Smart windows could offer a low-energy alternative to Wi-Fi or cellular data transition by using light to send information.
The innovative design features a glass system that would modulate the sunshine streaming through the window, encoding data into the light, which could then be detected and decoded by the electronic devices in the room.
The leader of the research team, Basem Shihada, said he had been exploring data encoding into an artificial light source when he had the ‘lightbulb moment’ to use sunshine.
“I was simply hoping to use a cellphone camera to record a video of the encoded light stream to try to decode the video to retrieve the data; that's when I thought, ‘Why not do the same with the sunlight?’” Shihada said.
“This would be much easier and can be done over the cellphone camera, too. So we began to explore sunlight as an information carrier.”
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