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Using LED Ceiling Lights For Digital Communication
PatPending writes "A Minnesota start-up company, LVX, is developing products under several patents and about a dozen pending applications, e.g., 'Building illumination apparatus with integrated communications, security and energy management,' that put clusters of LEDs in a standard-sized ceiling light fixture. The LEDs are in optical communication with special modems attached to office computers. The first generation of the LVX system will transmit data at speeds of about three megabits per second, roughly as fast as a residential DSL line. LVX Chief Executive Officer John Pederson said a second-generation system that will roll out in about a year will permit speeds on par with commercial Wi-Fi networks. It will also permit lights that can be programmed to change intensity and color. Pederson said the next generation of the system should get even more efficient as fixtures become 'smart' so the lights would dim when bright sunlight is coming through a window or when a conference room or hallway is empty. Hurdles: speed and installation costs. No word on the reliability and security of this system."
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What one fool can do, another can. (Ancient Simian Proverb)
I don't see how this is much better than the IRDA infrared that used to be built into laptops, printers, mice, etc. It got replaced by radio technology several generations ago.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
.... with a telescope!
Kohls has had technology like this in their stores for a little while now. They use the lights to update little LED price tags throughout the store. I think Fujitsu makes the tech, though I could be wrong. Anyone wanna help me out on this?
The "integrated security" of the "illumination apparatus" means you can kill the communication link by quickly putting the computer with the "special modem" under your desk, and out of line-of-sight with the ceiling LEDs.
If it operates in the infrared spectrum, the bonus is that most glass blocks it, so it would be harder to get a signal. The downside is, a sufficiently sensitive thermal camera with LoS to the bulb or a reflector in LoS with the bulb would give it to you.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
Saving you from running cable that last 6 feet?
From TFA:
Mohsen Kavehrad, a Penn State electrical engineering professor who has been working with optical network technology for about 10 years, said the approach could be a vital complement to the existing wireless system. He said the radio spectrum usually used for short-range transmissions, such as Wi-Fi, is getting increasingly crowded, which can lead to slower connections. "Light can be the way out of this mess," said Kavehrad, who is not involved in the LVX project.
What one fool can do, another can. (Ancient Simian Proverb)
They're also working on a getting a patent for a new modem where you just set the phone headset right on the modem, by sticking both round parts in little earmuff thingies. Apparently it's only good for a couple hundred bits per second now, but they claim the next version will reach speeds in excess of 1000 bits per second. No word on whether it will work with cell phones.
Or cable line (Comcast Economy at 1.5 Mbit/s at an outrageous $45).
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
slashdot = stagnated.
This from the /. Troll with dozens of /. accounts. From
http://slashdot.org/~MichaelKristopeit300
now through
http://slashdot.org/~MichaelKristopeit328
Your mother is from TFA.
Signed,
Kristomikopeet23195573712419382901
More intelligent use of the spectrum is the solution, not light.
an 'art form' in & of itself. keep it light, that's stuff that matters
Technically speaking, isn't light part of the spectrum?
From what I've read about this, while the LED lights are optical, the transmission line, aka the power line will still be used to carry data transmissions to and from the LED lights, I don't see how this or any other BPL tech being allowed by the FCC then again anything these days is allowed to pass through and transmit whatever it wants all over the Shortwave radio bands under FCC Part 15 rules, Plasma TV's being just one example which plasters the lower shortwave radio band with an insane amount of interference. Please lets stop using power lines for data transmissions, all it does is cause headaches and takes a dump all over the shortwave band! We've already got WiFi, we don't need yet another standard that is just going to end up plastering interference all over the entire street, and probably causing rife with our bodies as well. Just imagine what the implications would be of this, every person in your street or unit could then have a hardwired connection to your ethernet network as long as they knew the correct password, usually default, no need to use high powered wireless adapters anymore.... I can see how a means of optical data transfer would be a good idea over infrared, It would be more healthier for our brains than wireless, IRDA springs to mind, but as soon as you put the blanket over your laptop the signal drops out completely. Its a worthless technology which will just end up spluttering interference over the entire lower shortwave band, making the valuable and irreplacable shortwave band useless for long distance DX contacts, what happens when we need that band in times of emergency? Oh wait, we can't use it because somebody needs their broadband fix, doh!
*sigh* More intelligent use of the radio frequency spectrum.
Damn pedantics =)
an industry ignored for 10 years, still crying that it provides a relevant option in the face of obvious drawbacks and alternatives is not a news item
Damn pedantics =)
I believe you mean "damn pedants". Pedantic is an adjective.
Just sayin...
/...
No word on the reliability and security of this system.
here's one: SUCK.
I'd just like to congratulate you on the excellent work you've done on your website:
http://michael.kristopeit.com/
It sucks that you're claiming copyright on that excellent design, otherwise I would steal it immediately. I figure though that I can just add a 4th circular link to my two sentences on a white background. the official anonymous coward website is gonna blow you out of the water like you're 8 Minute Abs.
slashdot = stagnated with marketeers attempting to lie to anyone that will listen, while attempting to silence anyone who points out their hypocritical ignorance.
why do you cower? what are you afraid of?
you're completely pathetic.
Give me symmetrical transmit and receive speeds or give me something else!
