Wi-Fi Alliance introduces low power, long range Wi-Fi HaLow
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Re: Wi-Fi Alliance introduces low power, long range Wi-Fi HaLow
#2[deleted]
Re: Wi-Fi Alliance introduces low power, long range Wi-Fi HaLow
#3So, can my Macbook connect to a HaLow router, or is this a new protocol that will require all new hardware across the board?
Re: Wi-Fi Alliance introduces low power, long range Wi-Fi HaLow
#4So, can my Macbook connect to a HaLow router, or is this a new protocol that will require all new hardware across the board?
It looks like this runs in the 900MHz ISM (US) band, so we'll all need new hardware. The longer range is nice. Interference from other 900MHz transmitters (cordless house phones, baby monitors, etc.) may not be.
It seems everything old[1] is new again.
Re: Wi-Fi Alliance introduces low power, long range Wi-Fi HaLow
#5So, can my Macbook connect to a HaLow router, or is this a new protocol that will require all new hardware across the board?
It looks like this runs in the 900MHz ISM (US) band, so we'll all need new hardware. The longer range is nice. Interference from other 900MHz transmitters (cordless house phones, baby monitors, etc.) may not be. It seems everything old[1] is new again. 1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/WaveLAN
I wonder if this will get any traction outside of the US - there are lots of places where 433MHz is the ISM band.
Re: Wi-Fi Alliance introduces low power, long range Wi-Fi HaLow
#6So, can my Macbook connect to a HaLow router, or is this a new protocol that will require all new hardware across the board?
Given that it runs at 900 MHz, it will require new hardware.
At a minimum, it will require an antenna tuned for the new band, in addition to whatever changes to the WiFi baseband processor are needed to go along with it.
Re: Wi-Fi Alliance introduces low power, long range Wi-Fi HaLow
#7So, can my Macbook connect to a HaLow router, or is this a new protocol that will require all new hardware across the board?
This standard is targeted to low power consuming devices.
So the question is more like "Will the new HaLow devices be able to connect to my home router".
And looks like the answer is they won't.
Re: Wi-Fi Alliance introduces low power, long range Wi-Fi HaLow
#8So, can my Macbook connect to a HaLow router, or is this a new protocol that will require all new hardware across the board?
It looks like this runs in the 900MHz ISM (US) band, so we'll all need new hardware. The longer range is nice. Interference from other 900MHz transmitters (cordless house phones, baby monitors, etc.) may not be. It seems everything old[1] is new again. 1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/WaveLAN
I'd hope no one's phone is running in 900MHz - what does DECT use in North America?
Re: Wi-Fi Alliance introduces low power, long range Wi-Fi HaLow
#9It looks neat, but it's hard not to be cynical about yet another competing standard for low-power "smart home" / IoT-type devices, just to muddy the ZigBee vs. Z-Wave vs. BT LE Longrange vs. conventional WiFi waters a bit more.
Not saying there's anything wrong with the protocol per se; it's probably perfectly fine. But the lack of widespread standardization in the 900MHz ISM low power space is really crippling what could otherwise be a robust market for smart devices. That's the key problem, rather than anything technical, and adding yet another option for hardware designers to choose from seems unlikely to improve things in the near future.
Re: Wi-Fi Alliance introduces low power, long range Wi-Fi HaLow
#10There used to be a good wikipedia article about LoraWan, which is better than this (for IoT) in just about every way, but it has been replaced with this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LoRaWAN
LoraWan consumes power at a similar rate that BLE does, except it has a 20km range. You're talking about months (or even years, depending on your interval) of usefulness out of a CR2032 coincell battery.
Sidenote: the removal of the wikipedia page on this irks me more than it probably should. They're claiming a copyright problem because some of the text of the page was taken from the Lora Alliance's official website.