New IrDA Spec Shoots for 100Mbit/s Data Rate

An anonymous reader writes "According to an article at DeviceForge, the Infrared Data Association has adopted a new high speed IR communications protocol. This new protocol promises to deliver possible speed up to 100Mbit/s transfer rates. From the article: 'Of note, existing IrDA-enabled devices can be upgraded to the new protocol, thus offering the opportunity to accelerate the IrDA data transfer rates of devices in the field via a software update.'"

Good, but...

Although it's quite fast it's still line-of-sight, and very short range. So, what can I do with this, transfer 12.5 MB/sec off my mobile phone? To connect my PCs I have wifi or LAN, I wouldn't use IrDA anyway for that.

Re:Good, but...

You can't snoop on it (so easily). In secure establishments bluetooth is a liability.

Re:Good, but...

In secure establishments any portable device capable of being used for removing or adding new data bypassing the security is a liability, whether it's done using irda, bluetooth, cable, or pen and paper - i don't think the poor encryption of bluetooth is the issue.

Re:Good, but...

At least for regular IrDA, you need not only line-of-sight but also a proper phase-of-the-moon. Getting that fixed would be nifty.

Re:Good, but...

At least for regular IrDA, you need not only line-of-sight but also a proper phase-of-the-moon. Getting that fixed would be nifty.

All you really need is favor-of-the-gods. Just sacrifice a goat or two and it works every time.

Re:Good, but...

If only there were some way to channel light through some kind of flexible tube....

Accelerate devices in the field

When they say 'accelerate devices in the field' do they meant that those cute little Ir ports on my laptop, with a transfer rate of something like 9600 baud and a range of about half an inch will suddenly become a high speed wireless connection? Doesn't sound very likely...

Er, no.

TFA states that the faster protocol that older devices can be firmware-upgraded to (IrSimple) is just a regular 4mbps Fast IrDA version with less overhead. The VFIR (16 mbps) and UFIR (100 mbps) protocols in development will surpass current hardware capabilities and current devices cannot be upgraded to them.

Now, although the editor may feel that the submitter knows more about a subject field than he (or she), just a cursory glance through the linked main article to see how well it jives with the write-up should be in order. I'm just saying'.

nice

Nice speed, this is handy for people that need to connect their mobile phone with their computer or something like that. Since bluetooth isn't that fast...

Re:nice

Bluetooth is 721Kb/s, which is much faster than the connection between my telephone and the Internet. Bluetooth 2 (which exists on equipment that I don't own) runs at 3Mb/s - faster than my home Internet connection.

The real advantage of bluetooth, however, is that it is not line of sight. When I am in a meeting or on the train I can just leave my 'phone in my pocket and still use it to connect to the Internet. With IrDA you still need to carefully align the devices.

IrDA has the advantage that it does not require any kind of pairing, so it is good for one-off transfers. The only thing I really use it for is dropping my vCard into someone else's telephone / PDO from my 'phone. With more bandwidth, it might be good for transferring photos off a camera to a printer, but I suspect that wireless USB will be around before 100Mb/s IrDA and so it will continue to be an also-ran.

Great

Now I can stream Video from my remote control ! Take that TV !

Current Speed?

anyone know the current speed for IrDa and bluetooth transfer???

Re:Current Speed?

IrDa can manage serial port speed, 128Kb. Bluetooth V1 can transfer data at 1Mb and Bluetooth v2 can transfer data at 2Mb

Multiplex more tv channels

Now I can talk to my tv at 100mpbs I can change channels much quicker and theoretically watch more channels at once.

(for all those people who flick backwards and forewards between 2 channels watching both programs - TV watching for the multitasking generation)

Manuel the waiter says: ees impossible!

Um, doesnt sound even remotely possible. All the IR links I've seen use a simple IR detector with intrinsically very limited bandwidth. Even with aggressive feedback it's hard to get over 100K BPS.

I think this is quite cool

I miss line of sight communications. Now I can see that when the range is measured in miles or 10s of yards line of site is probably a real issue, but when its measured in feetor inches its actually really neat.

