Morse Micro Pushes Wi-Fi to the Limits with a Two-Mile Wi-Fi HaLow Video Call Demo
Achieved in a real-world, radio-noisy environment, Morse Micro's transmission demo showcases Wi-Fi HaLow's potential.
Wireless communications specialist Morse Micro has showcased what it claims is the first live demonstration of Wi-Fi HaLow connectivity with a near-two-mile range — proven with a two-way video call in San Francisco's Ocean Beach.
"Our successful demo of Wi-Fi HaLow video call across three kilometers [around two miles] in a difficult, real-world urban environment is a major milestone for Wi-Fi connectivity, showcasing the wireless protocol's incredible reach," claims Michael De Nil, Morse Micro's co-founder and chief executive officer.
"Wi-Fi HaLow is a transformative technology that shatters the boundaries of today’s wireless connectivity," De Nil continues. "With its unparalleled range, exceptional low power consumption and superior throughput, Wi-Fi HaLow stands as the front-runner in the IoT [Internet of Things] landscape. This is the future wireless connectivity, and it’s here today powered by Wi-Fi CERTIFIED HaLow technology."
Designed to take the success of Wi-Fi, a now-ubiquitous standard for everything from smartphones to robotics, and extend it to long-range low-power projects, Wi-Fi HaLow is built atop the IEEE 802.11ah standard — and comes with the promise of ten times the range, a hundred times the coverage area, and a thousand times the volume of standard Wi-Fi, while drawing less power. The secret: operating in the sub-gigahertz (sub-GHz) spectrum with narrower frequency bands than traditional 2.4GHz and 5GHz Wi-Fi.
The demo, which saw Morse Micro carry out a live two-way video call over a Wi-Fi HaLow link in San Francisco's Ocean Beach neighborhood, was powered by the company's MM6108 system-on-chip — offering the radio, PHY, and MAC in a single unit and with the option of including a 32-bit application processor built around the free and open source RISC-V instruction set architecture.
"We're achieving 3km distance here with Wi-Fi," Morse Micro's Will Abraham reported during the demonstration. "That is unheard of in a real-world, noisy environment. Thanks to Wi-Fi HaLow and our 8MHz bandwidth, we can support enough data rate to do a high-quality video call even at this amazing distance."
The full demonstration video is embedded above; more information on the MM6108, which is sampling now, is available on the Morse Micro website.