Wi-fi may be familiar to all of us. In our daily life, the first thing we need to do is to turn on our mobile phones and connect to Wi-Fi. Wi-fi has become an indispensable networking tool in our daily life.

 

Wi-fi is a wireless LAN technology based on IEEE802.11 standard. Member companies of the Wi-Fi Alliance work together to create technical standards that ensure global connectivity and forward compatibility, performance and security. Owing to the advantages of relatively low deployment cost and high transmission rate, Wi-Fi has become one of the most widely used short-range wireless communication technologies. With the popularity of the latest wi-fi 6 standard, users' experience has been further improved.

 

Internet of Everything is the hottest concept in recent years, including industrial Internet, Internet of vehicles, smart wear, smart home and other application scenarios. In response to the challenges posed by these market requirements, including greater coverage distance, lower power consumption, and greater number of connected devices, the Wi-Fi Alliance will soon launch a tailored Wi-Fi HaLow certification scheme.

Wi-Fi HaLow

 

On July 29, 2021, the first "2021 China Smart Wearable Summit" was successfully held, with the support of 42 high-quality supply chains, service providers and brands in the smart wearable industry, and 17 industry celebrities shared the theme of smart wearable. Among them, the Wi-Fi Alliance made an opening speech with "Wi-Fi Power smart Wear and IoT Market Development".

At the meeting, Mr. Kang Fu, vice President of Wi-Fi Alliance, shared his views on the challenges and prospects of smart wearables and IoT market, and made an interpretation of the upcoming Wi-Fi HaLow certification program. Wi-fi HaLow is tailored for IoT applications and is suitable for the smart wearables market, which has grown rapidly in recent years.

 

1. What is Wi-Fi HaLow?

Wi-fi HaLow is a certification standard based on IEEE 802.11ah technology, a low-power Wi-Fi technology tailored for the IoT market. By operating in bands below 1GHz, it expands the range of Wi-Fi available, enabling wi-fi to provide longer distance and lower power connections. It meets the unique needs of the Internet of Things (IoT) and supports many new scenarios such as industry, agriculture, electronic consumption, low-power smart wear market, smart buildings and smart cities.

 

2. What are the advantages of Wi-Fi HaLow technology in the smart wear market?

As part of the Wi-Fi technology portfolio, Wi-Fi HaLow is designed for long-range, low-power and high-security applications. The electronic consumer market is mainly for smart wearable products with high requirements for low power consumption.

 

In recent years, the smart wear market has ushered in a period of rapid development and become a new "blue ocean" in the electronic consumer market. With the continuous iteration and upgrading of the product, the functions are increasingly enriched and the product starts to operate independently. Higher requirements are put forward for computing capacity, network access ability and data throughput, so as to realize online OTA upgrade, download and update APP and other functions. In this case, wi-fi technology is needed.

Compared with the Bluetooth connection mode currently adopted by smart wearable products, the biggest application bottleneck of traditional Wi-Fi technology is power consumption. In terms of power consumption, Wi-Fi HaLow adopts a lower frequency (700-900m) and narrower channel occupancy width, making the overall power consumption at the same level as current short-range wireless communication technologies such as Bluetooth and ZigBee, achieving a breakthrough from plug-in to button-level battery low-power application scenarios. In terms of performance, devices that support the Wi-Fi HaLow standard have a maximum transmission distance of 1 km, and a single node can connect more than 8,000 devices. Combined with further improved anti-interference capability, coverage capability and wall penetration, the device can provide a stable, safe and convenient wireless connection.

 

A device that adopts the Wi-Fi HaLow standard does not require additional gateways except Wi-Fi routers on the network. As long as the products are certified by the Wi-Fi Alliance, they can realize the interconnection between devices of different brands, such as forward, back, and so on. In terms of security, it adopts the latest WPA3 standard to meet the requirements of enterprise security.

 

3. The industrial chain of low-power Wi-Fi application scenarios is maturing

 

IoT and smart wearables require more comprehensive wireless connectivity technologies. Wi-fi HaLow features low power consumption, low latency, fast connectivity, expanded node capacity, and improved security and reliability.

