Now why didn't I think if that..... light bulbs tranfering data.

[Bill Huber]

When you think of what can come from this it, it just blows your mind.
Setting in the living room with your laptop on and getting all the data from your light bulb.
Street lights talking to your car as it goes by.
The car in front of you talking to your car telling it what is is doing or telling it to slow down because it is stopping.
Pulling in the driveway and the door opens with your cars light tell it to.
Unlocking your front door with a little key chain light.
It just goes on and on..

http://www.elightbulbs.com/lighting-blog/LED-Light-Can-Transfer-Data

What great times we live in.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Bill.....this type of technology has been discussed for use in data transfers within a computer and large scale electronics cabinets for several years.

[Bill Huber]

Bill.....this type of technology has been discussed for use in data transfers within a computer and large scale electronics cabinets for several years.

That is true, but this is a little different in that is is an led light bulb and not using fiber optics or anything else like that.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

That is true, but this is a little different in that is is an led light bulb and not using fiber optics or anything else like that.

Thanks for pointing this out.

I know that in MR scanners...in the RF signal and control signals between the computer rooms and scan rooms, we have been using LED technology for transfering data and providing isolation for decades......

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Bill,

and along the lines of living in wonderous times......think about this.....

The cochlear implant for my left ear.....there is a computer chip surgically implanted beneath the scalp above and behind my left ear.......and it doesn't use a battery.....

The signal from the sound processor worn on the ear like a hearing aid....modulates an RF signal with digitized audio...transmits it through the scalp.....the computer strips off the RF and rectifies it to produce it's operating DC voltage........

[glenn bradley]

Bill,

and along the lines of living in wonderous times......think about this.....

The cochlear implant for my left ear.....there is a computer chip surgically implanted beneath the scalp above and behind my left ear.......and it doesn't use a battery.....

The signal from the sound processor worn on the ear like a hearing aid....modulates an RF signal with digitized audio...transmits it through the scalp.....the computer strips off the RF and rectifies it to produce it's operating DC voltage........

So its true; you ARE a CYBORG! :D

[Dan Hintz]

That is true, but this is a little different in that is is an led light bulb and not using fiber optics or anything else like that.

Point-to-point Line-of-sight systems using lasers have been around for 20+ years... no fiber, just freespace transmission. IrDA is another freespace data transmission scheme that has been around for 20 years... short range, but still.

I like the (semi-)omnidirectional nature of the bulb setup, but I fear for the security of it all. Tough to make a system secure when anyone and everyone can tap in.

[ray hampton]

Bill,

and along the lines of living in wonderous times......think about this.....

The cochlear implant for my left ear.....there is a computer chip surgically implanted beneath the scalp above and behind my left ear.......and it doesn't use a battery.....

The signal from the sound processor worn on the ear like a hearing aid....modulates an RF signal with digitized audio...transmits it through the scalp.....the computer strips off the RF and rectifies it to produce it's operating DC voltage........

Is it possible for someone that are total blind to see if their brain are wired into a computer

[Ken Fitzgerald]

So its true; you ARE a CYBORG! :D

Actually Glenn.....its spelled "CI-BORG".........and yes it is true!......:D

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Is it possible for someone that are total blind to see if their brain are wired into a computer

Ray...In August of 2012 a woman in Australia who was blind was given an experimental implant using very similar technology to a cochlear implant.....she was able to see light to dark and make out the edges of objects........

[John Coloccia]

FWIW, the first commercial IR remote control was in 1980, i believe, so this sort of line of sight light modulation has been in commercial use for a long time. Quite honestly, I'm not sure that I like the idea of everything being in contact with everything else...not that it isn't already.

[Steve Meliza]

Car's talking to each other is very likely to happen to implement safety features, but not by visible light thanks to things like fog and roads with blind corners and hills. I'm not keen on the garage door not opening till I pull in the driveway, I prefer it to get started moving while I'm 2 houses away. I have a plethora of IR remote controls and one that is RF. I'll take the RF remote every day because I don't need line of sight or even to pick up the remote off the table so that I can point it. Imagine turning up the volume of your radio or TV from your seat in the bathroom! Of course that's assuming you're not already using network enabled devices and changing the volume using your cell phone or iPad.

The whole visible light thing may have some good applications, but not for network connections to portable computers. I'd always be mad at my wife for walking into the cone of light and she'd always be mad at me for having the bedroom lights on a night so that I can use the internet. I'm more interested in 60GHz where the attenuation in atmosphere makes a spike such that communication distances are measured in feet and data rates are very high. You don't get packet collision if someone else 10' or 20' away is in a whole other air space.

[Jim Matthews]

The less coherent the source, the more loss due to scatter.

In a vacuum, this would work down to the sensitivity limit of the receptor chip.
In practice, you'll need a lens pointed at the source.

If the idea is to use energy more efficiently in a lighted workspace, it has some merit.

If it's just another P-P data transfer method, there are plenty of proven modes that work cheaply.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zae-Tq73pQ8 (1:19)

[ray hampton]

Ray...In August of 2012 a woman in Australia who was blind was given an experimental implant using very similar technology to a cochlear implant.....she was able to see light to dark and make out the edges of objects........

I bet that were a very happy woman

[Bill Cunningham]

Back when I built my first ham radio transmitter (HW-90), it was common practice to load into a lightbulb, and you could actually transmit CW or AM voice through it. A 100 watt bulb would light flash as the key closed, or burn steady with a AM signal.. Never tried it with SSB, but there is no reason the SSB voice signal would not also modulate the light and transmit the signal.. It used to work great with a ne-2 tied the the 80 inverted V. Looked like a giant firefly in the yard..