“Get ready to send a thank-you note to students at the University of Washington, where a group of electrical engineers is trying to solve the eternal struggle of Wi-Fi battery drain,” April Glaser reports for Wired. “It’s a problem that’s rapidly getting worse as more and more devices require access to the cloud, not to mention the constant strain of searching for a good signal or boosting a weak one.”
“The student researchers invented a new type of hardware that uses 10,000 times less power than traditional Wi-Fi networking equipment,” Glaser reports. “It’s called Passive Wi-Fi, and it works just like a home router, just more efficiently.”
“To give some perspective, the state of the art in low power Wi-Fi transmissions today consume 100s of milliwatts of power, whereas the technology the student researchers developed consume only 10-50 microwatts—10,000 times lower power,” Glaser reports. “It’s hard to say what this will do for your battery life, because there are so many components in a device that impact that—like the screen, for example. ‘But using Passive Wi-Fi would improve battery life by about as much as turning your Wi-Fi off would,’ said Bryce Kellog, an electrical engineering graduate student at UW who co-developed Passive Wi-Fi.”
Read more in the full article here.
SEE ALSO:
Mossberg: Eero makes Wi-Fi simpler and stronger – February 23, 2016
Li-Fi: 100 times faster than Wi-Fi, tests prove – November 25, 2015
Juniper Research: Wi-Fi to carry up to 60% of mobile data traffic by 2019 – June 16, 2015
One time lower brings you to zero, already, right ?
So I believe the author means to say the new technology consumes 1/10,000 (ie,: one ten-thousandth) of the power of existing Wi-Fi.
Words matter.
i guess the author doesn’t do much scientific notation and figures
Thank you for desiring accuracy in scientific and technology reporting. This type of error in the description of relative values is the norm, not the exception, across our society. That is not surprising, although still highly regrettable. And I can understand the shortcuts used in advertisements where short, flashy sound bites are desired. But in the fields of science and technology, people should be much more careful to ensure the proper and accurate use of terminology. This is particularly true when the colloquial usage is absolutely wrong.
Unless you are willing and able to go negative, you cannot have a value that is 10,000 times less than something. One time less is zero. And don’t get me started with the common errors seen in typical reporting of percentages and statistics.
Will it also produce less radiation?
WiFi radiation cures erectile dysfunction. Consequently the high number of powerful WiFi base stations purchased with Oculus Rift gear.
Yeah I think that’s only when you’re visiting certain websites on Wi-Fi 🙂
It’s probably more radiation overall — but most of it is on the base station end which saves energy on the battery-powered wireless device.
So what’s with the popups in the iPhone app. “Cut the Rope. Subscribe Now”. They don’t away when dismissed. Are they ransom ware sponsored by MDN?