About the Infrared Data Association (IrDA)

IrDA is the abbreviation of Infrared Data Association, which was established in 1993. It is a non-profit organization dedicated to establishing international standards for wireless communication connections. It currently has 160 members worldwide, including manufacturers of computer and communication hardware, software and telecommunications companies.

——In short, IrDA is a technology that uses infrared rays for point-to-point communication. Its corresponding software and hardware technologies are relatively mature. Its main technical advantages are:

——*There is no need to apply for a license to use a specific frequency. This is very important in the current context of scarce frequency resources and increasing channel usage fees.

——*It has the characteristics of small size and low power required for mobile communication equipment. HP has currently launched special devices with module applications ranging from 2.5×8.0×2.9 cubic millimeters to 5.3×13.0×3.8 cubic millimeters. Compared with similar technologies, it also has the lowest power consumption.

——*The transmission rate is the highest in Piconet, which is suitable for home and office use. Due to the point-to-point connection, data transmission is less subject to interference and the rate can reach 16Mb/s.

——In addition to its own technical characteristics, IrDA also has obvious market advantages. Currently, there are 50 million devices in the world using IrDA technology, and it is still growing at a rate of 50% per year. 95% of laptops are equipped with IrDA interfaces. In terms of cost, infrared LEDs and receivers are much cheaper than general RF components. The cost of an IrDA port is less than US$5, and can even be as low as US$1.5 if the speed requirement is not high, which is equivalent to one-tenth of the current Bluetooth products.

——Limitations of IrDA. First, IrDA is a line-of-sight transmission technology, which means that if two devices with IrDA ports transmit data, there must be no obstacles in the middle. This is easy to achieve between two devices, but between multiple electronic devices, the positions and angles must be adjusted to each other. Secondly, the core component of IrDA devices - infrared LEDs are not very durable devices. Although they are easy to use for scanners, digital cameras and other devices that are not used frequently, they may soon be overwhelmed if you often use a mobile phone equipped with an IrDA port to surf the Internet.

——The development of IrDA. In addition to increasing the transmission rate of IrDA from the original FIR (Fast Infrared) 4Mb/s to the latest VFIR 16Mb/s standard, the receiving angle has also been expanded from the traditional 30 degrees to 120 degrees. In this way, the use of low-power, small-volume, large-mobility keyboards and mice with IrDA interfaces on desktop computers has a basic technical guarantee. At the same time, due to the rapid development of the Internet and the gradual increase in graphic files, IrDA's high-speed transmission advantage can be more fully demonstrated in graphic processing devices such as scanners and digital cameras.