If you took a look behind my TV, you'll find 4 HDMI cables, 2 Ethernet cables, 6 power cords, 5 speaker wires (my sub is disconnected due to a pain in the ass neighbor). Rewind the clock 12 months and that total wire count doubles due to all the gaming consoles I had there before I packed them up and stored them for awhile. (For those of you who were holding your breath thinking I may have eliminated my old school gaming systems, breathe easy because I'm only preparing for a move.) The mess is ridiculous. It's a good thing I bought a stand that the TV "wall mounts" to that has a cable tray along the back, but there was a major design flaw - there are 3 horizontal plates that I'm guessing are there for support that block the wires from going all the way up the backbone. Insane.
The wired mess in my office is even worse. Power, speakers, monitors, keyboard, mouse, network, tablet dock, and more. I can't stand all the clutter. I've been trying to think of a great method to clean/organize all the cables for ages: zip ties, binder clips, hair ties, rubber bands..you name it. Nothing has fixed the underlying issue of cables, but we're finally starting to approach a point in time where the wires can start to disappear and, I'll admit, I'm starting to get excited.
The first, and simply the most prevalent, version of wireless freedom came in the form of the wireless keyboard and mouse. The freedom of not being tied down to the obelisk that was the CPU tower was a welcome breath of fresh air. They didn't know it at the time, but that was the first step towards the beloved HTPC. I don't think many people imagined hooking their computer up to their gigantic and overweight tube TV since the tower was as large as the TV itself plus VGA wasn't built into the back of TVs at the time either.
The next, and definitely a bit of a letdown still to this day, is WiFi. Broadband has been ever increasing in speed for technological eons. WiFi has seen some nice steps over the ages from the popular 802.11g (56Mbps) to the current favorite 802.11n (300Mbps). While theoretically this sounds great considering your average wired data rate is probably between 6Mbps and 12Mbps (download), the problem is that wireless always seems slower than wired probably because until Wireless N, it is. The problem with wireless is basically how it gets from one place to another. It runs from point to point on the 2.4GHz band which should sound familiar because so do a hell of a lot of other wireless electronics. This results in a lot of noise and more or less mixed signals. Add to that all the walls, floors and other random shit in the way of the signal and by the time it gets to you, the signal just doesn't have the same oomph.
Luckily for us, there's a new style of WiFi coming on the scene - 802.11ac - riding on the 5GHz superhighway allowing for a theoretical transfer rate of around 1Gbps (probably closer to 500Mbps but at least it's useful). Wireless N is good, don't get me wrong, but Wireless AC should be even better. With any luck, this will finally get us to the speeds we really want to have from a wireless transmitter. Of course, like any new wireless tech, it'll take some time to get included in your most used tech. This doesn't mean that all of your current tech will stop working because I'm imagining there will also be some wireless b/g/n compatibility built into the new Wireless AC routers. What it does mean, though, is that you'll have to invest in some new gear to benefit from the new wireless transmission rates, but we're pretty much used to picking up new tech before it becomes old tech again.
Bluetooth would be the next big elimination of wires for relatively low bandwidth transmissions. It's currently used for wirelessly connecting keyboards, mice, and those still stupid looking ear pieces mostly to your phones. It's been included in laptops and other non-phone devices for quite a while now, but I've personally never used it nor have I exactly ever witnessed anyone using Bluetooth with their computers. The problem with Bluetooth historically has been the thirst for power which results in the draining of your batteries even faster than your 8 hour smartphone battery already lasts.A lot of this is said to be changing with Bluetooth 4.0, but there's a lot of promise from a energy sipping front. If BT were far less susceptible to obstructions, being a mostly line of sight transmission protocol, I think it could be far more useful around the house. Its ability to simultaneously connect up to 7 devices could enable cheaper, energy sipping multi-room audio systems and universal phone/tablet docks. Actually these should already exist, so it's a wonder they haven't been proliferating at a wild pace. Now if only it wasn't such a pain in the ass to pair these things.
