Just try light up a big room which has no windows with a candle - you can see pretty well at the distance of your hand, but in a few meters from you - it's plain darkness. I expect wi-fi waves to be like this.
Using the grath "Perceived Brightness" at [1] we have roughly the following table:
Distance/Actual/Perceived Brightness
1/100/100
2/25/~55
4/6.25/~30
[1] http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/vision/bright.htm...