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| Will Wi-Fi crush Bluetooth? |
The tremendous success of Wi-Fi made available by the Wi-Fi Alliance gave them a huge boost in new members since their start. Almost every (electronic) major or minor company which has something to do with wireless connection is affiliated with the alliance. Wi-Fi has penetrated the market for wireless communication so well that there is no way around it anymore, becoming the de facto standard in this field. However, there is a dependence on the area of application for which it is suited and it is this dependency that gave way to different wireless standards. With the introduction of Wi-Fi Direct it entered the domain of Bluetooth becoming a direct competitor.
"We designed Wi-Fi Direct to unleash a wide variety of applications which require device connections, but do not need the internet or even a traditional network. Wi-Fi Direct empowers users to connect devices - when, where and how they want to, and our certification program delivers products that work well together, regardless of the brand." - Edgar Figueroa, CEO Wi-Fi Alliance, 2010
As Bluetooth has already been widely implemented in short range data communication for years, Wi-Fi Direct is considered to be the newcomer to this area. With the new Wi-Fi standard a fair comparison can be made between their main features. Wi-Fi Direct clearly has the upper hand compared to Bluetooth when considering data speed, something which should not be taken lightly because of the ever growing demand for higher throughput. The range of Wi-Fi Direct is somewhat longer but this is not of great concern because most of the data transfer is well within Bluetooth's maximum range. Security however, is an bigger issue because of this longer range. For this Wi-Fi Direct has the same proven security algorithms (AES 256-bit encryption) already employed by the Wi-Fi standard.
One of Bluetooth's key feature is his low power consumption which has been improved in the latest version 4.0. However, this low power mode has its caveats as it has limited throughput, is not available when streaming data and is not fully backward compatible with older versions. This is were Wi-Fi Direct fits in the picture. If one device has the updated Wi-Fi Direct chip you are still able to set up a device-device connection with other Wi-Fi compatible products. As the standard evolved from a different point of view, there is still room for improving their energy consumption when working on battery powered devices. For now their main focus lies on easily rechargeable devices like laptops, tablets and smartphones.
Our third competitor ZigBee is evolving more quietly but is on the other end of the 'power consumption vs data rate' spectrum. The idea behind the ZigBee technology is to be very cheap, small and extremely energy efficient. From this point ZigBee is 'pushing' Bluetooth to its limits which it might not be able to live up to. In the area of small sensor (mesh)networks where Wi-Fi Direct might not excel, ZigBee is able to fill these gaps.Furthermore, ZigBee and the Wi-Fi Alliance are partners in developing new specifications for an IP-based protocol where the two would be able to coexist.
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| Wi-Fi, gateway to the Internet of Things |
It is my opinion that in the future Internet of Things where every wireless device is connected to the internet and to each other, Wi-Fi will be indispensable. Wi-Fi Direct will play a key role in connecting the small distance datacommunication with the longer distances through the ability to easily interconnect and easy access to the internet.
