Li-fi is a bust even before it becomes anything. The line of sight requirement is instant death.
Not really. You probably already have at least one light bulb in every room, right? That "light bulb" would need to be replaced with one incorporating the Li-Fi ability. Each one of them becomes an "access point" that communicates to a router elsewhere in your home. That communication can occur wirelessly, or over your existing home electrical branch circuits.
The electronics required to modulate a light source is very inexpensive, especially if the "light bulb" is already an LED, which have finally reached acceptable levels of affordability and color spectrum, and are only likely to become less expensive.
Line of sight isn't even required inside a room since light reflects from just about every surface in the room. That's the reason you can use many IR remotes without having to point them directly at the device.
Li-Fi would not probably not work outside, due to the absence of those reflective surfaces.
In fact this technology is almost essential. The wireless radio spectrum is already way too crowded.
Communicate with a router? Then what? It's back to wifi. It clearly has to communicate with a device. Maybe this may work with a static device like a tv box.
With the speed of LiFi and the speed of Flash storage write both at 1 GB per second, it makes local storage nearly a thing of the past. At that speed your entire OS could probably be on a server, and your device just loads it.
To all you sceptics, you have to consider two essential facts:
In the IoT era most electronic things will be connected (online) anyway
Communication can be assymetrical in the sense that outgoing and incoming signals can use different methods, eg outgoing on WiFi and incoming on LiFi.
In this way, we could in principle achieve 300 000 times faster downloads, which is quite ok with me …especially since it takes the load off of WiFi at the same time.
With the speed of LiFi and the speed of Flash storage write both at 1 GB per second, it makes local storage nearly a thing of the past. At that speed your entire OS could probably be on a server, and your device just loads it.
OS storage will stay on device (more robust that way). And a "small" local storage, say 16G, but most other things will be in the cloud or your home NAS. Cloud storage will be almost free. People that do that now have to compromise a bit, but not in the future.
Only people needing to manipulate huge file directly, say 4K video editing, will have more local storage. Local memory will still be faster than going on the net.
... Li-Fi, an experimental high-speed wireless networking protocol that uses pulses of light to transmit data and is being marketed as a long-term replacement for Wi-Fi.
The video makes the assertion that Li-Fi could replace cell towers as well. I don't see that happening either. Many people keep their cell phones in pocket or purse and expect to still receive emails, phone, VOIP calls and text messages.
It all sounds like a great idea, but only works in a perfectly coordinated ideal world. The devil is always in the details. So each of these 14 billion lightbulbs are somehow going to connect to the internet and synchronize, seamlessly hand off with security credentials like cell towers do? The lightbulb might be only $3 US, but the infrastructure behind it is going to cost $billions. Replacing 14 billion lightbulbs and florescent tubes with LEDs may not even be possible given the limited amount of rare earth elements.
It could be useful in certain situations, but I don't see it replacing cellular or Wi-Fi.
... Li-Fi, an experimental high-speed wireless networking protocol that uses pulses of light to transmit data and is being marketed as a long-term replacement for Wi-Fi.
The video makes the assertion that Li-Fi could replace cell towers as well. I don't see that happening either. Many people keep their cell phones in pocket or purse and expect to still receive emails, phone, VOIP calls and text messages.
It all sounds like a great idea, but only works in a perfectly coordinated ideal world. The devil is always in the details. So each of these 14 billion lightbulbs are somehow going to connect to the internet and synchronize, seamlessly hand off with security credentials like cell towers do? The lightbulb might be only $3 US, but the infrastructure behind it is going to cost $billions. Replacing 14 billion lightbulbs and florescent tubes with LEDs may not even be possible given the limited amount of rare earth elements.
It could be useful in certain situations, but I don't see it replacing cellular or Wi-Fi.
It doesn't need to, and handoff is something that's been a tough nut to crack, but it's coming (LTE to WIFI (this would just be an extension).
