It is impressive enough that Philips has remained a recognizable name in the electronics industry for more than a century. But now the company is going one step forward with the world of innovation in lighting, which already began with Philips Hue smart lighting a few years ago. After rebranding itself to Signify yesterday to sound a tad more modern like its products, the company today announced the Philips LiFi Systems. That. Is. Light+Fidelity. LiFi is similar to Wi-Fi, but light replaces the radio waves here.
Philips had acquired the French company Luciom last year, which introduced technology to integrate the broadband internet into lighting equipment. Known as Light Fidelity or LiFi, the wireless network is built into the LED lights and transmitted through light waves. Although the technology behind it has been around for a while, this is the first time a major electronics company like Philips is making it commercially available.
In regard to speed, Philips promises that its office luminaries based on the Philips LiFi technology will be able to offer a dedicated speed of 30Mb/sec. (about 3.75MB/s that is). All of this comes with an effective range of almost 10,000 times the range of a regular Wi-Fi router, the company says. The speed may not break the internet barrier but to us it seems is more than adequate for an office environment and the fact that it basically comes from a lightbulb if nothing else!
