Remember Li-Fi? This is what happened to Wi-Fi that works with light

Key findings

  • Li-Fi can reach speeds of up to 224 Gbit/s, significantly faster than Wi-Fi 7's theoretical maximum of over 40 Gbit/s.
  • Li-Fi bypasses radio wave interference and is therefore beneficial in crowded areas or for secure communication.
  • Li-Fi faces limitations such as short range and line-of-sight requirements that prevent widespread adoption.



Wi-Fi is everywhere. You're probably using it right now to access this website, or have used it at some point to send or receive data. But it's not the only way to transfer data wirelessly. Li-Fi is a somewhat forgotten alternative to Wi-Fi that's still hanging around, waiting for the day its killer application comes along.

What is Li-Fi?

Wi-Fi works by sending radio signals back and forth between two devices. However, radio waves are just the name we give to a specific frequency range of the electromagnetic spectrum. The part that our eyes are sensitive to and that we can see is called visible light. Li-Fi uses visible and near-visible light, such as infrared and ultraviolet, to send and receive information. For this reason, it is sometimes called VLC, or “Visible Light Communication,” although the two terms are not actually interchangeable.


The VLNComm LumiStick 2 Li-Fi adapter

By pulsing the lights, which is invisible to the naked eye, data is transmitted from the bulb to light-sensitive receivers. This means you can use an LED bulb to transmit your network signals. You could replace the main lighting in a room with a Li-Fi bulb and connect everything to a light receiver.

What’s so great about Li-Fi?

LiFi-at-home-House


If we have Wi-Fi, which is currently fast and reliable, what is the point of Li-Fi? There must be a reason why this technology was worth pursuing, and indeed the list of benefits is compelling.

The most obvious reason is speed. Under test conditions, Li-Fi has been shown to be capable of speeds of up to 224 Gbps. This is significantly faster than the maximum theoretical speed of over 40 Gbps for Wi-Fi 7.

Aside from speed, Li-Fi has the unique advantage of being unaffected by radio waves, as they are in completely different parts of the electromagnetic spectrum. So issues like signal congestion in densely populated areas like homes or businesses won't affect network performance. There's also a security benefit. Visible light doesn't penetrate walls, so in theory (as long as you don't have windows) you could restrict your transmissions to a specific area.


Why Li-Fi didn’t really take off

Although you can buy Li-Fi devices without much hassle and the technology has been standardized, it hasn't exactly rocked the world yet. After all, it's highly unlikely that you've ever seen a Li-Fi setup in action.

Just as Li-Fi has some strong strengths, it also has serious limitations. Many of these are just the flip side of its advantages. For example, because it uses light, which can't penetrate walls, your range is short. On top of that, you need line of sight. Anything that blocks the light between the transmitter and receiver is obviously going to be a problem. And while radio waves don't interfere with Li-Fi, visible light sources like sunlight can interfere with the signal.


Furthermore, Wi-Fi has a huge advantage as the existing wireless technology of choice. To achieve this, you would have to somehow retrofit every device you want to use with Li-Fi, which is difficult and potentially expensive at best, and literally impossible in other cases, such as smartphones.

Does Li-Fi have a future?

Given Li-Fi's unique strengths and weaknesses, I think it's unlikely that it will ever replace Wi-Fi or other radio-based technologies of this kind. Despite its niche appeal, Li-Fi has a bright future if used for the right problems. It's likely that Li-Fi and Wi-Fi will end up complementing each other rather than replacing each other. As LED lighting becomes standard, it's not unreasonable to assume that future smart homes could have at least one Li-Fi bulb in every room, which could be the perfect solution for IoT devices without interfering with the radio waves.


Li-Fi could also be a good solution in places where radio interference is a serious problem, such as near sensitive medical equipment. The safety benefits could be useful for the military or government agencies, and Li-Fi technology could even be built into street lights or traffic lights, potentially to support self-driving cars or other smart technologies such as drones.


Li-Fi could be the technology that makes the most sense for data transmission in space, especially if we actually move our data centers into space. 5G technology already has some limitations due to the density of millimeter wave signals, and 6G network technology could combine radio and light-based systems to manage different parts of the network infrastructure.

Compared to Wi-Fi, Li-Fi is still in a very early stage of development. It may seem quiet due to the lack of commercial products for everyday consumers, but progress is happening in the background, so don't be surprised if one day even the lightbulbs around you will be shooting packets of information around.

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