The question ‘What is Li-Fi?’ has been here for a long time. But do we know what it actually means? Let’s find out.
Most of the population who use the internet gain access to it using WiFi. It has managed to reach network speeds which we thought was impossible.
There was a rapid development in wireless technologies over the past decade. But even now, a huge set of the population still has no means to access the internet.
What if I tell you, in the future, you would not need any device to access the network?
That is exactly what Li-Fi is all about. You can access the network simply with the help of a light source.
Let’s Get Into The Details
One cannot regard Li-Fi and Wi-Fi to be the same. They are wireless, which is the only thing common to both of them.
But what is Li-Fi? Li-Fi can operate at speeds which were never heard of before. It uses optical wireless technology to facilitate higher data transfer rates.
Wi-Fi gets complicated sometimes as it uses radio waves for information transfer. But what if I tell you we can do the same using visible light?
This is exactly how Li-Fi works. Using visible light, we can achieve information transfer which is 1000 times faster than our typical Wi-Fi. Li-Fi can achieve a data transfer speed of over 220 Gbps.
Key features
There are various parts of the world which still does not have any network facilities. This is because the people who live there could not afford expensive equipment.
The key feature of Li-Fi is, you can transfer information using any light source. This includes even street lights.
People can just stand beneath a street light to download or upload whatever they please, from the internet.
How Does It Work?
Before going to the working part, let us know what it needs to work. A Li-Fi needs a Lamp Driver, an LED lamp and a Photo-detector to do its job.
The lamp driver which interacts with the internet source helps in converting digital inputs to light inputs. It then feeds it to the LED lamp.
The LED lamp switched on and off so fast for a human to visually see it. This is nothing but binary inputs.
The photo-detector unit captures it and processes it. It can recognize this super-fast frequency change and understands the data.
You can not just access the internet but also upload data. The entire system works both ways for you to enjoy all the benefits of the internet.
Major Disadvantages
Although Li-Fi seems perfect, there are a lot of disadvantages compared to our regular Wi-Fi.
Li-Fi uses light which means it cannot operate without it. Whenever you feel like accessing the internet, you would have to turn on the light in your room.
As it is only limited to the areas with light, its range becomes limited. You cannot expect other light sources to interfere with yours.
Something as simple as sunlight can reduce the speed of your connection. Not to forget that establishing Li-Fi networks is expensive.
To Conclude
Li-Fi is a promising technology which makes the future look more modern than it already is.
There are various problems which we must solve in order to make this technology work.
But it is not impossible. Science is growing every day and we will gradually figure out the ‘Hows’ and ‘Whys’.
