A research team in Saudi Arabia has created a low consumption and energy impact alternative, which could use modulated sunlight to replace traditional Wifi.
Currently under development at the CHEW, (King Abdullah University of Science and Technology), the system uses “smart glass” elements: double cell liquid crystal (DLS) shutters. These elements rapidly alter the polarity of the sunlight that passes through them and could conceivably find ample space in the windows of large rooms such as offices.
The binary sun
These changes in polarity of sunlight (perceivable and encoded by smartphone cameras, not the human eye) would be used a bit like 1s and 0s in binary code. And, regulated by these intelligent windows, manage the flow of information currently entrusted to Wifi.
A turning point in terms of consumption. Importantly, while traditional Wifi routers use between 5 and 20 watts of electricity, DLS liquid crystal shutters use only 1 watt. An amount, scientists say, could be provided by a small solar panel.
Smart windows and bright wifi: what about when the sun isn't out?
As always when a search is in its infancy, even smart windows will face several challenges. Improvements needed before becoming a mass technology. First of all the transmission speed: Calculations indicate that in the current configuration form, Wifi made with the sun's rays could transmit data at a rate of 16 kilobits per second. It can be done much better.
Obviously, then, the system it would only work while the sun is shining. For this reason, its use would be optimal to save energy during the day, by activating the normal Wifi after sunset.
“We are developing the hardware needed to implement the new version of the prototype,” says lead scientist, Associate Professor Basem Shihada. “We would like to increase data speeds from kilobits to megabits and gigabits per second.” Good luck.
The article on the smart windows research was published in the IEEE Photonics journal: I link it here.
