4 ms·
This is great research! 10,000 times lower power is only for the "passive wifi" devices, but these passive wifi devices require a "heavy-lifting and power-cons
by vmarsy 10y ago
This is great research!
10,000 times lower power is only for the "passive wifi" devices, but these passive wifi devices require a "heavy-lifting and power-consuming plugged-in device" nearby.
Assuming that device consumes no more than a traditional wifi device, then the overall system would consume:
[usual consumption of 1 wifi device] + [# of passive devices] * [usual consumption] / 10000
So, if we want to calculate per passive device it would consume around
[usual consumption of 1 wifi device] / [# of passive devices]
In other words, the more of these devices, the better. Too few devices might not offset the plugged-in device energy cost.
- tux1968 10y agoIt's not really the overall power savings that is the key advantage of the system though. Rather it's being able to have a multitude of low power devices that you don't have to run wall power to. They can either run for quite a long time off of battery, or even harvest power from RF signals.
- MayeulC 10y agoI am just wondering if the plugged in part needs to transmit at full power all the time. This could seriously increase the overall energy consumption. Plus, I have a hard time deciding what it would transmit at full power all the time...
- PhasmaFelis 10y agoI'm not an RF expert, but it sounds like it would be transmitting an empty carrier wave, not a real signal. Think of it as a big light source and the passive transmitters as mirrors used to flash signals back and forth with reflected light. (Of course you'd also need a traditional wifi router for everything to connect through, and you might as well build that router into the same shell as the emitter thing, so it gets confusing. But the basic carrier wave wouldn't necessarily carry a signal.)