One of the coolest features in Apple's iPhone 11 lineup is called the U1 chip,
with the U being short for Ultra Wideband Positioning or UWB.
But what the heck does that even mean?
Well, the basic idea is that devices equipped with UWB chips can determine each other's position,
and although the tech has been around since the early 2000s, it hasn't seen much adoption in consumer applications yet.
The thing is, Ultra Wideband signals take up lots of spectrum.
They're about 500 MHz wide, as opposed to, for example, Wi-Fi,
which typically takes up only about 20 to 80 MHz.
And due to the laws of physics, a wide signal allows UWB to send very quick pulses.
Furthermore, the speed at which UWB operates means that it can use what's called time of flight,
similar to radar, to accurately locate objects.
Now generally, you need multiple antennas for this technology
so that the position of the other object can be triangulated.
But Apple has been quite vague about how exactly they're going to do it.
Anyway, what's so special about UWB? Because Bluetooth can also help you figure out where something is located over short distances.
So why do we need it? Well, as it turns out, UWB is superior to Bluetooth in a handful of ways.
Depending on how it's implemented, it can locate objects with a margin of as little as 5mm,
as opposed to about the 1 meter that you get with Bluetooth,
and UWB can also update its position 10 times per second.
And because UWB operates at a relatively low frequency,
it should do a better job compared to Bluetooth of passing through walls and other objects,
even though it's a short-range technology. Combine that with data transfer rates of up to 27 megabits per second,
way faster than Bluetooth, and UWB looks like it could be a very versatile little piece of technology.
But what exactly is it going to be used for?
Well, at the iPhone 11 launch, Apple said that the U1 chip would make it easier to use AirDrop.
You just point your iPhone at someone else's, and it'll see that other person is close by
and bump it to the top of the list for a file transfer.
But that in and of itself isn't particularly exciting.
The real potential is what Apple, and especially third-party developers, might do with it in the future.
For example, UWB is more secure than Bluetooth
because of the aforementioned support for time of flight.
That means that UWB can be used as a check
to ensure that someone attempting to send a signal is actually nearby.
So imagine, for example, a smart door lock that will only unlock when it senses that the homeowner's phone is right in front of it,
or a car locking system that can beat the so-called relay attacks
that rely on spoofing a signal from a transmitter that's actually farther away.
There's also a rumor that Apple is working on a tagging system similar to Tile,
so you could slap a UWB chip on something like your keys,
and your iPhone's U1 chip could help you find it much more accurately
and more quickly than Bluetooth. There's also the potential to combine UWB with augmented reality,
so searching with your phone's camera could cause the missing object to light up on your screen.
UWB could also help you learn more about what's around you,
facilitating interactive tours at the local UFO Museum,
or tracking down hard-to-find products at the supermarket.
UWB's precision and greater security could lead phone manufacturers to combine it
with Apple Pay or Google Pay in order to buy something,
just by pointing your phone at it like a magic wand.
And even if that's not your style, UWB could improve indoor navigation in large spaces,
like airports, malls, and convention centers. Of course, that sounds great, but it all depends on developers actually writing software for UWB
and more gadgets than just iPhones incorporating UWB-compatible hardware.
But personally, I'm pretty hopeful that this tech is going to find its way into our lives
sooner or later. So thanks for watching guys, like, dislike, check out our other videos,
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