Li-Fi – everything you need to know

Li-Fi uses light to transfer data. LIGHT!

Honestly, Li-Fi isn’t anything new. It first popped out back in 2011. And even tho it sounds complex, it is not. Li-Fi uses light to transfer data. It does that by flickering light very, very fast, much faster than the human eye can see. Something similar to a refresh rate of any screen. And really, all you need is a small dongle for your device in order to connect to a Li-Fi (light-fidelity) network. That would be used to receive data. And you do need something to send data to the Internet. For that, you’d need a small IR dongle.

And, really, that it is. Data sent by flickering light very, very fast. And it does not have to be visible light. IR could be used. Great, but why? Bandwidth plays a key role here. That is, just how much data you can send. Theoretically it has 2600 the capacity of the radio spectrum, used in Wi-Fi. And in labs, it is reported that the speeds are really, really high. However, in real usage, Philips Lighting’s are running at around 30 Mpbs. Nothing big, but still. Just imagine – network connection with lights – the possibilities are huge!