Light bulbs have been serving the people for centuries, providing illumination at home, offices, streets, and everywhere else. But in this century, LED lights were introduced and it seems that it can do more than just give light.

Recently, there's a professor from University of Edinburgh named Harald Haas, who found new use for the LED lighting devices. He discovered that it can function as wireless communication tool as well, something that can possibly link a computer or smartphone to the world wide web or internet. It is similar to how WiFi works, but his discovery makes use of light to communicate data and it is called Li-Fi.

What is Li-Fi?

It is the newest wireless technology that is light-based. It uses light waves to send data at lighting speeds instead of radio technology. Li-Fi originated from the term light fidelity.

Haas also said that in the future LED lights would be the best alternative to WiFi because of its ultra-fast speed. The speed is achieve by operating on visible light between 400 and 800 terahertz. In the lab testings, the scientists attained the speed rate of 224 gigabits per second.

And recently, as reported on IBTimes, the professor and his team tested the Li-Fi outside of the lab for the first time. They placed it in offices and commercial spaces and the results of their testing was incredible. They recorded data transmission at 1 GB per second which is a hundred times faster compared to the average speeds of Wi-Fi transmission.

How can Li-Fi be so fast; how does it work?

Through the utilization of visible light to transfer data, light fidelity is able to raise bandwidth a hundred times over. With this speed, anyone can easily download eighteen 1.5GB movies in a single second.

Do we need expensive types of light for Li-Fi to work?

No. In an interview with Ted, the inventor of LiFi, professor Harald Haas stated, "All we need to do is fit a small microchip to every potential illumination device and this would then combine two basic functionalities: illumination and wireless data transmission."

The Future of Li-Fi

"In the future we will not only have 14 billion light bulbs, we may have 14 billion Li-Fis deployed worldwide for a cleaner, greener and even brighter future," said Haas.

With this invention in the field of wireless connectivity, people can expect to hear more about it in the coming days as this is now being polished to be available for everyday use.
Really, the potential of this ground-breaking technology will greatly change how people use the internet.