How Reflected Wi-Fi Could Help Wearables With Battery Life

Forget NFC and beacon technology. Future wearables could communicate via reflected Wi-Fi, according to researchers at UCLA. A team from Jet Propulsion Laboratory at the university has been developing a technology called ambient backscatter that allows small devices, like wearables, to communicate with Wi-Fi routers by reflecting the signals they send out. This new transmission protocol would cut down transfer rates, which means a longer battery life. Whether the technology is mature enough to be adopted by the industry remain to be tested.