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Li-Fi has been in the news for quite a while now. It splashed on the scene into prominence way back in 2020 and ever since, there has been an expectation from the industry about how this new technology will create traction and move more and more into real life applications and right into our homes and offices one day.
I first wrote about Li-Fi on 13th October 2020 Lab-Based “Li-Fi” Link Exceeds 7 Gb/s Using Blue Micro LED. In this article I wrote about the lab breakthrough which achieved high speed connectivity. I also posted an update A WELCOME UPDATE ON Li-Fi in 2020 which talks about the news form Signify that it has partnered with EDZCOM, a Finnish 4G and 5Gnetworking company that will use Signify’s LED-based Truli system as part of its wireless connectivity schemes in industrial settings.
Then, in 2021 I posted about a company actually making use of this technology in their latest Tablet offering In an Industry first, Tablet maker Getac embeds LiFi which was an industry first.
And then again in 2021 about news of Two Gujarat villages first in India to get LiFi.
So, a lot has happened in the progress of this technology.
Now let us get a snapshot about this technology and its benefits.
Conventional Wi-Fi works on RF (Radio waves) while Li-Fi works on light waves. The bandwidth of available light spectrum is almost 10,000 times that of the RF spectrum bandwidth available to Wi-Fi. This is the fundamental premise of the premise of the new Li-Fi technology.
We know that the conventional Wi-Fi technology when used at homes, for example, has issues in penetrating walls and reaching the various nooks and corners of the house. If you want to use your tablet or phone in your toilet, most likely the device will show zero Wi-Fi signal. To overcome this your next option would be to install a Wi-Fi mesh which means there would be sub routers along with the main router device (usually 3 devices are used) and the three would then be placed strategically to reach a maximum and optimized home Wi-Fi coverage. In such a scenario, the Li-Wi would be worth considering as if we have the Li-Fi bulbs in place of the regular bulbs, you will easily get the Wi-Fi signal in almost all the nooks and corners too. Remember that Li-Wi is invisible as it is in the infrared spectrum. So, the Li-Fi bulb would emit normal light when turned on, in addition to the invisible communication signal. So, Li-Fi is poised to be an ideal choice in the future for range extension of the Wi-Fi in most applications.
With the mushroom increase already and coming, the number of connected devices per location is on an exponential increase. This is where the wide reach and the wide bandwidth of Li-Fi is a sure winner.
As we move towards the Metaverse with rapid strides the crunch is faced at the server side as well as the client side to process an increasing amount of data in real time. Here again, the wide bandwidth of Li-Fi technology is the sure winning technology.
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Arun Bhatia
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