Wi-Fi is Dead. Long Live Li-Fi

Samsung’s got a new phone. LG’s gotta new phone. Everyone’s got a new phone. But the big news out of the Mobile World Congress has little to do with the newest plastic rectangle with a touch screen. The big news out of Barcelona is that the internet is poised to move at the speed of light, 100 times faster than current Wi-Fi speeds. Wi-Fi is dead. Long live Li-Fi.

The French startup Oledcomm blew the world away when it demonstrated its new technology, which would allow users to download the equivalent of 23 DVDs in one second, as if anyone used DVDs anymore. Pish. Li-Fi utilizes light from, you know, light bulbs, to transmit data, instead of the radio waves your Wi-Fi router is currently blasting through you. LED light bulbs will flicker at insanely fast speeds, invisible to the naked eye, a sort of light-based Morse code. In practice, all you need to do is take your Li-Fi-equipped phone and bring it into the light, and voila, 23 DVDs are as good as yours.

Some other benefits include security. Wi-Fi travels through walls, so hackers can do their thing from afar. With Li-Fi, a hacker or the NSA or the Koch Brothers would need to be in the same light source to spy on you. Of course, this means you need a direct, uninterrupted field of view with the Li-Fi source to get your 23 DVDs. Meanwhile, what if you want to watch Game of Thrones in the dark? There are some wrinkles to iron out, to be sure. Check out this TED talk to see Li-Fi in action.

Now, as mobile app developers from sunny San Francisco, anything that promises faster connectivity makes us smile. In the long run, these kind of speeds may reduce the need for dedicated native apps on your phone, but at the same time will increase the need for HTML5 mobile apps, optimized for the web. With such blazing fast data speeds, there’s no reason to store anything on your phone anymore — it will simply act as a portal to THE CLOUD. Imagine for a moment a world with 23 DVDs at your fingertips, but being slowed down by a poorly designed mobile site. Yikes.

Li-Fi is still a laboratory technology, but it’s currently being tested at French museums and shopping malls, places where we desperately need faster internet. Meanwhile, rumors are swirling out of Cupertino that Apple is researching Li-Fi for its next phone.  So that means it’s officially happening. Ready yourselves.

Learn more about Appstem, Wi-Fi, and Li-Fi today!