Talk:Infrared Data Association

First Section
I wonder what is the IrDA position concerning mobile phones today. I mean, since the development of Bluettoth and its enhancements what are the advantages of Ir technology ? It's not omnidirectionnal, data rates are slower, range is shorter, that's why handset manufacturers are stopping to implement them. What is the IrDA doing to strike back ?


 * Bluetooth is faster? Bluetooth AFAIK only supports 2mbps. FIR, which has existed for a long time supports 4mbps. VFIR supports 16mbps. The lack of range and omnidirectionality can be a good thing. Since you actually have to bring the devices together, it's much less likely that a hostile device could take advantage of a security flaw to compromise your phone. Also I would assume Bluetooth is significantly more power hungry... Nil Einne 11:03, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the External Link section's text for the official IrDA website states that the specifications are free; this is incorrect.

I would like to find out that what exact frequency does the IrDA protocol work on? I actually intend to create a receiver that receives IR signals from my Nokia 3200. So, for that I ought to know the exact frequency that the Nokia 3200 works on.
 * 875nm +/- 25nm. This is kind of a weird wavelength. It's neither Silicon's baseband (1.1u) or the visible doubling (red) at 660nm. No ordinary radio system can reach these frequencies (343 terahertz), so that is not how it's done. The cheap way to get an interface is to buy an LED and a suitable receive photodiode in the same package, e.g. (forgive me, a commercial, but I am merely a satisfied customer) Vishay's TFDU4101. Ray Van De Walker (talk) 19:12, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

Status of standards?
Some roadmap date information needs to be added to this entry. When is Ultra Fast IR supposed to be released? Isn't IrDA essentially dead technology? Also, some history of the technology would be nice. Why was is developed? What products/markets were originally invisaged? --24.249.108.133 18:28, 29 September 2006 (UTC)


 * 2008 NEWS UPDATE - IrDA was developed initially for communicating between handheld devices, and also between handheld and deskbound devices such as printers and PCs. The IrDA design goals were low cost, simple to implement and very low power so the technology will be a 'no-brainer' for manufacturers to implement.  The goals exceeded expectations.  At the time the (SIR) standard was established, the speed of 115kbps was adequate because the files then were simple - largest were Word documents, and smallest were business cards (vcf).  Motorola, Nokia and Palm were huge supporters as well as notebook manufacturers.  Also at the time, RF wireless was expensive (remember then they cost about $35 to add the RF module?) and infrared was about $1.50.  Subsequently Bluetooth (initially less than 1Mbps then upgraded to 2Mbps) became widely used for communicating between cellphone to earphones because of many hands-free driving laws enacted around the world.  In the meantime, photos and music became prevalent on handhelds (including cellphones) and files became larger.  It was too cumbersome (i.e. took too long) to beam a large file using Bluetooth and IrDA's SIR standard was definitely too slow even with MIR at 1.2Mbps.  For some reason IrDA's FIR (4Mbps) and VFIR (16Mbps) did not catch on.  In late 2006, IrDA recognised the emerging problems and completed a new standard called IrSimple - uses the already defined FIR (and extensible to VFIR) and speeded up the connection protocols, resulting in the handheld devices that can beam 3Mb files in around 5 seconds.  In Mar 2008, after being shown an extremely fast IR (EFIR) demo, IrDA started a new SIG to develop 1Gbps infrared.   At time of writing this, there are at least 85 different products already launched in Japan that has IrSimple implemented, ranging from cellphones, cameras, printers, fax, scanners, TVs, HD-VCRs, and of course PCs.    --Acton920 (talk) 19:46, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
 * The official consumer standards look dead to me. The foundation's website is long gone. Official sources for the standards no longer seem to exist. There is still some use of the techniques with the optic ports of electric power meters, which is how and why I have some information. The power meters use SIR Phy (9600 Baud) with legacy IrDA transceivers, sending a meter data standard, DLMS/COSEM. There are still timing ICs that can convert a UART signal to SIR, but the implementation is often bit-banged to save cost.Ray Van De Walker (talk) 19:15, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

Logo
Maybe put the IrDA logo in, assuming its permitted? 87.194.223.183 (talk) 00:18, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

File transfer between IR laptops with Windows 98
As detailed at the address below win98 has an inbuilt facility to transfer files between enabled laptops. Basically, when correctly setup(hopefully automatically when enabling IR facility on both laptops) a right mouse click on a highlighted file allows the selection of

'send to' > 'infrared recipient

It made me Happy.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-gb/library/cc768189.aspx

79.76.132.31 (talk) 14:19, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Merge with infrared port???
I see no reason to merge this article with infrared port. One is about an association, the other is about a physical device. Both need their separate articles. --Manscher (talk) 07:42, 3 February 2010 (UTC)


 * You are right. Given the size of the "infrared port" article, merging could seem logical. But you considering they deal with diferent themes, merging does not seem logical ^^ Bktero (talk) 09:13, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Reception (making a comeback)
The source linked to the comment that "IrDA popularity has been making a comeback" does not indicate it is necessarily "making a comeback." It only cites that 10 million devices have been sold, it offers no historical trend nor comparison to indicate this is a growing number or that it has been "makign a comeback." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 56.0.163.15 (talk) 20:54, 4 November 2014 (UTC)