EHX Expo 2007 Day 1

Author:  Jason Jacobs Date:  2007.03.08 Topic:  Events Provider:  TechwareLabs Manufacturer:  TechwareLabs

EHX WiFi BootCamp

Another growing aspect prevalent in EHX is wireless. Wireless seems to be everywhere and has been integrated into things you never would believe. Wireless controllers that operate in several frequencies and standard to communicate with notonly your TV but also your audio and lighting system and bluetooth for your PC. Wireless seems to be the industry answer in bringing you content and information wherever you want it whenever you want it. Connectivity is the key for manufacturers and the question asked by many attendees at this years EHX is what will it do and how many devices will this product communicate with.

At the wireless boot camp at EHX we were presented with multiple aspects of wireless information related to wireless technology.

As you can see wireless is an interesting topic. Its applications in the home are debated and discussed due to the standards in which wireless is implimented. The standards we are familiar with are 802.11a, 802.11b, 802.11g, and 802.11n. Of these the widest used is 802.11g and 802.11b which both have problems with transmission and interference with other electronics. Needless to say the EHX conference is wireless hell with nearly every manufacturer using their own implementation of each standard and QOS implemented differently in many cases. Flooding (massive ammounts of data entering the wireless spectrum on the same channel or multiple channels) was occuring all over the place. The 802.11g broadcasts on the 2.4 Ghz frequency which is used by many electronic devices in the home which causes massive problems. Does Wireless N solve the issue? Yes and No. Yes as its current implementation should resolve issues and no as the standard is not ratified or approved and varies greatly from vendor to vendor. This means that all consumers who have wireless N their devices will not work with N when N is finally ratified approximately 1 year from the time of this publication.

What does this mean?
Get ready for a standard ratified in 2001 called 802.16. Otherwise known as Wireless MAN and is being used for WiMAX (Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access by WiMAX). this will supposedly provide up to 70Mbps over long distances. This applies to the home when you consider the possibility of manufacturers creating devices that transmit HDTV or Blueray wirelessly to your TV along with HiFi Audio. The bandwidth requirements for that to work properly are staggering in todays measurements. Moreover the transmissions have to be consistent for the content to be displayed correctly. Of course by the time we implement this in most homes people will start having cancer at explosive rates.

While we could devote an entire study and several hundred articles to wireless the theme at this years EHX is that wireless is the future and will ultimately be integrated into your home and almost every device in it. Your refridgerator, TV, phone, Ipod, and speakers will all be wireless given enough time. The manufacturers have not ignored this fact and are already developing technologies that take advantage of all manner of wireless technologies ranging from ZigBee and Z-Wave to 802.11n.