Four years ago a Scottish professor came up with the concept for a new type of wireless Internet connection that worked using only LED light bulbs. He’s back, and this time with a working prototype that could change how we connect to the Internet.
The concept for this so-called “Li-Fi” connection was originally presented by Professor Harald Haas, Chair of Mobile Communications at The University of Edinburgh, during a TED Talk in 2011. In his presentation, he claimed that flickering light from an LED bulb could transmit more data than cell towers while doing so more securely, more efficiently, and over greater distances.
According to Digital Trends, however, Haas has turned the concept into reality, as the university’s Li-Fi R&D Center had joined forces with an offshoot company known as pureLiFi Ltd to come up with a working prototype for a Li-Fi router that functions using solar panels to gather enough energy to enable an LED light source to send and receive information.
Technology is faster, more secure than current wireless broadband
The website explains that, instead of using cables or radio waves that can be easily interrupted, Li-Fi transmits data using light flickering so fast as to be essentially undetectable to the human eye. This enables information to be send more quickly, and since a person has to have their device in the room with the router to use it, the connection cannot be “borrowed” by others.
The light-based system also makes it harder for others to spy on your online activity, and Haas and his colleagues believe that the technology could ultimately be used to power solar-powered smart homes, consumer gadgets, city-wide networks, and even Internet of Things devices.
“The wider opportunity is to transform global communications by speeding up the process of bringing Internet and other data communication functionality to remote and poorer regions in a way not previously thought achievable due to lack of infrastructure and investment,” Edinburgh Research & Innovation IP Project Manager Tom Higgison told Digital Trends on Friday.
Higginson’s company is the commercial arm of the university’s research team, and Higgison said that they are currently seeking commercial partners to help facilitate a widespread release for the Li-Fi routers. If they are successful, it could help bring cheap, secure, energy-efficient Internet to schools, homes and businesses all over the world.
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