04 / A long idea, ready for new rooms
From Bell and Tainter’s 1880 photophone to standardized optical networking—and John Coates’s commitment to a better indoor connection.
The choice of a wireless carrier has always been an engineering choice.
Alexander Graham Bell and Charles Sumner Tainter developed the photophone. A vibrating mirror changed reflected sunlight; a light-sensitive receiver recovered sound. The Library of Congress dates the landmark demonstration to June 3, 1880. [11]
Harald Haas’s public demonstration helped popularize modern wireless data through light. Semiconductor emitters and sensitive detectors brought a familiar principle into the broadband era. [12]
Engineers develop infrared uplinks, multiple-user access, optical receivers, and handover between coverage areas. The challenge moves from showing a connection to making it useful throughout a room. [2][4][9]
IEEE 802.11bb adds light communications in the 800–1000 nm band. This establishes a standards path for optical wireless within the same broader family as Wi-Fi. [1]
Complete infrared kits, USB receivers, and room-networking systems are commercially offered. Early adoption can now mean installing hardware and using the connection in daily life. [29][30][31][4]
Modern optical networks have compact emitters, electronic detection, error correction, authentication, and conventional network interfaces. They can supply their own infrared light, so they work independently of daylight or visible lamps.
Standards continue to evolve: IEEE lists the 802.11bb amendment as superseded by incorporation into the 2024 revision. ITU-T G.9991 is another established optical-networking path. A system uses the interfaces its hardware supports; matching the access point and receiver is straightforward with a complete kit. [1][2]
The opportunity is bigger than a single supplier. Optical networking makes the transmission medium another design choice, alongside speed, coverage, and security.
John Coates founded RF Safe in 1998. He describes a commitment shaped by childhood cancer, the loss of his firstborn daughter Angel, and decades of asking how the built environment could better support children.
He is named as inventor on US11700058B2, granted July 11, 2023, for wireless communication using germicidal light frequencies. His broader photonics work explores how light can perform more than one useful function. [13]
For the indoor network discussed here, the application is simple: infrared carries data. John reports using LiFi at home for nearly ten years and wants others to discover the same practical possibility.
“Fear is not a solution. Better engineering is the solution.”
That is the purpose of this guide: replace a feeling of technological inevitability with a connection people can understand and choose.
See the equipment and the steps that turn optical networking into a daily tool.