Slashdot Mirror
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."
IRDA doesn't flicker in the visible spectrum, and thus fails to cause hilarious non-fatal seizures in coworkers, which, I'm assuming, is the whole point of this new technology.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
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.