LAS VEGAS -- A new low-power, long-range version of Wi-Fi that bolsters Internet of Things (IoT) connections will be dubbed Wi-Fi HaLow, the Wi-Fi Alliance revealed today in advance of CES.
Wi-Fi Halow（发音为Hay-Low）基于挂起的IEEE 802.11ah规范。它将在未来几年使用来自智能家居和可穿戴物的一切以及智能城市和连通汽车，其中数千个电池供电的传感器可以连接到单个Wi-Fi接入点（AP）。
官员表示，包括大约700家供应商的Wi-Fi联盟预计将在2018年推出2018年的Wi-Fi HaloW产品的认证过程。但是产品支持规范的产品预计将进入早些时候的市场。802.11ah的IEEE最终确定远远进入了所谓的技术阶段。
Wi-Fi HaLow will operate in the unlicensed wireless spectrum below 1GHz, allowing it to more easily penetrate walls and barriers because of the propagation capabilities of low-frequency radio waves. Its range will be nearly double today's available Wi-Fi, with some estimates ranging as high as 1 kilometer, a distance equal to 3,280 feet.
The tradeoff for such extended range with low power could be that802.11ah throughput will be well below the 7Gbps maximum of Wi-Fi 802.11acwhen 802.11ac is enhanced with the maximum number of antennas on an AP.
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Wi-Fi HaLow equipment will initially be certified for up to 18Mbps as the highest data rate, the Wi-Fi Alliance said in advance of today's announcement. The lowest rates will be just 150Kbps, achieved by using a 1MHz channel. To get to 18Mbps, equipment makers will need to use a 4MHz-wide channel. Data rates as high as 78Mbps are possible by using a 16Mhz channel, but the Wi-Fi Alliance is only initially certifying gear with up to 4MHz channels.
即便如此，Wi-Fi HALOW的速度较慢的吞吐量对于所设想的许多未来派IOT应用程序也没有差异，其中传感器是电池运行的，通常会偶尔传输短暂的数据突发。更快的吞吐量在高清视频和其他数据激烈和持久应用程序中产生了更大的差异。
A sensor on a water pump or a water leak detector in a basement of an industrial plant or home would benefit from Wi-Fi HaLow, for example, because the signal could carry a 900Mhz signal through a concrete wall, at low power, to an access point and on to the rest of the network in the cloud.
"Wi-Fi HaLow has a foot in both the consumer and business markets," said Kevin Robinson, vice president of marketing for the Wi-Fi Alliance, in an interview. "In a smart city, you may want to connect smart parking meters to a centralized access point. The low-power capability for nodes and Access Points means less power to send transmissions, which means the devices can sweep longer, which is important for a smoke detector or a leak detector. Wi-Fi HaLow will allow devices to run for months or years on their batteries."
罗宾逊表示即将推出的APS可能是三频段，支持900MHz频段中的HALO，以及较旧的2.4GHz和5GHz频段。公司和消费者需要购买设备升级以获得光环属性，但他补充说，“对于许多人来说，它将成为Wi-Fi自然升级过程的一部分。”
An additional benefit of Wi-Fi HaLow to developers and industrial users is that the new spec will share many of the same aspects of现有的Wi-Fi协议, including multi-vendor interoperability, strong government-grade security and ease in set-up. In addition, it will support Internet Protocol characteristics natively.
"HaLow will be very familiar to Wi-Fi developers," Robinson added.
This story, "Wi-Fi for the Internet of Things gets a name: ‘Wi-Fi HaLow’" was originally published byComputerworld .
