Wipro Lighting is piloting Li-Fi, which uses light spectrum for LED luminaires to transmit data, in three offices in India. The company has partnered with the Scotland-based pureLi-Fi to design lighting hardware for the Asia Pacific region.

Speaking at the annual Light Show here, Makarand Sainis, Chief Technology Officer – Lighting Business, Wipro Consumer Care & Lighting, said that it will take another year for commercialisation of the technology as they need to develop hardware.

How it works

Unlike Wi-Fi that uses radio frequency for transmission that is accessed through a single point, Li-Fi, which can be used only indoors, uses light spectrum and each light-fitting acts as an access point. Because of that the speed is 10 times more than that of Wi-Fi.

“Also the security and safety are better unlike Wi-Fi that is prone to hacking,” says Ramakrishna Puranam, Senior General Manager – Sales. It is safe to use them in accident-prone areas such as flights, hospitals and nuclear power plants, he added.

The technology can now be used only for laptops using a modem. “However, we believe that in the next three-four years, the technology will be inbuilt in laptops and mobile phones and can connect to it just like how you connect to Wi-Fi and Bluetooth,” Sainis added.

Wipro Lighting recently launched smart lighting that is powered by data cables instead of electric wires in partnership with Cisco. “Data cables can carry electricity of close to 60 Watt and can power lights in offices,” Sainis said.

The company worked with Cisco for two years to design the lighting hardware system that can be integrated with the Cisco server in commercial buildings. The advantage is, Sainis said, lights can be switched on or off or dimmed through laptop or mobile app. “Also if the lights are on for a long time, they can send the message to the server for switching off. It is a two-way communication,” he added.

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