The close-range line-of-sight operating mode of infrared connectivity allows for the maximum possible speed with the most intuitive user experience possible. For more on the advantages of—and prospects for— infrared, see The downs and ups of infrared by analyst Craig Mathias. "Point & Shoot" is based on high-data-rate capability, ranging from 4 Mbits/s for FIR (Fast Infrared) to 16 Mbits/s for VFIR (Very Fast Infrared) and an efficient IrSimple protocol that achieves throughput of up to 90 percent. The net result is data transfer time far faster than Bluetooth at a fraction of the cost.
Infrared connectivity primarily addresses applications with the need for low cost and low power consumption. The biggest market segments are still mobile phones and PDAs but there are a number of other applications as well, including:
- Mobile data terminals like collectors, scanners, readers
- Dispensing machines
- Mobile printers
- Electronic labeling
- Sign boards (roadway messages, boards for advertisements)
- Industrial PCs and phone cameras
- Access systems
- Photocopiers/fax
Today, many industrial applications use hardwired serial interfaces (RS 232, RS422, RS 485) to read or input content. Infrared links are an excellent alternative due to low installation and maintenance costs. Cables and physical connections to share information can be removed. Compared to other wireless technologies IR offers the fastest data transfer speed and a very low power consumption as shown in Table 1 below. The line-of-sight requirement allows a safe and immediate data transfer without any pre-registration of the devices such as those required with RF technologies. It is totally immune to radiated and conducted interference or electro-magnetic distortion which also makes it suitable for data communication in environments with big electro motors or inductances.
For industrial handheld applications, the high adoption rate of IrDA in PDAs and laptops is a cost-saving benefit, as commercially available devices can be used instead of investing in proprietary solutions.
Today, most IrDA links are based on the SIR standard with 115 Kbits/s, even though FIR and VFIR solutions are already available. This hinders the adoption and the usage of this technology, especially considering the line of sight requirement. In order to overcome this hurdle, the IrDA Association has launched a new protocol, IrSimple, that increases the throughput of the data link significantly, without major changes in underlying technology or cost. As a result, the transfer time can be reduced up to 10 times independently of the link standard (SIR, MIR, FIR, VFIR).
Infrared Simple Connect: 'Point & Shoot'
"Point & Shoot" is a user model that highlights the capability of intuitive and spontaneous exchange of information via infrared technology. The new protocol, IrSimple, allows users to achieve high data rates with a significantly higher throughput than current wireless solutions. Current IrDA protocols as well as other wireless technologies like Bluetooth (BT), have a throughput of 50 to 60 percent, while IrSimple achieves a throughput of up to 90 percent. The maximum throughput of the various technologies is also listed in Table 1.
The high efficiency in throughput has been achieved by optimizing and reducing the amount of hand-shaking and the latency, until a receiver/transmitter pair is ready to communicate.
A comparison in Table 2 between the new and the existing protocols shows the clear advantage of IrSimple with respect to transfer time. For example an MP3 file of 1 MByte can be transferred in less than 1 second by using VFIR and IrSimple. This makes the technology very user friendly, reminding the user of a remote control.
Table 2 also shows a comparison of the transfer times with Bluetooth. Version 1.2 and version 2.0 have been listed to highlight the improvement achieved due to the EDR (Enhanced Data Rate) flavor. However for both BT versions it needs to be considered that the data transfer is asynchronous with significantly slower data rates in reverse direction. Additionally the setup time needed to establish a link between two or more devices can take up to several seconds as user input is required. Particularly for the first time connection of 2 devices the selection of the device ID depends strongly on the number of BT devices present in nearby surroundings. This makes IrSimple much faster for spontaneous data exchange between devices.
