Vayyar have sent us a Walabot development unit to take a look at.
It's based on the principle that if you compare the strength and time of an RF reflection between an array of antennas then you can create a complex 3D image of radio-reflective materials.
This implementation of the miniaturised RADAR technology has managed to fit an array of antennas in a small case the size of a smartphone, with the idea that it can be used to visualise through solid surfaces, giving your phone the ability to see through solid materials. One of the potential applications being for finding services buried behind walls.
It's quite intriguing that they have created a dedicated chip that handles the RF transmission and detection for so many antennas.
Keep in mind that even though the unit "only" has 18 antennas, it can effectively triangulate between any group so that it's resolution is effectively determined by the processing power of the unit that is converting the data to an image.
It's important to note that this implementation of the technology is still very new, so it's still being honed and developed. This video is just a quick glimpse at the potential for the unit. As time goes on and it finds suitable applications it has the potential for some very interesting products.
It's based on the principle that if you compare the strength and time of an RF reflection between an array of antennas then you can create a complex 3D image of radio-reflective materials.
This implementation of the miniaturised RADAR technology has managed to fit an array of antennas in a small case the size of a smartphone, with the idea that it can be used to visualise through solid surfaces, giving your phone the ability to see through solid materials. One of the potential applications being for finding services buried behind walls.
It's quite intriguing that they have created a dedicated chip that handles the RF transmission and detection for so many antennas.
Keep in mind that even though the unit "only" has 18 antennas, it can effectively triangulate between any group so that it's resolution is effectively determined by the processing power of the unit that is converting the data to an image.
It's important to note that this implementation of the technology is still very new, so it's still being honed and developed. This video is just a quick glimpse at the potential for the unit. As time goes on and it finds suitable applications it has the potential for some very interesting products.
OK, 7 years have gone. Where have it gone? I haven't heard of any killer application yet. Has anybody else?
After stupidly releasing the Walabot with compatibility only with Android phones, their latest iteration now also works with the iPhone… where it works remarkably well. It’s expensive, one-fifty to two-hundred dollars. However, it pretty much eliminates nailing/screwing into pipes, wiring, or whatever. One penetration into pipes/wiring will cost a lot more than a Walabot. I have one and it’s great.
A great idea to see what happens in the future, I'm so glad I have become a patron
When I was doing plumbing I used a stud finder. And it was useless a lot of the time. When I got the walabot it made everything better! Especially is cheap crap apartments
The tech is pretty amazing. I just purchased one and ran some tests with walabot and compared it with our $14k concrete radar scanner. I was stunned.. This $100 tech was able to see pretty much everything the concrete scanner picked up. I scanned a 5" concrete slab and it was able to pickup post tension cable, Rebar, electric conduit, water pipe, fiber-optic cable… Our concrete scanner has a hard time picking up unshielded FO cables and the walabot picked up the FO cable with no issues.
If they improve the image resolution and add some reporting features like depth measurements, notes, grids, markers then this thing would be a great affordable tool for general contractors. It's definitely can't replace a high end concrete scanner but for the price point this tech is unbelievable.
Yes very cool. I wonder how it's doing nowadays though?
Sounds similar to what's used in the phased array radar stations on battle ships and such. Have a government facility nearby with a bunch of those panels on a mock-up battle ship, and the inside (or at least what we were shown when I was a kid) sort of looked like that with a lot of small antenna arrays that could be combined to form steerable radar.
hi clive can you sent me the manufacturers contact data because want myself such a evaluation and development kit from them hope its possible thank you
I wish you were my tradesman when serving my time
2 years walking back and forth to the store for miles of conduit is not very educational
Tam Mellon and Jimmy hemphill didn't think too much of me due to having long hair at the time
I thought to ask you, "what is inside" and you made this video. Thanks a lot Clive!
Take the leap and upgrade to an iPhone.