WiFi Alliance Announces WiFi HaLow

[pal666]

Do you know if this technology is a technical competitor of LoRa? o maybe XBee? Or maybe BLE? I'm really lost

802.15.4

[caligula]

TBH, 802.11n WiFi at 2.4 GHz isn't that bad for smart homes. I'm using it in my house. Two APs (TP Link cheapos), Odroid C1 as a backend for collecting sensor data and running smart home server, and about 20 x ESP8266 everywhere. Yes it consumes electricity like 15-20W 24/7 but it can only get better. Vast majority of power is spent on APs and they're online anyways. You need to take into account the purchase price for parts. ESP8266 is dirt cheap. I couldn't find any BT 4.0 low power or zigbee or anything at that price. They're also not open source. Bluez on Linux is also broken.

[rabcor]

Don't forget that this tech was designed with low-bandwidth/small traffic in mind. To reach the data amounts on typical wifi uses (like browsing the internet) it consumes a lot more power, how much more I haven't heard, and how close to traditional wi-fi bandwidth it gets, I also do not know.

This device is definitely designed primarily for cross-device communication over long distances more than it is for traditional usage. Exchanging small amounts of data, like "on/off" states. But hopefully for traditional Wi-Fi usage it is at least going to function as a good range extension, I doubt it'll actually significantly decrease power use (but it might be good for phones, since the WiFi consumes an awful lot of power if left on while the phone is idle and not particularly using it)

[WorBlux]

2.4ghz is used by many computer devices, what do you propose?

Phase out private ownership/assignment of a vast swath of broadcast and replace with and broad-spectrum adaptive mesh network