The Wi-Fi Alliance, body that controls research, and advances of the Wi-Fi technology, yesterday at CES, 2016 announced its future plans for taking this already indispensable medium of communicating with the Internet forward.
In a bid to expand the reach and adoption of the Wi-Fi technology when it comes to connectivity with the Internet of Things, ‘Wi-Fi HaLow’ was announced. This new Wi-Fi framework which will operate on the 900 Mhz range, promises to double the reach of the already existing 2.4, and 5 Ghz Wi-Fi baseband.
This switch to the new spectrum will also help conserve energy, making it the perfect platform for low-power, less data intensive devices like smart watches, and other Internet enabled household appliances that the coming days will bring to us.
When quizzed about the real world benefits of ‘HaLow’ to the end consumer, Kevin Robinson, Vice President of the Wi-Fi Alliance had this to say,
“For a consumer, you might imagine someone who wants to deploy a water sensor in their basement to detect flooding or a motion sensor at the end of their driveway to warn them of someone arriving late at night.
In both of these cases, Wi-Fi HaLow will deliver power-efficient connectivity to the home access point, despite the challenging environment caused by obstructions in the device’s path or ranges involved.”
Emergence of ‘Wi-Fi HaLow’ will have implications far greater than just how efficiently low powered devices will interact with the Internet in the future. It will most likely be sounding of the death knell for the outdated Bluetooth framework which currently is used by such low-powered devices. ‘Wi-Fi HaLow’ in time promises to be the perfect platform to meet the needs of the various upcoming Smart Homes, and Smart Cities around the world.
But, all is not lost in the land of despair for our trusted old warrior, Bluetooth. According to reports, the new Wi-Fi framework will not come into effect any time before 2018; even then it will take some time to make its way into consumer durables, and even more time through our routers in to our homes, thus leaving a small window of chance for low energy Bluetooth framework to reinvent itself, and leave ‘HaLow’ feeling like a hollow idea to implement altogether.
