More and more new devices are using Wi-Fi Direct. Wi-Fi Direct allows
two devices to establish a direct, peer-to-peer Wi-Fi connection without
requiring a wireless router. Wi-Fi becomes a way of communicating
wirelessly, like Bluetooth.
Wi-Fi Direct is similar in concept to
“ad-hoc” Wi-Fi mode. However, unlike an ad-hoc Wi-Fi connection, Wi-Fi
Direct includes an easier way to automatically discover nearby devices
and connect to them.
The Concept
You may
already have a device using Wi-Fi Direct. For example, the Roku 3 comes
with a remote control that it communicates with using Wi-Fi Direct
rather than using an older IR blaster or Bluetooth connection. The
remote control doesn’t actually connect to your wireless router.
Instead, the Roku creates a new Wi-Fi network that the remote control
connects to, and the two communicate over their own little network.
You’ll
see this as a Wi-Fi network named DIRECT-roku-### when in range of the
Roku. You won’t be able to connect if you try because you won’t have the
security key. The security key is automatically negotiated between the
remote control and the Roku.
This gives devices an easy way to
communicate with each other using standard Wi-Fi protocols. You don’t
have to go through any unwieldy set-up procedures. At no point do you
have to enter your Wi-Fi passphrase into the remote control, as the
connection process happens automatically.
Other Uses for Wi-FI Direct
The
Miracast wireless display standard also uses Wi-Fi Direct, although
this doesn’t engender much confidence, as Miracast seems so incompatible
between different devices. Peripherals, such as mice and keyboards,
could also communicate via Wi-Fi Direct. Wi-Fi Direct could be used to
remotely connect to a wireless printer without requiring the printer to
join an existing wireless network.
Android also includes built-in support for Wi-Fi Direct, although few applications are using it just yet.
Many
devices are already using Wi-Fi with built-in Wi-Fi radios. Rather than
build in different hardware, such as Bluetooth, Wi-Fi Direct allows
them to communicate wirelessly without requiring any additional
specialized hardware. It adds additional functionality without requiring
different hardware.
How It Works
Wi-Fi Direct uses a number of standards to accomplish its functions:
Wi-Fi:
Wi-Fi Direct uses the same Wi-Fi technology that Wi-Fi-enabled devices
use to communicate with wireless routers. A Wi-Fi Direct device can
essentially function as an access point, and other Wi-Fi-enabled devices
can connect directly to it. This is already possible with ad-hoc
networking, but Wi-Fi Direct extends this feature with easy setup and
discovery features.
Wi-Fi Direct Device and Service Discovery:
This protocol gives Wi-Fi Direct devices a way to discover each other
and the services they support before connecting. For example. a Wi-Fi
Direct device could see all compatible devices in the area and then
narrow down the list to only devices that allow printing before
displaying a list of nearby Wi-Fi Direct-enabled printers.
Wi-Fi Protected Setup:
When two devices connect to each other, they automatically connect via
Wi-Fi Protected Setup, or WPS. We can only hope that device makers use a
secure connection method for this WPS connection and not the extremely
insecure WPS PIN method.
WPA2: Wi-Fi Direct devices use WPA2 encryption, which is the most secure way of encrypting Wi-Fi.
Wi-Fi
Direct may also be referred to as Wi-Fi peer-to-peer or Wi-Fi P2P, as
it functions in peer-to-peer mode. Wi-Fi Direct devices connect directly
to each other rather than through a wireless router.
What Can You Actually Use It For?
But
what can you actually use Wi-Fi Direct for at the moment? Well, if a
device and its peripherals are designed to use Wi-Fi Direct, they’ll use
Wi-Fi Direct without you having to think about it. The Roku 3 does
this, as we mentioned above.
While Wi-Fi Direct is theoretically
supposed to be a standard that allows multiple types of devices
supporting the Wi-Fi Direct standard to communicate with each other,
this hasn’t really happened just yet.
For example, you may have
two new laptops, each advertised as supporting Wi-Fi Direct. You might
assume there’d be a way to set up easy file-sharing between them using
Wi-Fi Direct, but you’d be wrong at the moment. There’s also no easy way
to connect an Android smartphone to a Windows laptop and actually do
much just yet. For now, Wi-Fi Direct isn’t a feature you should really
concern yourself with. In the future, this may become a more useful
standard.
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