Harald Haas Unveils Wi-Fi Light Bulbs To Power Our Internet Experience

I believe most people are connecting to the Internet wirelessly these days. Wi-Fi is literally everywhere today and even though you usually need to login with a password there is almost always a connection to connect to. Even though we are all so used to Wi-Fi these days we might see a huge shift in all that soon. The fact of the matter is that engineers have been able to use light in what they call a Wi-Fi light bulb, as a carrier of an Internet data stream signal.

Sound weird? Well, a joint venture between the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge, Edinburgh, St. Andrews and Strathclyde (with funding provided by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council), have found that LED bulbs are able to transmit a Wi-Fi data stream signal, as long as they are turned on. This new way of transmitting data, conveniently dubbed Li-Fi, is still in development and they say the main problem is how to keep transmitting a signal even though the Wi-Fi light bulbs are turned off.

As if that wasn’t enough, the team behind this discovery also claims that if this technology was to be implemented, it would only use a fraction of the energy that is currently being consumed by cell towers and wi-fi stations, which also mostly have to be coupled with energy cooling components.

If this is in fact true, we might be looking at a whole new way to receive a signal on our devices. A signal that with a switch of a button (as if that wasn’t possibly now) would be turned on and off in sync with the light in the very room you are in. No question it is weird to think that our Wi-Fi signals could soon be transmitted with the light from our light bulbs, but technology changes and this would no doubt benefit the world, especially from an energy consumption standpoint.

Question is if these Wi-Fi light bulbs are going to get an even higher price tag when this feature is implemented. With the switch from regular light bulbs to LED light, the price skyrocketed, and now I am sure that these Wi-Fi light bulbs are going to cost an arm and a leg as well. I think I’ll stick with my Wi-Fi for a bit longer.

Harald Haas‘ Presentation Of The New Wi-Fi Light Bulbs