This would essentially be a hotspot feature in public spaces (where WIFI or even LTE is not adequate for what's coming up), or in high throughput areas like the living room in houses.
thank god future innovation isn't dependent on the naysayers here with little imagination (not to mention little engineering background). even were Lifi just down downloads and wifi for up, the speed increases would be worth it.
thank god future innovation isn't dependent on the naysayers here with little imagination (not to mention little engineering background). even were Lifi just down downloads and wifi for up, the speed increases would be worth it.
I think the only reason we don't all have GB networking already is because the backend can't handle it. Eventually those data packets need to hit a switch, router and fiber optics cable. Having a faster access point just moves the bottleneck to the next hop.
I honestly think Li-Fi is pretty useless for regular internet usage since you have to be near the light source for it to work and you may not be in that room or the lights may be turned off. Sent them this tip Btw.
I honestly think Li-Fi is pretty useless for regular internet usage since you have to be near the light source for it to work and you may not be in that room or the lights may be turned off.
If you watch the video, the lights can be turned down so low that you cannot see it but the data still works.
Awesome. This will let you backup your entire iPhone in 1 second by just holding it up to the next generation iMacs.
Not unless they figure out a way to pull the data out of the iPhones memory a lot faster! With USB 3 and lightning it should only take a few seconds to backup/restore all the data to/from an iPhone if the data transfer itself were the problem. I'm pretty sure that the bottleneck is the read/write to flash.
Even Apple's infrared technology failed for a reason. Line of sight is not convenient and almost no one used it.
I don't think comparing a weak, hand held, thin infra-red beam to any LED light source is valid. Try looking up at your light source for walking around a dark room, it's fairly likely you can see it without obstruction, or else you'd be in shadow not to mention there could easily be more light sources.
He also said they can be turned almost off, to the point where the human eye can barely see the light. So the power consumption of the modulated light must be tiny, so no reason addition low level LED sources cannot be added specifically for the technology.
Awesome. This will let you backup your entire iPhone in 1 second by just holding it up to the next generation iMacs.
Not unless they figure out a way to pull the data out of the iPhones memory a lot faster! With USB 3 and lightning it should only take a few seconds to backup/restore all the data to/from an iPhone if the data transfer itself were the problem. I'm pretty sure that the bottleneck is the read/write to flash.
Technology will advance in that area, trust me. I used to use Apple computers with 5 MB hard drives that took half an hour to duplicate.
thank god future innovation isn't dependent on the naysayers here with little imagination (not to mention little engineering background). even were Lifi just down downloads and wifi for up, the speed increases would be worth it.
LiFi as described would be limited to line of sight, which might be OK for wireless hard drives that are near the computer, but move the drive or the computer out of the room and you have no viable connection.
Comments
- In the IoT era most electronic things will be connected (online) anyway
- Communication can be assymetrical in the sense that outgoing and incoming signals can use different methods, eg outgoing on WiFi and incoming on LiFi.
In this way, we could in principle achieve 300 000 times faster downloads, which is quite ok with me …especially since it takes the load off of WiFi at the same time.Cloud storage will be almost free.
People that do that now have to compromise a bit, but not in the future.
Only people needing to manipulate huge file directly, say 4K video editing, will have more local storage.
Local memory will still be faster than going on the net.
It all sounds like a great idea, but only works in a perfectly coordinated ideal world. The devil is always in the details. So each of these 14 billion lightbulbs are somehow going to connect to the internet and synchronize, seamlessly hand off with security credentials like cell towers do? The lightbulb might be only $3 US, but the infrastructure behind it is going to cost $billions. Replacing 14 billion lightbulbs and florescent tubes with LEDs may not even be possible given the limited amount of rare earth elements.
It could be useful in certain situations, but I don't see it replacing cellular or Wi-Fi.
This would essentially be a hotspot feature in public spaces (where WIFI or even LTE is not adequate for what's coming up), or in high throughput areas like the living room in houses.
Sent them this tip Btw.
He also said they can be turned almost off, to the point where the human eye can barely see the light. So the power consumption of the modulated light must be tiny, so no reason addition low level LED sources cannot be added specifically for the technology.
Technology will advance in that area, trust me. I used to use Apple computers with 5 MB hard drives that took half an hour to duplicate.