Forget Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, here is Wi-R...

The prototype of an American company makes it possible to transmit data between several devices with a single handshake.

Wireless technologies, especially  Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, have become essential for transferring photos, streaming music or synchronizing information. However, these technologies are not flawless. They are indeed sometimes sensitive to interference and accessible to everyone within a radius of a few meters, and especially to malicious individuals.

Wireless that needs physical contact

For the Americans of Ixana, the parade would be to reduce the range of communications to... a few centimeters. Wi-R is a technology using electroquasistatic fields (or EQS), which allows the human body to be used as an “antenna”. The advantage lies in the fact that, even if there is no need for a cable between two devices that you want to communicate, there is still a need for a physical link.

The company's first prototype has a wireless (i.e., here, contactless) range of less than 10 cm, and a range with a conductor (an object, an individual) of 2 to 5 meters. Thus, a person with his smartphone in his pocket can play music in his headsets. He could also hold a friend's hand to stream music to the friend's headphones. This friend could himself touch, simultaneously, a table on which would be placed a wireless speaker, which could then receive the same musical flow. In any case, this is how Ixana demonstrates the performance of its device.

New modes of digital exchange

Of course, the company does not only see this device as a way to use audio systems. It would also be possible to transfer contact information, to use connected devices such as watches, glasses, a pacemaker, or to create security devices by touch. More so, a next iteration would be able to transmit a video stream, which would be used for VR Headset, for example.

The advantage of Wi-R does not lie solely in its secure nature or in its practical aspect, depending on the case. Indeed, the technology consumes little energy compared to the amount of data transferred, up to a hundred times less than Bluetooth or Wi-Fi. The currently marketed prototype of Ixana displays a bandwidth of up to 1 Mb/s, but the company announces speeds twenty times higher for its next model, for similar energy performance.

If our devices will not have this technology tomorrow, it is not fanciful to consider its daily use. Indeed, the “interpersonal communication” that it allows, by sharing information through simple contact between two people, opens the way to new modes of digital exchange. In addition, the transfer of data between devices placed on the same surface opens up new possibilities that could significantly change our relationship with our devices. It is enough that the promises are kept, and that then, the industrialists play the game.