute groups contain all eight chains, while all 347 sixty-second groups do. A fixed best chain does not transfer across sessions. · 6 min read
- The spectral cost of CSI timestamp gaps: a controlled test on real sampling times
Do not disguise an average group rate as a uniform clock. A reproducible audit of the public GL-MT6000 capture quantifies long gaps, interpolation error and estimator disagreement, with explicit limits on what the data cannot prove. · 6 min read
- Corrections and data revisions: what changed and why
A public record of substantive corrections to Router CSI Lab: demo group counts, sampling-rate denominators, Home Assistant capability claims, Raspberry Pi/Nexmon requirements, ESP32 evaluation, links and 404 navigation. · 6 min read
- From eight parts to a heatmap: parsing the 10-minute CSI dataset
A hands-on Python walkthrough of the 10-minute router CSI dataset on Zenodo: verify eight parts, reassemble, parse the 24-byte header, build an amplitude heatmap and validate 57,293 records. · 6 min read
- GL-MT6000 CSI firmware pre-flight: six checks before the first flash
A reproducible pre-flash audit of the OpenWrt CSI image: board identifier, sysupgrade SHA-256, stock rollback hash, MT7986 Wi-Fi firmware MD5/SHA-256, mt7915e CSI symbols, userspace daemon and installed package versions. · 7 min read
- GL-MT6000 CSI lab log: what we ran and what failed in October
A reproducible GL-MT6000 lab log: image preflight and rollback, first CSI, ten-minute capture acceptance, daemon fault injection, a misdiagnosed 100 Mbps link, ATF and 40/80 MHz client traps, data de-identification and evidence limits. · 10 min read
Evidence you can check directly
This is not a general-news collection. It is a lab notebook built around one real GL-MT6000, with core claims tied to raw data, runnable code or a public correction trail wherever possible.
- First-party data：A ten-minute raw I/Q capture exposes 57,293 chain records, 7,609 measurement groups, checksums, reassembly notes and a Zenodo DOI.
- External usage signal：As checked on 2026-11-02, the Zenodo record reported 51 downloads and 44 views (41 unique views). These are platform counters, not citations, endorsement or AdSense approval.
- Runnable tools：The browser-local capture checker and MIT toolkit v0.1.3 repeat framing, timing, chain and parsing checks without uploading a capture.
- Published boundaries：The methodology labels evidence A–E; the corrections log records changed numbers, causal wording and failed paths.
Maintained by Wu Jun, an independent engineer who performed the flash, capture, analysis and rollback drills on owned hardware. Measurement, external evidence and unverified inference are kept separate.
Follow later measurements and data revisions through RSS. No account is required, and no email is collected by an on-site form.
Troubleshooting: a measured A/B investigation
Wi-Fi slows after enabling CSI? Follow reversible A/B tests across vow_atf and 40/80 MHz client width, with observations, associations and unverified firmware internals kept separate.