Wi-Fi chip using 100 times less power under development

It comes as no surprise that our world is heavily dependent on wireless communications. Our lives revolve around our devices, all of which are smart and wireless ‒ our phones, computers, watches, everything. We spend hours (sometimes days at a stretch) on these devices, using different kinds of applications like games, functionality apps and  apps to transfer content like SmartIOApp. Needless to say, all our devices rely on a few wireless protocols, including Wi-Fi. So improving or optimizing one of these protocols would essentially improve the way we interact with the device and how the devices interact with each other.

Apparently, a researcher at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab, Adrian Tang, has been working with UCLA professor M.C. Frank Chang, to develop a Wi-Fi chip to be used in mobile electronics. Reports suggest that the chip uses 100 times less power than traditional receivers. Should this research produce expected results, it could extend battery life in basically every device that uses Wi-Fi technology. And its application doesn’t stop there; Tang is also looking at getting the relatively nascent market for wearables into the mix.

Let’s talk about what the current technology does. In order to do anything over Wi-Fi, the connected device generates and sends a signal out to the router. After that, the router generates and sends a new signal back to the device. The chip that Tang is working on is different in a way that a specialized router generates the original signal, which is constantly reflected by the chip, while imprinting data on it… meaning that the device no longer has to generate the original signal. Since the data is imprinted on the signal when it’s reflected, all the major effort is done at the router’s end, instead of the device’s. According to Tang, since the device is just imprinting on a Wi-Fi signal, rather than generating it, there is little power needed.

We know what you’re thinking. Since the chip requires low energy, the signal strength would be low too… meaning slow connection, right? Not really. Tang and Chang claim that the chip has been tested, and has so far reach speeds of 330 megabits per second, which is faster than a majority of consumer Wi-Fi routers currently in the market.

We don’t know about you, but we think this is another interesting development in battery optimization. It is important that research is spread across different segments of the device to make it as efficient as possible. Longer battery life necessitates research not only in battery technology, but also in making other aspects of the device as power efficient as possible.