Employing the technology
Selection of a particular technology requires consideration of several parameters. According to Karnataki, “Power consumption, communication range, addressing methods and user-friendly configuration software are some important features to keep in mind while selecting a communication chip for designing a system.”
From a designer’s point of view, “TTL compatible I/O interface avoids the involvement of intermediate data converters,” he adds.
An important factor in employing any technology is the operating environment. The chipset selected must be capable of delivering data despite noise and other constraints. Employing the technology also depends on use cases: How the use case will be catered to, with a minimal number of components.
Anand adds, “For wearables, you are not going to design it on a hard PCB; you need a flexible one.” Unny supports the statement with, “Wearables have ensured large-scale adoption of wireless technologies. This has significantly brought down the cost of these chipsets and made these technologies available to the masses.”
Looking ahead
Unny states, “Wireless technologies were limited to industrial environments in the past. Wearables and smartphones have made these technologies available to the general public. Secure payments, object tracking, health and fitness tracking, and human security are some of the most significant use cases.”
Newer standards are being developed for Wi-Fi, which offer higher speeds than ever before. Bluetooth research has been focused on reducing energy requirements. Monetary transactions have been aided in part by NFC. After all, self-checkout lanes at Wal-Mart are the best ones, and if you could pay with just a tap of your mobile instead of swiping a card and entering a pin, the lanes would certainly move faster.
Saurabh Durgapal is working as technology journalist at EFY
