What is Wi-Fi HaLow? Part 1
In 2017 the wireless networking standard IEEE 802.11ah, also called Wi-Fi HaLow (pronounced “HAY-Low”), was released. HaLow uses the 900 MHz industrial, scientific and medical (ISM) unlicensed bands to extend the Wi-Fi range. The Wi-Fi Alliance supports the HaLow standard.
The Wi-Fi (802.11 a/b/g/n) range most people are familiar with operates at either 2.4 GHz or 5 GHz. At these frequencies, the radio waves do not travel as far as waves at the lower frequencies do. At 2.4 GHz, the waves can travel less than 259 m (820 feet). LPWAN can typically reach between 1 km to 10 km. In addition, obstacles like walls and doors within a building can block higher-frequency waves (2.4 GHz or 5 GHz). As shown in Figure 1, the Wi-Fi HaLow operating range spans 1 MHz to 16 MHz channels. The 1 MHz channel waves travel farther, while the 16 MHz channel provides higher data transmission rates. A top speed of 80 Mbps can be achieved using the 16 MHz channel.
“Wi-Fi HaLow is well suited to meet the unique needs of the Smart Home, Smart City, and industrial markets because of its ability to operate using very low power, penetrate through walls, and operate at significantly longer ranges than Wi-Fi today. Wi-Fi HaLow expands the unmatched versatility of Wi-Fi to enable applications from small, battery-operated wearable devices to large-scale industrial facility deployments – and everything in between. Wi-Fi HaLow will broadly adopt existing Wi-Fi protocols and deliver many of the benefits that consumers have come to expect from Wi-Fi today, including multi-vendor interoperability, strong government-grade security, and easy setup,” commented Kevin Robinson, Senior Vice President, Marketing of Wi-Fi Alliance.
The IEEE 802.11ah/ Wi-Fi HaLow frequency band allocation differs by region. Therefore, devices that work in one region may not be compatible with devices in a region that uses a different frequency band allocation (Figure 2).
What are the applications for HaLow?
IoT use in smart factories, buildings, cities, warehouses, transportation, medical, and many other remote monitoring applications has created significant market opportunities. As a result, the IoT is growing exponentially. However, operating at 2.4 and 5 GHz, today’s Wi-Fi will never solve the IoT problems because it supports a short range of a few hundred meters. IoT connections require distance in the kilometer range. (See answer 1 above). HaLow aims to provide a Wi-Fi IoT solution for applications including smart home, smart city, connected vehicles, agriculture, digital healthcare, and various industrial automation uses, which has not been possible before with the 2.4 GHz /5 GHz Wi-Fi solutions.
HaLow will serve the IoT segments, while traditional Wi-Fi will support high-speed applications, including video streaming. In other words, you will not be able to watch videos using HaLow.
How fast is HaLow?
HaLow’s data rate is scalable; 80 Mbps at 1m and 150 kbps at 1km.
What is the distance range of HaLow?
It can reach a distance of 1km.
Is HaLow a low-power wide area network (LPWAN)?
Yes. Similar to other LPWAN designs and applications, HaLow connects to sensors that transmit data infrequently. Power is only on for a short duration during connection to achieve low power consumption.
What are the characteristics of the IEEE 802.11ah (HaLow) protocol?
The chart below details HaLow’s specific characteristics.
This new WiFi provides up to 1 km coverage and good speeds: WiFi HaLow Explained
In today’s times when offices, colleges, and schools have come to homes due to the ongoing pandemic, Wi-Fi connectivity has become very important for every household. And it’s not just our PCs and mobile phones, but we may have plenty of other smart devices like smart assistants, smart displays, smartwatches, smart kitchen appliances, etc in our homes. Together, they are called the Internet of Things (IoT) and each of these devices communicates to each other over mediums like WiFi. And with the increasing number of such devices, the WiFi connection must face challenges in terms of power consumption, coverage, speeds, etc. So, to tackle that, there is a new WiFi standard in the town named WiFi HaLow.
WiFi HaLow (IEEE 802.11ah standard) is a new breakthrough in WiFi technology that will enable a long-range connection of up to 1 km at much less power consumption. It has already gained certification from the Wi-Fi alliance which is the worldwide network of companies that brings WiFi to your homes.
What is WiFi HaLow?
It has been designed keeping the mind the massive rise in the use of Internet of Things (IoT) devices. As IoT apps increase across schools, industries, and homes, more and more devices need to stay connected to the internet throughout the day. WiFi HaLow seems to be a solution to this requirement.
What will WiFi HaLow offer?
The new WiFi HaLow promises significant battery powers savings as compared to the current Wi-Fi and can connect up to 1 kilometer away from the source. It builds on the existing WiFi protocols and is workable with the current WiFi devices.
This is a bonus as it will not require any new WiFi connection methods or proprietary technology for use and would be scalable in the current setup. HaLow can achieve a top speed of 80Mbps at 1m in 16GHz channel width but drops significantly to 150 kbps at 1km.
The standard also offers a variety of other features that are crucial to IoT deployment. These include:
- The ability to penetrate through walls and obstacles
- Extremely low power consumption thanks to a variety of deep sleep power-saving modes
- Low cost by operating on low-complexity radios
- Decreased silicon complexity
How will WiFi HaLow work?
The standard WiFi being used these days mostly operates between 2.4GHz – 5GHz radio frequency which transmits a high amount of data in a short time, so use a large bandwidth. WiFi HaLow will work in the sub-1 GHz spectrum which will enable a longer wavelength. This would mean that the signals will be able to travel longer distances than what is normally possible with higher spectrums.
This is the reason that a single WiFi HaLow access point will exceed a 1 km radius and support internet access for more than 8000 devices spread across hundreds of acres.
WiFi HaLow will work well in industrial, agricultural, and other such setups too as it will be perfect for logistics. This is because WiFi HaLow’s low frequency will be able to penetrate through shipping materials. It can be implemented for various uses across a smart city, traffic monitors and traffic lights being some of the applications. Sensors or devices can be placed across distant fields and connected to WiFi HaLow in agriculture.
However, the only catch is that WiFi HaLow suffers from data transfer speeds compared to its counterparts. This shouldn’t be a problem in IoT setups though since they hardly require too much data communication within the network. IoT devices at home like ACs, Door locks, Cameras require very simple information to be passed on through the internet, and thus, WiFi HaLow will be more than capable of running them.
The potential for WiFi HaLow is thus promising as there’s a constant rise in new IoT apps. We could fairly estimate this new technology could be the next big enabler in the field of WiFi and the Internet.
“Wi-Fi HaLow will broadly adopt existing Wi-Fi protocols and deliver many of the benefits that consumers have come to expect from Wi-Fi today, including multi-vendor interoperability, strong government-grade security, and easy setup,” said Kevin Robinson, senior vice president of marketing for Wi-Fi Alliance, a non-profit organization that owns the Wi-Fi trademark.
Shivangi is an honours graduate in English from Delhi University with a passion for reading and writing. Always keen to know more about the latest gadgets, when she is not reading about tech, she loves listening to Hindi music and grooving to the latest Hindi beats.
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