From Wifi to Lifi: LED Tube Lights as High-Speed Internet Transmitters
This week the media is reporting some promising news and a great new milestone that has reached the world of LED tube lighting as research by the Fraunhofer Heinrich Hertz Institute turns LED tube light bulbs into broadband data transmitters. The German organization has conducted research in which the light flicker rate of LED tube light bulbs are manipulated in order to transmit data at the fast pace of 1 Gbps per single frequency.
This means that LED tube light bulbs, which operate at three frequencies, have a bandwidth potential of 3Gbps.
By simply placing your PC or internet-enab LED tube smartphone or computer under a radiant LED tube light you could be streaming data at a high speed. To put the term high speed into perspective, take note that Google Fiber is expected to operate at only 1Gbps, making LED-run data streaming three times as fast.
Although this method is not applicable for sending data, it has great potential and usage for streaming data, such as videos, from the internet as long as the device remains placed under the LED tube light.
Prior to the LED tube lighting innovation research conducted by the scientist at Fraunhofer Heinrich Hertz Institute, LED tube lights were only usable with a bandwidth of about 30MHz which with the results of their study, has increased drastically to 180MHz. But what’s the point, you may ask?
The point and the reason this innovation is such a huge milestone for the LED tube technology industry and for consumers is the need for this type of data transmission.
Take, for example, hospital operating theaters where safety is in first place and internet connections often problematic in that they interfere with other technologies. With this Lifi technology, an LED tube ceiling lamp can transmit data directly to the receiving device and broadband access will be made possible where it was not before, thus opening up for a myriad of new solutions for innovative LED tube lighting products.
Additionally, applications of this LED tube innovation will be seen in areas such as data transmission between receiving devices and cars or areas where radio communication may be difficult, such as large spaces as in the example of factory halls where important trade fairs may be hosted.
In short, LED tube technology has just made a giant leap towards a whole new dimension of advantages and opportunities of the environmentally friendly and energy-saving LED tube light bulb:
With how far LED tube lighting technology has come in the past few years, it is exciting to think how far we will be able to go with this new and revolutionizing data transmitting functionality in place!