Data at the speed of light - HomeGrid Forum sees VLC technology as the latest development in the Smart Home/City revolution supported by G.hn

Visible Light Communication (VLC), modulated with G.hn technology, is set to be the next major innovation in realising the full potential of both the Smart Home and the Smart City, according to HomeGrid Forum. This continues to demonstrate the tremendous flexibility of G.hn technology to run over any medium. Wireless joins the ranks of powerline, coax, twisted pair and plastic optical fibre (POF) as a G.hn medium.

Livia M. Rosu, Marketing Chair of HomeGrid Forum, has recently spoken about the capabilities of VLC technology globally, noting the potential that the technology has to revolutionise the Smart Home. Most recently, Rosu spoke at Smart Home Tech Live 2019 in Birmingham, UK, where she moderated the Lighting: Bright ideas for the smart home panel. Rosu also moderated two panels about Gigabit connectivity for new markets and applications at Gigabit Access Networks 4.0 in Cologne, Germany at the beginning of April 2019.

“VLC has great potential for Smart Homes with high density connectivity needs, especially where sensitive data needs to be transmitted between multiple connected devices within one room, because the light spectrum provides low latency and avoids the kind of interruption that can sometimes happen with radio frequency spectrum during congestion time,” said Livia Rosu. “It supports larger bandwidths, it can act as both a source and receiver, it has low power consumption, enhanced security and is easy to install.”

“This is why the market is growing at such an unprecedented rate and is expected to exceed ten billion devices by 2023”, she added.

VLC and Wi-Fi are both wireless technologies that complement each other. “Wi-Fi provides greater freedom of movement, as signals can extend throughout the home and through walls, to ensure full home coverage for consumers,” Livia said. “VLC requires a line of sight between a lightbulb LED transceiver and a connected device, meaning that it cannot pass through walls. In other words, for environments such as schools and hospitals, VLC reduces electromagnetic interference, therefore not affecting sensitive devices. For airports or government buildings, where there is more sensitive information that can be a target of cyberattack, VLC eliminates the risk of data interception by outsiders which are out of sight, therefore offering a vastly enhanced security platform.”

For Visible Light Communication to reach its full connectivity potential, in-premises networking must provide a strong backbone for the access points to support the capabilities of VLC. HomeGrid Forum’s G.hn wireline technology provides the most reliable backbone for both VLC and Wi-Fi media, according to each use case and the corresponding requirements.

Rosu added that the Smart Grid market was expected to grow from 23.8 billion USD to 61.3 billion USD by 2023, to facilitate smart cities’ evolution.

“G.hn augments spectrum usage and provides security enhancements in addition to everything else. VLC has enormous potential and G.hn system vendors are fully prepared to embrace and support the new technology wave,” concluded Livia Rosu.

Source: HomeGrid Forum media announcement