mike2872

The Raspberry Pi isn't supported as a sensor right now, but it should be able to act as the device running TOMMY. As long as it has Docker.

The interference from running TOMMY is quite low. And if ESP32-C6 (2.4Ghz Wi-Fi 6) or ESP32-C5 (5Ghz) is used as sensors, the interference is negligible.

Thanks for the questions.

1. As of now it only knows whether there is motion in the zone or not. Actual (x,y) coordinates within the zone are theoretically possible and something I have on the roadmap for 2026.

2. No, it doesn't correlate with other devices currently. But Wi-Fi sensing can theoretically identify who is moving by analyzing how you disrupt the signal. We all have unique movement patterns. I actually have a working proof of concept that can differentiate between me and my girlfriend, but it's very experimental and not stable enough for release yet. Definitely on the future roadmap though.

3. Pretty much instant (around 50ms). The detection happens in real-time as the signal disruption is analyzed.

Thanks! Glad you like it.

Honestly, it doesn't stand for anything! A couple years ago I was playing around with the concept and a song came on that mentioned "Tommy" repeatedly. I jokingly started calling it Tommy when talking to my girlfriend about it.

So every time the lights turned on or off it was "Tommy who did it" and the name just stuck. Now I'm too invested to change it.

There's a dedicated thread on the Discord channel where people are coming up with good ideas for what TOMMY stands for. Some of the suggestions are "Totally Overengineered Motion Monitoring" and "Through-Obstacle Motion Monitoring". People are still working on what the Y should stand for.

They send packets to and from each other in a mesh network. It's quite small packets and not a large amount of packets a second. For a standard use case (3-4 zones) the interference is quite low on 2.4Ghz, and almost negligible on either 2.4Ghz (Wi-Fi 6, like the ESP32-C6) or 5Ghz (ESP32-C5).

What really sets TOMMY apart is that it doesn't require line of sight and works through walls. This opens a lot of possibilities.

You can create zones spanning multiple rooms without sensors in each room. Instead of traditional room-by-room motion detection, you could divide your house into zones like "upstairs", "downstairs", or "living area". Especially useful for controlling heating by floor or area-level lighting.

Working through walls also means less clutter. You can hide devices in drawers, closets, or anywhere out of sight.

There's also a pricing aspect: ESP32s can be acquired for a couple of dollars each, so you could have motion sensing throughout your whole house for a fraction of the price of dedicated sensors in every room.

I agree. I'm going to find something more suitable :-) Sounds good. Looking forward to hearing about your results!

You're absolutely right. Thanks for the feedback! "No hub required" is misleading. What I meant was "no additional proprietary hub". Meaning, if you're already running Home Assistant or have a Linux machine, you don't need to own a separate device like Zigbee/Z-Wave hub. But yes, the HA instance or Linux host is effectively acting as the hub. I'll update that wording on the site.