We’ve been saying that 2016 is the year when the Internet of Things will be advanced more than ever. The smart home business is expect to be bigger this year as numerous companies and manufacturers have already announced new products and expressed interest in the technology. We’re not talking about just smartwatch tech but smart devices commonly used at home, school, or work that we haven’t really given attention to.
The ideas is for more devices to be connected to one another and controlled from a central system. It’s the Internet of Things (IoT) that is expected to be the focus this year what with tech giants like Samsung, LG, and Google with Brillo being brave enough to advance such new technology.
While the idea is for devices to connect to, through, and via WiFi networks, The Wi-Fi Alliance made an early effort to introduce Wi-Fi HaLow. It’s new a frequency designed for low power devices, specifically with IEEE 802.11ah technology. This operates in lower frequency resulting to lower power and longer range connectivity for products that are WiFi certified. This is made especially for services and gadgets in digital healthcare, connected cars, smart home, smart city, agriculture, retail, and industrial sectors.
The idea is that this Wi-Fi Halow extends the range of Wi-Fi i into twice as long to 900 MHz band. This then allows low power connectivity for services, products, and apps that don’t really need high power or frequency. According to the Wi-Fi Alliance, this Wi-Fi HaLow is best for challenging environments as it can penetrate walls more easily. This can also adopt existing Wi-Fi protocols so there shouldn’t be any problem in connecting to it.
Wi-Fi Alliance’s President and CEO Edgar Figueroa has this to say about Wi-Fi HaLow:
“Wi-Fi HaLow is well suited to meet the unique needs of the Smart Home, Smart City, and industrial markets because of its ability to operate using very low power, penetrate through walls, and operate at significantly longer ranges than Wi-Fi today. Wi-Fi HaLow expands the unmatched versatility of Wi-Fi to enable applications from small, battery-operated wearable devices to large-scale industrial facility deployments – and everything in between.”
Wi-Fi Alliance is working on simpler and more secure ways to connect all devices. The idea is to make things less complicated and easier to set up especially for products that don’t have display screens like some IoT products. This new Wi-Fi Halow won’t require big adjustments because it can operate in 2.4GHz, 5 GHz, and 900 MHz frequencies. This means billions of Wi-Fi ready devices all over the world will benefit from the latest type of WiFi. Expect the whole IoT system to expand to more markets, industries, countries, and regions.
SOURCE: WiFi Alliance
