The overwhelming issues with WiFi are
1. It is slow to connect, taking multiple seconds rather than a few milliseconds. (Wifi unreliability would have much less practical impact if there was rapid reconnect.)
2. The lack of a sufficiently flexible standard interface for logging in and accepting terms, leading to the terrible captive portal workaround.
I cannot for the life of me understand why the standards committee cares much about various other minor improvements when these issues are still unsolved after two decades. (Similar complaints can be made about Bluetooth.)
[delayed]
I do not have access to the original paper, but I would want to see how this compares to 802.11ah "WiFi HaLow".
(edit) OK, I got a copy from ResearchGate, and I misunderstood! I had failed to grok the part of the article where LoRa is now supported by the sx128x (as opposed to the sx126x) on 2.4GHz.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/383692369_WiLo_Long...
> In this article, we introduce a new algorithmic framework called WiLo, designed to enable directional communication from Wi-Fi to LoRa, which employs signal emulation techniques to enable off-the-shelf Wi-Fi hardware to produce a valid 2.4 GHz LoRa waveform.
So, critically, and as far as I can tell this isn't in the summary article, this is purely unidirectional; and so, this isn't about being able to build a network that upgrades the range of WiFi with some tradeoffs: this is about being able to send data from existing WiFi hardware to existing LoRa hardware using a relatively minimal set of changes (though I still don't appreciate how this would practically be done to the existing hardware, and they apparently only simulated this with software-defined radio).
> The core innovation of WiLo lies in the signal emulation technique used to generate a valid 2.4 GHz LoRa waveform. Through sophisticated signal processing algorithms, WiLo transforms the standard Wi-Fi signals into LoRa-like wave-forms, while ensuring compliance with the LoRa modulation specifications. This enables the LoRa hardware to decode WiFi signals without requiring any modifications to the hardware itself. The emulation of LoRa waveforms is achieved by carefully manipulating the parameters of the Wi-Fi signals, such as the modulation index, spreading factor, and BW, to closely match the characteristics of LoRa modulation.
> We would like to emphasize that WiLo is directly supported among commodity devices, and the USRP-B210 devices are used only for evaluation purposes to measure low-level PHY information, which is inaccessible by commodity devices. For example, a commodity Wi-Fi card such as the Atheros AR2425 can replace USRP-B210 devices as the sender.
> So, critically, and as far as I can tell this isn't in the summary article, this is purely unidirectional; and so, this isn't about being able to build a network that upgrades the range of WiFi with some tradeoffs: this is about being able to send data from existing WiFi hardware to existing LoRa hardware using a relatively minimal set of changes (though I still don't appreciate how this would practically be done to the existing hardware, and they apparently only simulated this with software-defined radio).
This leads me to believe you could flip a switch and turn entire swaths of access points into a broadcast fabric for LoRa? Wifi networks meet software defined radio a bit.
I thought this was a HaLow competitor too... Thanks for checking on that.
let's assume that this takes off and it will become standard addition for our WiFi devices.
Given big range of this technology, how this handle air congestion when we would have hundreds maybe thousands of devices in range?
I expect low througput of this technology and for IoT that's usually fine, but when we need to share this spectrum with lot of devices we might quickly make this non operational. And this is even assuming we do not have some devices that request much more bandwidth that others.
Wirh WiFi 2.4ghz we already struggle with air congestion and quick Google shows that lora have 13 + 8 channels and if I understand it correctly some of them are used explicitly for joining network (?)
I think this technology is really cool only if it won't get much popularity
I live on a pretty standard density street , there are a few semi detached homes mixed in. I’d still call it light density.
I have 2 x 5ghz channels, 2 x 2.4 ghz channels, and then a repeater with another 2 and 2
In the evening there is so much congestion on every available channel on either band that I can’t watch 1080p tv
This long range thing sounds awful.
It could be silently adopted to allow longer distance for things like map apps that only need a few kilobytes for wifi triangulation.
I'm curious what the speed would be, kinda strange the post mentions "mentioning speed" but not what speed is maintained
This looks to be about running LoRa like networks on WiFi hardware. Speed on LoRa is not something talked about much as it is more like SMS message passing or the like than IP networking.
Probably why it was taking about IoT use. 500 meters for a couple hundred baud connection doesn't seem too ground breaking. Off the shelf 900mhz radios can easily achieve that
It’s about WiFi to LoRa interop, which is nice but not world changing.
For smart home applications this could be big. No longer need a hub.
Yeah, the main draw seemed that you don't need a special receiver and that standard networking gear would work, but.....LoRa hardware is not very expensive or complicated.
Assuming it's the same as LoRa, up to 50 kbit/s.
tl;dr exsisting Wi-Fi devices goes long range with LoRa protocols
The catch: additional power consumption.