Bulgarian smart home specialist Shelly has unveiled a new smart home presence sensor that can track up to 10 people in a room using mmWave.

The Shelly Presence Gen4 can, therefore, trigger automations based on where people are, rather than by simply detecting movement.

Conventional motion sensors often switch lights off when someone is sitting still on the sofa, working at a desk or reading in bed because they rely on movement to register occupancy.

Shelly’s new sensor can detect people who are stationary, then use their location to trigger automations in up to 10 independently configurable zones.

MmWave, short for millimeter-wave radar, is increasingly being used in smart home sensors as an alternative to traditional motion detection.

Traditional passive infrared (PIR) sensors detect changes in infrared radiation as people move through a space, which means someone sitting still can eventually disappear from the sensor’s view. MmWave radars can detect much smaller movements, including subtle movements associated with breathing, so could even tell if someone is in a room, even if they’re completely still.

Shelly’s new sensor maps occupancy within a room, allowing automations to respond to specific areas rather than treating the entire space as one detection zone.

For example, you could have your lights turn on around a desk when you sit down to work in the morning, but have your neon lights and speakers fire up in the evening if you move to your gaming rig. You can also set things up like movie time automations when you settle down on the couch after 9pm, or have the coffee machine fire up if you and your partner are both in the kitchen in the morning.

Adjustable height thresholds and other sensitivity settings can help filter out pets, robot vacuums and other low-level movement, while a built-in ambient light sensor reports whether conditions are dark, at twilight or bright.

Shelly isn’t the first smart home brand to explore this type of detection; Aqara has an ever-growing range of presence sensors in its lineup , powered by mmWave and Meross has the MS605 Smart Presence Sensor, which combines a mmWave radar with infrared motion detection and a light sensor.

Samsung is also quietly baking mmWave directly into your home , turning everyday appliances like refrigerators, smart TVs, and air conditioners into invisible, room-aware sentinels that track your presence without a single camera lens in sight.

Back to Shelly’s effort and the Presence Gen4 ticks all the connectivity boxes with Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Zigbee and Matter all available (not all at the same time), giving it plenty of options for playing nicely with ecosystems such as Apple Home, Google Home, Amazon Alexa, Samsung SmartThings and Home Assistant.

Shelly also offers direct local control and custom scripting, allowing more advanced users to build automations without relying on its cloud services.

The Gen4 does need continuous power through USB-C (Aqara and Meross have, albeit less powerful, battery options). So you’ll have to have it near a power source, but it can be mounted on a wall or in a corner, or placed on a shelf or table using its built-in stand.

Coverage depends on where you put it really. Wall mounting provides a 140-degree horizontal field of view across spaces up to 650 square feet, while corner mounting narrows the field to 90 degrees and covers up to 525 square feet.

The Shelly Presence Gen4 is available now in North America for $84.99 through Shelly’s US store, with availability at retailers including Best Buy, Micro Center, Newegg and Amazon expected soon.

Over the past few years, Shelly has quietly turned from an enthusiast/nerd-only brand into one that is much more accessible, allowing regular folk with just a bit of tech savviness to create building blocks that are capable of turning a dumb house into a modern smart home - check out my guide to setting up a Shelly smart home .

Shelly has been in the news as of late because France’s Schneider Electric is planning a voluntary public ‌takeover offer for the company.

If that name sounds familiar it’s because Schneider, alongside LG, was one of the brands Apple has teamed up with for its new Home Collection, a new range of smart home accessories designed to work with the revamped Apple Home platform .