Get ready for light-based Wi-Fi, because it's now an official standard | Hacker News Reader

Get ready for light-based Wi-Fi, because it's now an official standard

androidpolice.com

23 pointsthunderbong7 comments

I think LiFi or something similar has the great potential for VR/AR headset connectivity. With a high bandwidth, low latency link, you could have an untethered experience without the weight and heat of compute and processing in the headset.

And it's the perfect application because usuallh the problem with lifi is that your return channel is comparatively trash but VR headsets don't put out as much data as they receive (though camera stuff might be an interesting challenge

You can test this out by taking a photoresistor and an ultraviolet LED and butting them up together, then passing a simple analog signal (like a mono audio cable) through them. Pull them apart slowly while playing the music. Later you can try the same with a laser.

> Li-Fi can also co-exist with your Wi-Fi network at home, with your devices seamlessly switching between networks depending on which works best in a given scenario — similar to how phones switch between mobile radios and Wi-Fi already.

Switching between mobile data and wifi is far from seamless today. Maybe it'll be more like roaming between wifi APs (which can be pretty smooth) but the example given doesn't inspire confidence!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001n8d9

Harald Haas on making waves in light communication

The Life Scientific

Jim Al-Khalili talks to Harald Haas about his breakthrough invention, LiFi, and how light can be used to access the internet.

Not a bad idea. Then I can exchange my tinfoil hat for just a hat.

This has lots of potential usage in security / government building and lots of other Enterprise that wants similar security, I guess this would be a large enough market for 802.11bb to take off, making that tiny little smartphone package prototype cheap enough in terms of unit cost.

At that point, I wonder if Li-Fi with a fibre cables could replace Ethernet for home usage? Where the unit cost is cheaper than other type of fibre or close to Ethernet. I am wondering if the signal is strong enough to cover the usual 50M home usage over a cable.

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