What exactly is the UWB "One-Finger Connection" technology released by Xiaomi? What is its use?

石榴姐

What exactly is the UWB "One-Finger Connection" technology released by Xiaomi? What is its use? [Copy link]

Xiaomi has officially launched a new technology, "One-finger connection" UWB, claiming that it will give mobile phones and smart devices the ability of "spatial perception", which can achieve the purpose of directional control by pointing the mobile phone at the device. I believe many friends must have many questions about this UWB technology. What is it and what does it do? Let's follow Yuer to take a look.

What is UWB?

The full name of UWB is Ultra Wide Band, which is an "ultra-wideband" wireless carrier communication technology that can achieve data transmission without using a carrier.

Compared with traditional wireless communication technologies such as WiFi, BT, Zigbee, etc., it has many advantages such as high transmission rate, large spatial capacity, low manufacturing cost, insensitivity to channel fading (such as multipath, non-line-of-sight channels, etc.), strong anti-interference ability (will not interfere with other devices in the same environment), and high positioning accuracy.

Comparison of wireless communication technologies

Simply put, UWB is actually a combination of wireless transmission technology and wireless positioning technology.

Although it does not use a carrier, its operating frequency band is between 3.1 and 10.6 GHz, and it can achieve data transmission rates of hundreds of Mbit/s to several Gbit/s within a range of 10 meters, which is faster than some "wired transmissions".

It is now mainly used in "large bandwidth transmission" and "high-precision near-field positioning", and Xiaomi's "one-finger connection" UWB technology mainly utilizes the latter: high-precision near-field positioning.

UWB precise positioning used in factories

You should know that the most commonly used positioning technologies are: time difference positioning technology, signal arrival angle measurement technology (AOA), arrival time positioning technology (TOA), and arrival time difference positioning technology (TDOA). UWB ultra-wideband positioning adopts the most mainstream solution at present - TDOA positioning.

It does not require "reciprocating communication" between the positioning tag and the positioning base station. It only needs the positioning tag to transmit or receive UWB signals to achieve the positioning purpose, so it can achieve higher positioning dynamics and positioning capacity, that is, high-precision positioning.

Note: Some of the above pictures are from EHIGH

What is UWB used for?

As we can see from the previous section, Xiaomi’s current “One-Finger Connection” mainly utilizes the high-precision positioning characteristics of UWB, but the key lies in the word “near field”.

We all know that if we are out and about and want to meet with friends in a square, if we use ordinary positioning at this time, we can only see the approximate location, and cannot accurately determine which specific store is "inside the square".

Normal positioning

So at this time, UWB near-field positioning needs to show its strength! It can not only locate indoors, but also accurately locate specific stores and floors, so you don’t have to worry about not being able to find your friends.

UWB near-field positioning

However, for Xiaomi, it also uses UWB's near-field positioning function in "smart home".

According to Xiaomi, they have built-in UWB chips and array antennas in a series of smart home devices, and with the help of their self-developed antenna arrangement and algorithms, mobile phones can achieve centimeter-level positioning of smart devices, and the angle measurement accuracy can reach ±3°, which is comparable to "indoor GPS".

In addition, since Bluetooth, WiFi, NFC, etc. are all near-field wireless communication technologies, the difference between them is that UWB has an ultra-large bandwidth of more than 500MHz and an operating frequency band between 3.1GHz - 10.6GHz, it avoids the very crowded low-frequency band and can achieve very stable and high-speed data transmission.

Of course, this is also what Xiaomi demonstrated: when the phone is pointed at the device, the purpose of "directional control" can be achieved.

In other words, this revolutionary directional "interaction method" realizes the vision of smart home "point and shoot".

In general, the trend of wireless positioning technology in the future will definitely be a combination of "indoor positioning" and "outdoor positioning", and UWB's seamless high-precision positioning will become the basis of these positioning. As for how to give it interactive capabilities, it depends on whether major smart home manufacturers are willing to follow up.

However, Apple has already taken action. As early as the release of iPhone 11, it added the UWB function. And with the keys of some high-end cars, it realizes the function of automatically unlocking the car when a person approaches it. However, due to various reasons, it has not been widely used, and the newly released Apple Watch 6 also has built-in UWB positioning.

UWB ultra-wideband technology mentioned in iPhone 11

As for why Xiaomi launched the "one-finger connection" UWB technology before the release of iPhone 12, it may be because it anticipated that Apple would add more mature UWB ecosystem technology to the iPhone 12.

In the future, I believe that the "UWB ecosystem" will become the focus of competition among major mobile phone manufacturers!