The advent of the new WiFi technology is more suitable for smart home and Iot

The advent of the new WiFi technology is more suitable for smart home and Iot

According to TheVerge, the US technology website, WiFi seems to have connected most devices in the consumer's home. Why not connect Smart appliances through it?

Although such an idea seems to be taken for granted, in fact, most network-connected device manufacturers have been reluctant to use WiFi, mainly because WiFi consumes too much power, so for many cheap micro-devices, this is a huge problem. It usually takes several months or even years for these micro-devices to power up once.

The WiFi Alliance, which intends to change this situation, today announced a brand new WiFi technology that can be used on low-power devices. It is said that this new WiFi technology can further spread the Wi-Fi signal, and the wall-crossing performance is better than the previous WiFi technology. If the Wi-Fi federation says nothing, this new technology is obviously more suitable for smart home and IOT devices.

This new WiFi technology will be called WiFi HaLow, which will be an extension of the upcoming 802.11ah standard. The WiFi Federation intends to verify the HaLow product from some time in 2018, but the first HaLow product may be available earlier.

This new WiFi technology can make up for the shortcomings of previous WiFi Technology in comparison with Bluetooth, which can be applied to fitness trackers, home sensors, security cameras or other home devices. Currently, many devices, such as cameras, support WiFi technology, but few wearable devices and sensors are used. HaLow will be a better solution than Bluetooth.

The WiFi Federation does not mention bluetooth technology, but it implies that HaLow will have better performance than bluetooth technology. Kevin Robinson, vice president of marketing at the Federation, said: "HaLow will be comparable to existing technologies in terms of battery endurance and other performance ."

If HaLow technology can really behave as the WiFi federation says, it will be very important. It can not only completely replace Bluetooth, but also transmit signals farther away. It can also be directly connected to routers, that is, it can be directly connected to the Internet.

The existing mobile phones and routers must upgrade the WiFi chip to be compatible with HaLow products, but this is only a matter of time, just as 5 GHz WiFi was officially released soon.

HaLow has these advantages because it runs in a better frequency band. The operating frequency is MHz, while the existing WiFi technology operates in 2 to 4 GHz and 5 GHz frequencies. The signal propagation distance in the MHz band is longer and the penetration is stronger.

It should be noted that, like the existing WiFi technology, HaLow technology will run on unauthorized frequencies, which may cause some interference.

Of course, HaLow technology has its own shortcomings, that is, it is not suitable for fast data transmission. It is not suitable for browsing web pages, but more suitable for high-frequency micro-data transmission. Device vendors can customize HaLow based on their own needs to improve transmission speed, but the battery life may be affected.

HaLow may not appear in a smart home until two years later, but it is just the beginning of Smart Home and Iot. Therefore, it may not be too late to join HaLow. "The Federation believes that HaLow will play a huge role in the IOT field," Robinson said ." However, he also admitted that WiFi may not be the only standard, and no one thinks that IOT will be integrated through a single network connection technology.