Podcast Episode 6 - Guest Speaker Tobias Hlobil Discusses LiFi Technology and Innovation Resistance

Hi everyone and welcome once again to LiFi Tech News. Today, we revisit the Twitter podcast held on Sunday 21st August 2022.

Guest speaker Tobias Hlobil, an Economic Engineering student with a focus on Environment and Resource Management at the University of Applied Science in Berlin. was invited to discuss LiFi technology on the podcast.

The exponential growth in the number of mobile devices and wireless services has significantly impacted the demand for increasingly powerful communication technologies. Despite tremendous technical advances in RF technology, the efficiency of the available spectrum has stagnated. In this context, a large part of mobile data traffic is generated indoors, and offloading using wireless technologies, such as WLAN and LiFi, holds great potential to relieve the current network and prepare it for the future requirements of a connected society, as well as Industry 4.0. The focus of his thesis is on LiFi as a complementary technology to WLAN.

Below are some of the Podcast conversations. Some of the conversations have been edited:

Chuks: “Hi everyone, this is Chuks from LiFi Tech News and today we have a guest from Germany. His name is Mr Tobias Hlobil and He's going to discuss his master thesis on LiFi that he did. We will also have a very good conversation on LiFi technology as well as a few topics related to the internet in Germany. Tobias, would you like to introduce yourself to our listeners, as well as tell us more about your background?”

Tobias: “Yeah, for sure. My name is Tobias Hlobil. I'm 30 years old. And I'm studying economic engineering with a focus on Environment and Resource Management at the University of Applied Science in Berlin. And at the moment, I'm currently writing a thesis about identifying innovation barriers that need to be overcome for the widespread use of LiFi. Two years ago, over the course of my studies, I had to write a paper about environmental problems. And then I was like, I want to check if there is a problem with like the electromagnetic radiation ionizing range, like from WiFi or under mobile standards? So, I stumbled over LiFi, and so, there's an alternative technology for data transmission, especially when interference with our radio frequencies is undesirable such as in hospitals.”

Chuks: “I know that you're based in Germany, but in terms of LiFi, is it widely known to the masses in Germany?”

Tobias: “To be honest, in my experience, it's a few 100 People. When it comes to Germany when it comes to the research side, I would say we are pretty on the top when it comes to LiFi research. The Fraunhofer Heinrich Hertz Institute and some other kinds of institutes in Germany have a good focus and really try to push this LiFi technology. But when I talked to people at the schools, like where this stuff was deployed, they say that it's nice technology, but to be honest, like our needs are fulfilled by WiFi. So we don't need WiFi at school. So it's a good test rounding to get the technology further and to get like some money from the government to do this research. But the need isn't there in schools yet. So where we apply it now, it's just more for testing. I think standardisation will be key for mass adoption when it comes to the consumer market.”

Mr Ken: “Tobias has been describing a phenomenon that is normally usually present when you have new technology that has been integrated into an existing community that is used to our resistance to change on any new technology that is there. And if we stop and look at WiFi, for instance, it was the internet was always hardwired until WiFi hit the scene. And when WiFi hit the scene, it was very hard to integrate it because of the resistance to change what was already present. But WiFi introduced a couple of things that hardware can do and as a result, everybody adapted to WiFi and then it became more widespread when more and more people got familiar with working with it and it solved a lot of the problems that the hardware presented. Now we have LiFi which is the next step in the evolution of the Internet, and how we're going to perceive getting information is going to ultimately come through light. Right now, people are resistant to it, because there's not enough out there, there's not enough publicity. And there's not enough product development that will interest people to make the change. But because of some of the things that are going on, right now, as we look at the ability for WiFi, to reach everyone, because it is a sketchy area, when you talk about it. If WiFi is so popular, why is it not as widespread as it should be? Well, there's some limitations, that WiFi presents, that LiFi will pick up. And at the end of the day, it'll make it a better connectivity for the internet. So what we're doing now is exposing people to the opportunities of what LiFi presents and also giving everybody the opportunity to create solutions to the problems that exist through WiFi and LiFi. Because there are some issues that LiFi will be able to answer the WiFi hasn't done. And it's just that paradigm that you have to shift to, in order to have a new product. So he's describing everything that we're proposing. And what we're doing, we know that there's not enough infrastructure, we know that there's not enough infrastructure for WiFi. But what we're proposing what we're doing, we're having solutions, of course, everything boils down to money. And, that is the other thing that has to be looked at. But I truly believe that once we are able to properly introduce LiFi to the masses, and what I mean by that is that we can successfully pull off an instal and say maybe a city or community somewhere where it is consistently looked at, monitored and successful in its installation and rollout. That is when we will get the attention of everything and everybody and then we can roll to that critical mass that we're trying to get to in order for everybody to be comfortable with what LiFi presents.”

