Setting up a WiFi Direct connection for printing, dlna and Miracast becomes easier

The WiFi Alliance has added four new services to its Wifi Direct certification program. These will make it possible for applications to set up wireless connections between devices with a single click for printing, data transfer, DLNA and Miracast.

In 2010, the WiFi Alliance launched Wifi Direct, which allows devices to make wireless one-to-one connections, much like Bluetooth. Although more than 6,000 devices have since gained support for the peer-to-peer technology, users and developers are encountering hurdles to ease of use. Setting up Direct connections is different depending on the type of device and, moreover, several steps are often necessary.

The certification programs for Wifi Direct Send, Print, Dlna and Miracast should put an end to that for many devices. Through a developer services platform, the Wifi Alliance enables applications to go through the process of finding, connecting and running in a single step.

For example, with Direct Send, users will soon be able to send content between devices more easily, Print will make it easy to print wirelessly from a smartphone, tablet or PC and Wifi Direct Miracast will make it possible to apply wireless screen mirroring, without the cumbersome step-by-step plan that is still needed for this. Finally, there is Direct Dlna, which makes it easier for media devices that support this standard to recognize each other.

Existing equipment can easily be updated for support. The Wi-Fi alliance has already approved some devices such as Google’s Nexus 10, the Marvell Avaster-soc, the MediaTek MT6592+6625 and the Snapdragon 800 in combination with Android and Qualcomm’s Wi-Fi-n technology Xspan.