+1, Pedantic.
I'm not a coward by any name.
The first generation of the LVX system will transmit data at speeds of about three megabits per second, roughly as fast as a residential DSL line.
Is that physical layer rate? If so, what's the rate after protocol overhead?
Let's assume that is the physical layer rate. Which would make it three and a half times slower than 802.11b, and 18 times slower than 802.11g, which is virtually everywhere. And, drumroll please, at least one hundred times slower than 802.11n, which is 300-600Mbit/sec (physical layer speed.)
Please help metamoderate.
Hide a sensor anywhere nearby, and you can read all the internal traffic.
Drop a tiny node in a plushy on someones desk, spewing out all sorts of Window virus, and see how long it takes for the IP staff to find it.
Shine a modulated laser beam through a window, and disrupt all the network traffic in an office.
Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.
Light therapy for Seasonal Affective Disorder ("SAD") can be implemented with LEDs. While it's typically used in 30min bursts first thing in the morning, I wonder if it can be spread out through a longer time and worked into standard lighting via this kind of array. Very intersting...
Use my userscript to add story images to Slashdot. There's no going back.
3Mbit/sec is plenty for voice and texting. With every room/hallway fed separately (via fibre) you can run every single cellphone in the building without using RF. If you wanted to eliminate exposure to RF/EM fields that would certainly help. Also you can modulate different colours independently to multiply bandwidth. Your so called white room lights could easily consist of a dozen LED's tuned to a specific frequency. Also given that cheap fibre systems can use LED's as transmitters and your total bandwidth could easily reach 1000 MBit/sec range.
IBM has/had key patents in this area for decades, and offered wireless office networking from ceiling-mounted LED lamps about 30 years ago. Some of those patents were apparently used in the first wireless PC keyboard--for the PCjr (aka "Peanut")--the second version of which was actually a very nice wireless keyboard. I'm assuming IBM's patents in this area are what kept other optical wireless keyboards and networking gear off the market. -bernieS
Modify all the lights produced by a factory to carry network traffic, but don't advertise it. Modify all cellphones (in software) to listen for that network, and send back a ping when it gets a connection. Make a list of all the replies and wait for a target of interest. You've now got an unmonitored link to that targets cellphone/pda/laptop. This would be very useful for spying on Iran/China/Interpol etc. If the system rarely sends traffic then the odds of accidentally finding it is very low. And yes, even though China makes everything they just build to plan so they wouldn't know about the "extra" bits.
I just can't see why this has to be wired.
I mean, don't LED lights get their energy from the aether?
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
the truth = troll.
slashdot = stagnated with marketeers attempting to lie to anyone that will listen, while attempting to silence anyone who points out their hypocritical ignorance.
Yet you still come here. Drunk? Drugs? Brain cell count low?
why do you cower? what are you afraid of?
you're completely pathetic.
That's all well and good until the visible spectrum gets overloaded with competing and incompatible communications protocols. The way out of this mess is for upcoming 802.11 wireless protocols to get their own piece of spectrum.
Even if windows gave you some filtering, you'd still have to deal with insiders, virus-infected users, etc. If you want security, you still need to use crypto.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
The supermarket here has little LCD price tags for every line on the shelves. The prices are updated in real time using central LED illuminators.
I prefer mine much higher on the spectrum. Closer to 10^20Hz. It takes care of pesky problems in your transmission stream too.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
...Didn't invent anything. They just put LED in front of inventions that existed for decades. Worse, those inventions already exist in the telecoms technologies. This is just a typical case of "yes but now we do it with a computer! So it's new!".
-1, Pedantic. ?
[The Universe] has gone offline.
Talking Lights http://www.talking-lights.com/ has been doing this sort of thing with standard lighting fixtures for a dozen years now. Prior art?
Your 802.11n is what.. 4*40 MHz band? With (visible) light, the bandwidth potential is in Terahertz figures.
Also, it's potentially easier to shield against noise as the walls in your typical home are opaque.
This is the fucking future shining at you, but you are too damn blind to see.
The communication is indistinguishable from noise (i.e. regular light) with naked eye, thus you can harness
the full power of room lighting for communication purposes. Since we're talking THz, the useful unit for
measuring linkspeed might be Tbps as well. BlueRayDisksPerSecond? LibrariesOfCongressPerSecond? Go figure.
ps. Keep in mind current or near-future technology is incapable of handling anything but a tiny fraction of
this available bandwidth, and with ridiculous inefficiency at that. Long way to go.
If your lights are being used as a cableless fiber optic system, what is to keep big brother from sitting outside and picking up the communications from the street?
It's used to send pricing information to LCD price displays attached to shelves via the supermarket lighting (it's done at night when there's no-one around to be affected by it, and in any case since it's at a much higher frequency than the usual 50Hz flicker it wouldn't be noticed anyway). Think of the usual paper price tags in plastic holders attached to shelves, but now they have LCD displays and are updated automatically by modulating the in-store lighting.
+1, Pedantic.
You mean +1, pedantry.
HHI is already doing that, saw it in FOE2010.
-- I was raised on the command line, bitch
Here's a video piece put together by ElectricTV showcasing this technology.
http://www.electrictv.net/Home.aspx?PlayID=70