Wi-LE: Can WiFi replace Bluetooth? (2019) [pdf]

I think there is a wirelrss revolution around the corner being held up by patents, closed chipsets, and closed firmwares.<p>Look at what was necessary in this papet, thr IoT device pretends to be an access point to bypass all the layers in the stack that would filter out thr packet.<p>In this case they found a hack to workaround chipset&#x2F;firmware limitations, but what other innovations havent happened due to inaccesible wireless physical layers?

Yes, or, at least it has been used to do so. Microsoft&#x27;s xbox 360&#x2F;xbox one USB controller adapter is actually a standard wifi adapter with a custom firmware.<p>Source: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;medusalix&#x2F;xow#how-it-works" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;medusalix&#x2F;xow#how-it-works</a>

I hope so. I have issues with BT about once every time I use it.

I just got a new router today to try the VR streaming from Desktop PC to my Quest 2 and it works flawlessly. Pretty exciting if it can do that it can probably do anything else. The part I don&#x27;t know is what the energy use tradeoffs are. I know wifi6 is supposed to be lower energy cost?

I can see a reason to abandon BLE. Bluetooth is generally a bit problematic maybe due to is complexity. but “Bluetooth low energy” is perfect for what it is (a super slow short range wireless communication implementation).

Bluetooth even with proprietary codes like aptix is lossily compressing already compressed audio which is a shame. I really hope WIFI (or a future Bluetooth standard version) will alleviate this big issue in the future

if only there were some good flows for attaching sound input &#x2F; outputs &amp; input devices over wifi<p>there are some technical means. one could use usb-ip[1] to bridge peripherals, for example. but few rise to the status of &quot;flows&quot;, good well paved paths.<p>[1] <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;usbip.sourceforge.net&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;usbip.sourceforge.net&#x2F;</a>

What I’d love to see is my Mac be able to connect my Zoom or Teams meetings to my AirPods via my iPhone (on wifi) so that I can freely run to the kitchen without losing Bluetooth connection.

A recent development not mentioned in this article is Wi-Fi Halow&#x2F;802.11ah, this is a new standard using the 900MHz ISM band. Advantages of this are better signal penetration&#x2F;range for the same output power (or lower output power for the same range).<p>Compared to 2.4&#x2F;5G wifi Halow uses narrower bandwidths so has lower data rates but is still much higher than BLE. BLE can do up to ~2MBit with a 2MHz BW, 802.11ah can do up to ~8MBit with a 2MHz BW but can go up to 16MHz BW. Additionally 802.11ah supports MIMO, so it can also scale the bandwidth up with more antennas.<p>There are some other new fun features in 802.11ah namely TWT (target wake time) which is a powersaving method that solves a lot of the problems the article mentioned with powersaving in wifi.

I can’t wait to get rid of Bluetooth for its issues with range and badly implemented devices and software where pairing doesn’t “stick” for long. The only good thing is the energy consumption with BLE. Like USB 3.whatever and USB-C, Bluetooth is generally a pile of garbage standards in a pile of garbage standards with poor implementations. Some Apple devices seem to be doing better with Bluetooth. Elsewhere it’s a bag of hurt. But that’s purely anecdotal from my end.

I hope not. For one thing, Bluetooth consumes less battery.<p>Also, when the topic of Bluetooth comes up, many people complain that they have Bluetooth issues. Sadly, some manufacturers do not care about interoperability. Maybe I&#x27;m just lucky but I don&#x27;t even recall when I would&#x27;ve had issues with Bluetooth. I use several devices practically every day (car, headphones, speakers).

Where I live the Wi-Fi spectrum is already busted. There are several dozen visible access points right now, and if I go outside where no metal shielding is happening I&#x27;d probably see 100 or more of them.<p>And that&#x27;s just the well-behaving honest Wi-Fi access points, not all the other crap on these frequencies that periodically destroys signal with interference.

Wi-Le is interesting. Does it mean you don’t have to connect to a wifi hotspot to do configuration?<p>The product I made uses BLE to connect between device and mobile for things such as connecting the device to a wifi router. Otherwise the device connects to wifi normally.

I thought Wifi Direct already did this?<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Wi-Fi_Direct" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Wi-Fi_Direct</a>

So only one way (upstream) communication via &quot;beacons&quot;? What about downstream - thats where the complexity is.

Beyond battery efficiency, another pro that WiFi over Bluetooth is the security.