New 'Passive Wi-Fi' system uses 10,000 times less power

The University of Washington might be known as a college football powerhouse, securing one of the four spots in the BCS Playoffs. But more importantly to PhoneArena readers is that the school has an engineering department that has devised a new Wi-Fi system. Dubbed "Passive Wi-Fi," the new system uses 10,000 times less power than conventional Wi-Fi. And it will work with today's lineup of smartphones and routers.

While the team has its ground game set with the reduction in power usage, it is now looking to work on its air attack. In other words, the 11Mbps download speeds it has achieved so far is in the ballpark of LTE download speeds, but the engineers working on the project are looking to raise the throughput.

The University of Washington team (those working on the project, not on the gridiron) say that the new technology could result in new types of communications that couldn't be devised before because of the power requirements of current Wi-Fi systems. You can check out Passive Wi-Fi in action by clicking on the video at the top of this story.


We don't know when this technology will be heading to the marketplace, but if Passive Wi-Fi can deliver faster data speeds while using much less energy, it sounds like a touchdown to us.

source: UniversityofWashington, MITTechReview via AndroidAuthority