What is LI-FI?

What is LI-FI?

Li-FI stands for Light-Fidelity 100x faster than Wireless-Fidelity abbreviated as WI-FI.

 Visible Light Communication (VLC) is another term that is sometimes used for this technology.

This is first introduced by Harald Haas at his TED Global Talk and name this idea as "LI-FI".He is Chairman of Mobile Communications at the University of Edinburgh and co-founder of pureLiFi.

It is wire and UV visible-light communication or infrared and near-ultraviolet instead of radio-frequency spectrum, part of optical wireless communications technology, which carries much more information and has been proposed as a solution to the RF-bandwidth limitations.

Visible light communications (VLC) works by switching the current to the LEDs off and on at a very high rate, too quick to be noticed by the human eye. Although Li-Fi LEDs would have to be kept on to transmit data, they could be dimmed to below human visibility while still emitting enough light to carry data. The light waves cannot penetrate walls which makes a much shorter range, though more secure from hacking, relative to Wi-Fi. Direct line of sight is not necessary for Li-Fi to transmit a signal; light reflected off the walls can achieve 70 Mbit/s.

The first VLC smartphone prototype was presented at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas from January 7–10 in 2014. The phone uses SunPartner's Wysips CONNECT, a technique that converts light waves into usable energy, making the phone capable of receiving and decoding signals without drawing on its battery.

                       A picture of Office Automation through LI-Fi