Researchers Make Low-Power Wi-Fi Breakthrough (networkworld.com)

alphadogg writes: The biggest downside of Wi-Fi for most users might be that it can really drain your smartphone or tablet battery, but a research team at the University of Washington has come up with a way to make using the nearly ubiquitous wireless technology in a less taxing way. They have demonstrated a technique for using 10,000 times less power than typical Wi-Fi (well, at up to 11Mbps anyway) and next month will present a paper titled "Passive Wi-Fi: Bringing Low Power to Wi-Fi Transmissions" at the USENIX Symposium on Networked Systems Design in Santa Clara. The main trick involves decoupling digital and analog components of a typical Wi-Fi router.

Comments

Re:I'd prefer long range

[Pseudonymous Powers]

These router manufacturers are getting rather annoying with their "specs." Oh, it covers 14,000 square feet. That's a square less than 120 feet on a side.

Never mind the rest of the specs. The real story here is, how'd they get their radio antenna to cover a square instead of a circle?

Re:I'd prefer long range

[Jason Levine]

I'd be highly concerned if a router only covered a two dimensional area. You definitely want to pay extra for the router that can cover a cube or a sphere.