Light bulb signals to connect to the Internet
SCIENTISTS AND researchers from the Shanghai Institute of Technical Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences have devised a new game-changing way to connect to the Internet. The beauty of this invention is the fact that signals emanating from light bulbs are used to connect to the Internet as against the conventional radio frequencies in Wi-fi!
The Chinese team led by Chi Nan used a traditional light bulb implanted with microchips to prove their point. The signals from the bulb were able to generate data transfer rates of about 150 Mbps and have dubbed their discovery “Li-Fi”. Chi has claimed that a set of four computers can be comfortably connected to the Internet using just 1W LED bulb.
The term “Li-Fi” which was initially ideated by Harald Haas from the University of Edinburgh refers to a concept of visible light communication technology which can deliver high- speed connectivity similar to Wifi.
The discovery has some major advantages over conventional Wi-fi since it will be cheaper and much more energy efficient. With well-known scalability challenges of cellular and Wi-fi networks, the LiFi discovery is a key since visible light which is a part of the electromagnetic spectrum offers an almost boundless capacity. Considering the easy availability of LED bulbs and overall ready lighting infrastructure, Li-fi seems to be the way forward!