Bluetooth is cool, I wouldn't want a LOS headset, or xbox controller and it is cool being able to sync or connect to your phone whilst its still in your pocket. But handshaking is a PITA. Say a friend of mine wants to send me a photo from his groovy new phone to my apple. I can do it with bluetooth, but I have to pair it first (grrrr). In the bad old days of ir, all he had to do was point his phone at my laptop press send, then I accepted the transmission and it magically appeared on my desktop. Sweet.

For fast, one time transmission, this technology could really make life easier. You don't have to know what WLAN to connect to, you don't have pair, you don't have to worry about firewalls or connection settings or network contention. You just fire and forget. Its not replacement for bluetooth, its complimentary.

Now it's going to be fast!

I'll be able to change tv channel faster than ever!

irda is more secure than bluetooth

bluetooth and irda have the same range

bluetooth is more convenient since irda requires line of sight

well, we always talk about a trade off between convenience and security, and there is the tradeoff right there

so i think broadband irda has a blockbuster future

because security concerns are nothing to sniff at in a marketplace full of it departments spooked by security scares

Lack of support

I recently completed my individual project for University, which consisted of a cheap device that could store and distribute media to mobile devices (for use in shops, etc). I had huge problems with this project, not because of the protocols, which are actually very well written and offer high transfer rates, but in fact with the lack of utilisation in industry. I was unable to find any mobile phones for example that support FIR or VFIR, meaning they could only transmit at 0.1Mbps. This combined with the low throughput of bluetooth, makes mobile devices terrible for media exchange (i.e. movies, pictures, music, etc).

What I would like to see is more support from manufacturers, so we can provide better applications and uses for this technology.

Isn't IR outdated?

Most devices made now adays don't even have IR ports. Apple stopped equiping their devices with IRda ages again (the titamium PowerBook G4 700MHz I think was the laste one), and it's very rare when I see a laptop with it. IR on cell phones is even rarer - I think Nokia is the only company that still really sells phones with IRda, and Palm is the only company still really pushing behind IRda. What was the point of updating a protocal that has be replaced in the computer world?

A Good Innovation

IR devices are kinda neat. I've never used one personally, and the drivers for my laptop IR port stopped working when I went up to the 2.6 kernel way back when, but I have seen people at my old roommates work just plot their laptop or palm down next to an HP printer and instantly be able to connect and print via IR.

I like the fact that this new speed increase doesn't involve buying new hardware, which will help it a lot considering IR is starting to fade out.

IR has its limitations, such as line of sight and whatnot, but with 100Mbit speeds, its worth another look now.

IR is a great idea for small portable devices

Ok, long time reader, first time poster, great website love the topic....

Infra red communication holds a lot of promise for small portable devices. Yes, it is line of site, but that is an advantage for secure connections. So and so on the street can't hack your pda while it's in your pocket, for instance.

Another advantage is the low power consumption. The led's used for this convert >99% of the electricity put into them into usable light. (real world performance for the system might vary) I don't know what the efficiency is for blue tooth, but I would be surprised if it's that good for ANY rf based device.

I have used ir on my palm device and it works great (if slow thanks to the UART limit). Simple and efficient. Point and send. Wouldn't use it to surf the internet for any long period of time, but I wouldn't want to on a device that small anyway. (no screen real estate)

What of wireless PANs

IR's biggest fault is always going to be line-of sight as it is somethimes difficult to balance two laptops on a desk pointing at one another.

Bluetooth is quite good but needs more bandwidth perhaps a good solution for w/l Personal Area Networks would be a form of 802.11g that only had a range of say 5 to 10 meters.

Finally

It takes so long for my cable box to change channels.

So what your saying is...

I can change channels on my new hidef tv quicker now!

Umm.. k.

"This new protocol promises to deliver possible speed up to 100Mbit/s transfer rates."

Why don't you just say "doesn't"?

Troll warning!

Mods, if you consider up-modding this, read the text carefully first.

Re:It's nice, but...

You mean perhaps USB? That seems to be on a lot if not all of the devices mention.