Signify releases Trulifi products for Li-Fi connection up to 250Mbit/s
Signify has released a new range of LiFi solutions, including a system that works with invisible infrared light up to 150Mbit/s. The Trulifi products replace data transfer via WiFi with light waves and are intended for the business market.
Signify’s Trulifi portfolio, formerly Philips Lighting, consists of three different products. The Trulifi 6002 is a Li-Fi system that uses invisible infrared light. It is attached to the ceiling in offices and other working environments, whether or not integrated into an existing or new lighting fixture. At a height of two meters, speeds of up to 150Mbit/s up and down are achievable within a diameter of 2.2 meters. Li-fi technology has not yet been integrated into computers or smartphones. Users should therefore use a Trulifi USB dongle with a receiver for the light signals.
The Trulifi 6013 is a fixed point-to-point connection, where the transmitter and receiver must always be in the same place. This variant is mainly intended for industrial environments and works with a visible light beam in blue, red or green. With the Trulifi 6013, up and down speeds of up to 250Mbit/s can be achieved, making it the fastest Lifi solution on the market, according to Signify.
In 2018, Signify already introduced the Trulifi 6001, a Li-Fi system with the appearance of a ‘classic’ LED luminaire with sixteen light points. The data transmission with this panel is done using visible light and infrared light, with a maximum speed of 30Mbit/s.
With LiFi, manufacturers like Signify want to offer an alternative for data transfer via radio signals such as WiFi. Overcrowded frequencies cause more and more interference and delays in those signals. Lifi, on the other hand, offers guaranteed and stable transfer speeds, according to Signify. The Li-Fi spectrum is more than a thousand times larger than the radio spectrum, so it does not interfere with other communication systems.
An additional advantage of LiFi, according to Signify, is that the signal can only be received in the room in which it is broadcast. According to the manufacturer, this makes Trulifi very suitable for places where sensitive information is exchanged, such as government buildings, financial institutions and hospitals. For additional security, lifi uses aes256 encryption and requires a USB key.
The LiFi technique was invented by Harald Haas, a German professor at the University of Edinburgh. He demonstrated the technique in 2011 during a TED talk.