Engineers approved the Li-Fi wireless communication standard. Itʼs 100 times faster than Wi-Fi and runs on light

Author:
Anna Kholodnova
Date:

The International Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) has approved the 802.11bb, or Li-Fi, standard for wireless data transmission.

TechSpot writes about it.

Instead of radio waves, Light Fidelity (Li-Fi) technology transmits data via flickering light from conventional LED bulbs to receivers that can detect photons and convert them back into information.

The speed of data transfer through Li-Fi in laboratory conditions reaches 224 GBps, which is almost 100 times more than that of Wi-Fi.

Companies working on this technology, including pureLiFi, Fraunhofer HHI and Philips, are integrating it into lighting systems so that devices can receive internet through ceiling lights in homes or offices.

However, Li-Fi is unlikely to completely replace Wi-Fi due to a number of limitations. In particular, optical communication cannot overcome walls and other opaque coverings. At the same time, this can be an advantage, because it prevents tracking and intercepting the network through walls or beyond the reach of a light source.