This system really can&#x27;t help but fail open. The researcher handwaves in this direction, &#x27;because “you don’t want these to alert and go off every time you turn on the microwave,” Beardsley notes&#x27;, but either it fails open or trips an alarm; practically speaking there is no middle ground. Changing the color of a light in a different room in the middle of the night is as good as a no-op.<p>I&#x27;d submit that what this really proves isn&#x27;t that the Comcast system needs this or that tweak... what it proves is that this sort of security can&#x27;t be done wirelessly. Wireless equipment can not help but assume that if it can&#x27;t hear from its sensors, the situation must be OK, and they can not help but be jammable with hardware that really isn&#x27;t that sophisticated.<p>The solution to both problems is a decently-shielded wire. It is impractical for a thief to jam, and continuous active communication that trips in a fraction of a second if severed from the hub is trivial and reliable.<p>I like WiFi as much as the next guy, but it seems to me a lot of people badly overestimate what wireless is capable of sometimes.