TIL: A New Technology Called Li-Fi is 100x Faster Than Wifi and Comes From Light!

Today, I stumbled across the word "Li-Fi" for the very first time.

Li-Fi is a new technology that is 100 times faster than traditional Wi-Fi - and it comes from LIGHT!

Don't get your hopes up too soon - the technology isn't quite ready yet, and still holds a lot of challenges for everyday use.
But it could become an amazing new feature that improves our daily lives, and researchers are already working on a solution!

Last year, Harald Haas from the University of Edinburgh, Inventor of the Technology, explained and demonstrated LiFi at a Ted Talks conference:

What exactly is Li-Fi and how does it work?

Li-Fi is actually just a nickname, the technology is called Light Fidelity or Visible Light Communication (VLC).
Data is being transferred through lamps that flash at an extremely high speed - so quickly that it's impossible to notice for the human eye.
The devices that you use will then be equipped with certain sensors that can pick up the light in return.

How fast is Li-Fi in reality?

Tests have shown that Li-Fi can reach an incredible speed of 224 Gigabits per second - this would mean that you could send 18 individual files that are each 1.5 GB large within ONE SECOND only.

What's Li-Fi's disadvantage?

The problem with Li-Fi is, that it only works when you're in sight of the signal.
So you'd need to be relatively close to the lamp that emits the Li-Fi flashes.
The signal doesn't work through walls, and it could even cause problems if you turn the receiver away from the lamp.
This is definitely a problem that still hinders the everyday use of Li-Fi, but it's being worked on and it also has a positive aspect: Hackers or others wouldn't be able to connect to the network if theyre not in sight either.

So what happens at night?

To keep the Li-Fi connection stable, the emitter lamp has to be turned on at all times.
But don't worry, it's possible to dim down the lamp so much that the light appears to be invisible for the human eye, while the data connection is still going.

How would you install Li-Fi?

The process is relatively simple: The ceiling lamp that you already own would have to be equipped with an Encoder.
The device you'd like to use then gets a receiver attached to it.
The whole technology is connected to electricity through the lamp, and doesn't use much more power than the lamp itself.

"All we need to do is fit a small microchip to every potential illumination device and this would then combine two basic functionalities: illumination and wireless data transmission. In the future we will not only have 14 billion light bulbs, we may have 14 billion Li-Fis deployed worldwide for a cleaner, greener, and even brighter future."

-Harald Haas, Inventor of the Li-Fi Technology

As you can see, the Li-Fi technology is still far from replacing traditional Wi-Fi or being used on an everyday Basis. But it's an innovation with a huge potential, and might be used in combination with Wi-Fi to make use of its benefits!

New Li-Fi Technologies and solutions are being developed as you read this, so let's wait and see where this technology might take us!

Images: 1, 2, 3, 4

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