
Passive Wi-Fi - LukeB_UK
http://passivewifi.cs.washington.edu/
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cmdrfred
A better article about how this works:
[http://abc.cs.washington.edu/](http://abc.cs.washington.edu/)

"As computing devices become smaller and more numerous, powering them becomes
more difficult; wires are often not feasible, and batteries add weight, bulk,
cost, and require recharging/replacement that is impractical at large scales.
Ambient backscatter communication solves this problem by leveraging existing
TV and cellular transmissions, rather than generating their own radio waves.
This novel technique enables ubiquitous communication where devices can
communicate among themselves at unprecedented scales and in locations that
were previously inaccessible."

~~~
btown
Does this impact latency and/or bandwidth, since packets can only be generated
when environmental conditions allow it?

If it's relatively low-latency, I could imagine very low-power e-ink wearables
that delegate processing to phones and simply translate between WiFi packets,
screen updates, and button interactions. Very exciting stuff.

