IoT: Could 2019 be the year of Wi-Fi HaLow? | Wi-Fi NOW Events
Ten times the range of regular Wi-Fi and 100 times the coverage area. Up to 8,000 devices connected to one AP. These are just a few of the impressive specs for Wi-Fi HaLow aka IEEE 802.11ah, a new kind of sub-gigahertz Wi-Fi specifically designed for IoT and launched by the Wi-Fi Alliance in 2016. The progress to position HaLow as a real contender into a quickly expanding IoT market has thus far been painfully slow. But this is very like to change in 2019, says the HaLow chipset leaders.
And the chipset leaders in this case are not the usual giants. In the case of HaLow, timing has probably been the biggest obstacle to success, says Marleen Boonen, CEO and Founder of HaLow chipset startup, Methods2Business. “There was a lot of momentum when we began work in 2016 but the progress of HaLow has been interrupted by a strong industry focus on Wi-Fi 6, which is obviously the bigger market for incumbent vendors. This will change in 2019 now that we’re into the go-to-market phase for Wi-Fi 6,” says Marleen Boonen.