At present, members of the Wi-Fi Alliance, such as Microchip, GainSpan, Dialog and ESPRESSIF, have achieved mass production of low-power Wi-Fi chip /MCU. Huawei, Samsung, Apple, Xiaomi, GARMIN and other manufacturers, all members of the Wi-Fi Alliance, provide the market with a variety of smart terminal options with more characteristics.

The wi-fi alliance

1. Introduction to Wi-Fi Alliance

The Wi-Fi Alliance is a global trade association with nearly 900 corporate members. Over the past 20 years, the Alliance has driven the evolution of wireless local area Network technology standards and the industry as a whole through industry leadership.

The Wi-Fi Alliance is committed to ensuring the interoperability, security and reliability of standard WIRELESS LAN products through its testing and certification programs to fulfill the alliance's founding vision: connecting everything, anytime, anywhere. The success and value creation of the Wi-Fi Alliance are based on the continuous exploration of new technologies, the active promotion of inter-industry cooperation and the provision of outstanding user experience.

 

2. Member of Wi-Fi Alliance

The Wi-Fi Alliance's board of directors includes upstream chip vendors: BROADCOM, Intel, TI, NXP, Qualcomm, downstream terminal brands Microsoft, HUAWEI, LG, NOKIA, DELL, SAMSUNG, Apple, SONY, as well as CISCO and US cable network giant COMCAST.

The number of Wi-Fi alliance members in China has reached more than 200, and the number is growing rapidly year by year. They include Huawei, ZTE, BYD, Tencent, DJI, VIVO, Honor, OPPO, Xiaomi, TCL, TP-Link, Lenovo, Haier, Changhong, Midea, Skyworth, Hisense, ASR, Lexin, Desaixiwei and other five industries, mainly covering intelligent terminals, network communications, chip modules, smart home and automotive electronics.

 

3. Contribution of Wi-Fi Alliance to the Internet of Everything

According to IDC's prediction: by 2021, the total device shipments of wi-fi alliance certified products will be 37.5 billion units, 16.4 billion units of network devices, and 4.2 billion units of devices will be shipped annually. Carrying more than 60% of mobile Internet traffic; More than 500 million public access points worldwide; 2.2 billion Wi-Fi 6 devices have been shipped, while 338 million Wi-Fi 6E devices have been shipped.

 

In 2020, when the pandemic hit, the global economy suffered and shipments of Wi-Fi devices fell. Shipments will continue to rise again from 2021. It is expected that by 2025, annual shipments will reach 5.2 billion, with Wi-Fi 6 taking the majority of the market share, and Wi-Fi HaLow will be increasingly widely accepted as IoT market shipments increase.

 

The future of consumer electronics connectivity

 

The important position of Wi-Fi in the current wireless communication market can be clearly seen from the evolution of Wi-Fi technology standards promoted by the Wi-Fi Alliance, the composition of the board members of the Wi-Fi alliance and the domestic member enterprises, as well as the popularity of the market application of Wi-Fi technology. Each technological change in Wi-Fi promotes the development of the industry and improves the user experience of consumers of end products.

 

With the rapid development of intelligent wearable products in the electronic consumer market, the product shipments are increasing. There will be huge room for growth in the future. The Wi-Fi Alliance thinks the market is big enough for it to focus exclusively on and work with its members to develop applications in this area. Hence the wi-fi HaLow.

 

The Wi-Fi HaLow standard compensates for the relatively high power consumption of traditional Wi-Fi products and provides further improvements in coverage, number of connected nodes, and penetration performance. In the future, Wi-Fi will be applied to IoT and smart wearables in the same way as the current consumer electronics such as mobile phones, tablets and computers.

 

In order to distinguish which short-distance wireless transmission mode is better, it is necessary to choose by product positioning, application scenarios and the construction degree of the ecosystem. There is no absolute superiority or inferiority of the technology itself. The optimal option is to carry a variety of wireless communication technologies with the continuous upgrading of relevant technologies of smart wearable products without increasing the size of the product, so as to put the choice in the hands of users and further improve the power consumption and endurance performance of the system.