3 Wireless Technologies For Peripherals

In our last roundup, we had spoken about two external wireless technologies, which would offer internet on the move and enable fast WLAN transfers. However both these technologies, i.e. Wi-Fi 802.11n and WiMAX are being used to primarily connect PCs / gadgets over a distance, and are not really feasible for short range connectivity.

Also another drawback of both these technologies is that, because they are designed to cast a wide signal, they require considerably more power as compared to a small range technology like Bluetooth. This makes it impractical, for smaller mobile multi-media products like MP3 players and mobile phones, which don’t have the kind of power required to maintain a steady connection to another similar product. There are several phones and also the Zune which can utilize Wi-FI, they power off the Wi-Fi radio when the service is not being used. If they were to constantly utilize Wi-FI, their battery life would be measured in minutes.

However there are already remedies being developed for this problem. Several engineering bodies, prominent manufacturers and research houses, are working on developing next-generation wireless technologies that not only aim to ease wireless connectivity, but also will require less power to operate.
Here is a list of some of the more prominent projects.

One of the most innovative and far-reaching developments, in the world of personal computing was the introduction of the USB port. It not only simplified peripheral connectivity as it became the most commonly used, its later iterations i.e. USB 2.0 brought high-speed connectivity to the masses. Speeds which were found on rarely used ports like Firewire, became common-place with USB 2.0. Now aiming to evolve the USB platform further, one segment of the industry has started working on a new standard that is simply called Wireless USB. WUSB has been designed to offer the speed and convenience of USB 2.0 with wireless connectivity. WUSB will work on UWB (ultrawideband) radio technology and will offer 480 Mb (USB 2.0 like speeds) for distances up to 10 feet. For distances beyond 10 feet and below 35 feet which is the maximum distance for WUSB, the speed will drop to 110 Mb.

Wireless USB has another major advantage. Unlike Wi-Fi which operates on a narrow radio band of 2.4 GHz, WUSB will operate on a much larger radio band (between 3.1 GHz and 10 GHz). This means it will be less prone to interference as compared to Wi-FI which faced a lot of problems initially in this regard. Finally WUSB’s power consumption will be about 10 times more efficient as compared to Wi-FI. This will result in massive and much needed power savings.

We predict WUSB will easily become the most adapted technology format in the list that we are presenting here today. It will find use in not only replacing current wired PC peripherals, but will be widely adapted by gadget manufacturers.