PureLiFi Demos Skype Call Over Light-Based 'LiFi'

BARCELONA—PCMag witnessed a small footnote in telecom history this week at Mobile World Congress: the get-go Skype call over a light fidelity (LiFi) connection.

The call was fabricated using an erstwhile Samsung Milky way S5 housed in a custom-built case that was adjusted to fit a modified LiFi-90 dongle. The demo was fabricated possible by modifying PureLiFi's existing Linux drivers so they played dainty with Android, which is of course based on a version of Linux.

PureLiFi CTO and co-founder Mustafa Ghani told u.s. that it took five weeks to rewrite the code, modify the hardware and so the handover module connected to the phone's micro USB port, and get a instance shipped over from an manufacturer. Getting the example delivered on fourth dimension actually took the longest.

Though the Galaxy S5 is obviously not running an upward-to-date version of Android, the proof-of-concept demonstrates that when the components are small enough to exist built into phones and, more importantly, LiFi is plenty of a household name for OEMs to actually bother doing so, getting this up and running on the Samsung Galaxy S14 (or whatever they call information technology) won't exist a problem.

At the PureLiFi stand up, nosotros saw both devices connect to the internet with all other radios and Wi-Fi connections turned off, using light from the two Luminaire bulbs mounted into the ceiling and a Light Bar, the LiFi equivalent of an function fluorescent tube.

PureLiFi's bulbs are capable of delivering bandwidth of upward to 42Mbps upwards and down and are designed to be complimentary to Wi-Fi; though all other radios were turned off to demonstrate that the applied science works, the idea is that by carrying some data over visible light, at that place will be more room for other traffic in the congested two.4GHz Wi-Fi band.

While PureLiFi'due south solutions are designed primarily for industrial use cases, the plan is at some point to have the components exist pocket-size enough to be integrated in consumer devices, which is what these proof-of-concepts are virtually.

"At PureLiFi we proceed to drive LiFi technology to the next stage in its maturity," said PureLiFi'due south CEO, Alistair Banham.

"These two new integrated examples point to the future that LiFi volition provide. We see LiFi connecting every device and everyone. Today we've proven nosotros're clearly on the way to realising that vision."

PureLiFi was showing off a Dell laptop (pictured above) that was modified so the same CMOS receiver sensor and infra-red transmitter components from the LiFi-XC were integrated into the PCB and its case; while nosotros were unable to do more than than visit Speedtest.internet on this, it proves that getting LiFi receivers into all mode of devices won't be a trouble.