Which brings me directly to my next favorite wireless tech beyond WiFi. NFC, or Near-Field Communication, is a new(ish) technology to make its way to smartphones everywhere. NFC is a fancy new iteration of the old reliable RFID (radio frequency identification) standard that has been in millions of products seemingly since the beginning of time (but maybe not that long) that essentially adds what I would consider to be reader to reader communication in addition to the reader-target relationship already found in RFID. For the "so what" crowd among you, let me put it in real terms. Imagine pairing your BT based headset with your phone just by tapping the two together. Better yet, instead of having to remember the passwords to all your (hopefully) secured wireless routers, the router could come with NFC built in allowing you to tap your phone/tablet to it to connect or shipping with a couple target cards to tap to your NFC enabled devices (which will one day be as abundant if not more so than RFID is today) to instantly connect.
As a matter of fact, we're already seeing these and applications for NFC out in the real world. When Google unwrapped Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS, Android 4.0), one of the many brilliant new features was Android Beam, a way to instantly share content (read: links) from web sites, to YouTube videos to games and more from one ICS device to another. [PSST...do yourself a favor and read my story on the ICS unveiling] Samsung took this one step further with the Galaxy S III by initiating a WiFi based pairing between 2 Samsung devices (minimally with ICS+NFC, which right now is the S3 only) to very quickly transfer larger files such as songs, pictures and videos using the speedy Wireless N connection instead of the battery hog BT or 3G/4G connection. It's quite the promising feature and now that the S3 is out in the states, I can't wait to try it for myself. Needless to say, I'm quite excited about the possibilities that NFC can bring to the table.
Since I'm focusing on in-the-home wireless, the next tech to prime the pumps is inductive charging. For the uninitiated, what this means is that one coil (inductor) passes energy to another coil (inductor) through the magic of magnetism. Chances are you've seen products like the Powermat wireless charging stations in your local Best Buy. Well, there has been a fundamental limitation on this technology. First, the power transfer is typically limited to, let's say, 10W. Since the power transmitted is based on a few factors - size being the biggest single factor - the technology hasn't made its way to other larger platforms besides phones. My big beef with the current iteration to inductive charging is that the coils have to be very close in order to transfer the energy through the air. Basically, while the charging device can technically not be physically connected to the power source, it might as well be because you have to set the device on the mat for it to charge. This is very naturally limiting, obviously.
I've been pretty harsh on inductive charging, but there's truly a light at the end of the tunnel. Eric Giler, CEO of WiTricity gave a very convincing demonstration of MIT's wireless power efforts at TEDGlobal 2009 (July 2009) that talks about powering larger devices with wireless power. Imagine inductive charging built into your desk - you toss your computer, tablet and cell phone in the bag and instead of having massive batteries, you instead place everything on your desk where it just powers on, no wires needed. Imagine one day being able to place one coil in every room in your house to power everything in that room, reducing the costs of all that copper in the walls. Some of the most exciting breakthroughs for wireless charging are actually coming sooner for applications technically outside of the home. Automotive companies around the world are trying to determine how to build wireless charging systems right into the cars, so when you park in the garage, no plugging in is necessary to charge your hybrid or EV's batteries. Furthermore, there's quite a bit of discussion over embedding these charging systems INTO THE ROADS so that you'll never have to charge as long as you keep driving along. It sounds futuristic, sure, but in the next decade, you'll see this start to come about in states like California. It's just a matter of time.
Indeed, it's just a matter of time before we are truly surrounded by insane amounts of data passing through the air around our heads. We are increasingly moving toward wireless technologies day in and day out and with a few more pushes for things like wireless HDMI and wireless, high speed, USB, that bundle of copper wrapped in plastic held together by zip-ties will be a distant memory.
Until then always remember
It is the Geeks that will inherit the Earth
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