Ultra Wideband (UWB) Explained (And Why It’s In The iPhone 11)

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

One of the new chips in this year's crop of iPhones is the U1; it provides Ultra Wideband (UWB) connectivity that, in conjunction with Internet of Things (IoT) technology, could offer a myriad of new services for enterprises and consumers.

As Apple puts it, UWB technology offers "spatial awareness" - the ability for your phone to recognize its surroundings and the objects in it. Essentially, one iPhone 11 user can point his or her phone at another and transfer a file or photo.

While the technology isn't new, Apple's implementation marks the first time UWB has been used in a modern smartphone.

UWB is a short-range, wireless communication protocol that - like Bluetooth or Wi-Fi - uses radio waves. But it differs substantially in that IT operates at a very high frequency. As its name denotes, it also uses a wide spectrum of several GHz. One way to think of it is as a radar that can continuously scan an entire room and precisely lock onto an object like a laser beam to discover its location and communicate data.

In the early 2000s, UWB saw limited use in military radars and covert communications and was used briefly as a form of medical imaging, such as remote heart monitoring systems; Its adoption lagged until recently when commercial interests began exploring potential uses.

Today, its primary purpose is expected to be location discovery and device ranging, according to Phil Solis, an IDC research director. While both Wi-Fi and Bluetooth have been modified to allow greater accuracy in locating other devices and connecting to them, UWB is natively more precise, uses less power and, as production of UWB chips ramps up over time, holds the promise of a lower price point.

Samsung, Apple and Huawei, the world's largest smartphone makers, are all involved in UWB projects including chip and antenna production, according to Solis. Apple, however, is the first to actually deploy it in a phone.

Samsung, along with Xiaomi, NXP, Sony, Bosch and others, are also a part of the FiRa (fine ranging) Consortium, which is working to grow the UWB ecosystem. That ecosystem is built atop the existing IEE 802.15.4/4x standard for low-data-rate wireless communication.

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