Stephen Schenck / Android Authority
TL;DR Li-Fi is a wireless data system remarkably similar to Wi-Fi, but uses light to send information.
Data rates can hit a gigabit a second, while maintaining line-of-sight privacy.
pureLiFi is showing off a home solution for using Li-Fi to send data through windows, for outside 5G reception.
Old-school smartphone fans didn’t get started using a Galaxy, iPhone, or even a Nexus — back before smartphones as we know them first took form, we had the PDA. But prior to ubiquitous cellular connectivity, communication with PDAs was always a bit of a struggle. One of the more unique solutions to emerge was IrDA, employing infrared light to wirelessly transfer information between devices. Now, over 20 years later, we’re wondering if light-based wireless communication could be about to make a return.
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This year at CES, pureLiFi is showing off its latest tech based on Li-Fi. As you can probably surmise from the name, this is basically Wi-Fi that uses light, rather than radio waves, to communicate. pureLiFi has developed a tiny Li-Fi module that phone manufacturers are evaluating now, combining a miniature LED and receiver in a convenient package.
For CES, the company is demonstrating the tech incorporated into a phone case, but there’s no reason this couldn’t be baked right into a phone itself. Maybe the coolest thing about it, though, is just how seamlessly this ends up working — your phone doesn’t even have to know anything special about Li-Fi in order to use it.
That’s because the underlying communication structure of Li-Fi is the same as radio-based Wi-Fi — you know how all those flavors of Wi-Fi we’ve had over the years are known as 802.11b, 802.11g, 802.11ac, and so forth? Well, Li-Fi is a member of that club, too: 802.11bb. That promises to make it incredibly easy to add to phones.
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