Chuks: “Another thing Mr Ken, from your own perspective, when do you see LiFi be available to the masses? Is it going to be in the next five years? 10 years or even shorter than that? What's your opinion on that?”

Mr Ken: “I think within the next five years, LiFi will be a part of the topic of discussions and probably at a point where you will see critical mass, and people really start to pay attention because right now the military is most concerned and looking at LiFi right now. And when you have the military looking at a product, you can rest assured that the next step is going to be the community outside the military, that's going to be exposed to it. So that should be your first telltale sign that there is going to be a development of LiFi technology, and we will wound up using it in the community as go the military is how the community will go. And if you see the military already looking into it, you can rest assured that should give you some sort of indication of where we're going with that. And the other thing is, is that the reason why I say within five years, is because more and more people will start to come on board and start to investigate, start to develop, there's gonna be a lot of internet of things that's gonna go on, but it's gonna happen. After we get that first city, that first town, that first community completely set up, which is what we're doing now.”

Podcast Recording

You can also listen and download the full audio recording below:

You can also listen the podcast on the following Twitter link:

https://twitter.com/i/spaces/1vAxRkDnraqKl

Li-Fi Conference 2022

The Li-Fi Conference 2022 Edition was a great success. Li Fi Tech News will very soon write articles on the topics treated at the Conference.

What is LiFi?

LiFi, also known as "Light Fidelity" is a wireless optical networking technology, which uses light-emitting diodes (LEDs) to transmit data. In 2011, professor Harald Haas made a LiFi demonstration at the TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) Global Talk on Visible Light Communication (VLC).

VLC uses light as a medium to deliver high-speed communication like Wi-Fi and complies with the IEEE standard IEEE 802.15.7. The IEEE 802.15.7 is a high-speed, bidirectional, and fully networked wireless communication technology-based standard similar to Wi-Fi's IEEE 802.11.

How does LiFi work?

LiFi is a high speed, bidirectional, and fully networked wireless communication of data using light. LiFi constitutes of several light bulbs that form a wireless network.

When an electrical current goes through to a LED light bulb, a stream of light (photons) emits from the lamp. LED bulbs are semiconductor devices, which means that the brightness of the light flowing through them can change at extremely high speeds. The signal is sent by modulating the light at different rates. The signal can then be received by a detector that interprets the changes in light intensity (the signal) as data. Also when the LED is ON, you transmit a digital 1, and when it is OFF, you transmit a 0.

LiFi Benefits

The primary benefits of LiFi are as follows:

• Security: Provides entirely secure access. Where there is no light there is no data.

• Safety: Does not produce electromagnetic radiation and does not interfere with existing electronic systems.

• Localisation: Allows localisation due to the small coverage area of LiFi access point - localisation can be used for very precise asset tracking.

• Data density: Provides ubiquitous high-speed wireless access that offers substantially greater data density (data rate per unit area) than RF through high bandwidth reuse.

Credit to Oledcomm

LiFi Applications

LiFi can be used for so many applications and the list is increasing every year. You can read our updated list of Li-Fi applications at the following link:

https://www.lifitn.com/blog/2021/2/13/top-30-li-fi-applications-updated-list-including-potential-applications

Credit to pureLiFi

LiFi Systems Reviews by LiFi Tech News

OLEDCOMM LIFIMAX KIT REVIEW - ONE YEAR IN

We reviewed the LiFiMax kit produced by the leading French LiFi company Oledcomm. We bought this LiFi kit system at the end of 2020. After over a year of use, we decided to write a review of this LiFi system. We looked briefly at the profile of Oledcomm, a brief history of the LiFiMax system, the Kit box contents, some testing and performance results of this LiFi system, the customer experience and our own verdict (the good and the bad points) of the LiFiMax kit.

You can read the review on this link:

https://www.lifitn.com/blog/lifimaxreview

SIGNIFY TRULIFI 6002.1 STARTER KIT SYSTEM REVIEW

We also reviewed the Trulifi 6002.1 starter kit produced by Signify, the world leader in lighting for professionals, consumers and lighting for the Internet of Things. We got this LiFi kit system with the help of PCDSI and Signify around August 2021. In a similar fashion done with our previous review of the LiFiMax kit a few months ago, we will look briefly at the profile of Signify, a brief history of the Trulifi 6002.1 kit, the Kit box contents, some testing and performance results of this LiFi system, the customer experience and our own verdict (the good points and the bad points) of the Trulifi 6002.1 kit.

You can read the review on this link:

https://www.lifitn.com/blog/trulifi6002review

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