What Is Infrared (IR)?

IR communication is like a walkie-talkie. You can only use it in the same room, but it's pretty good when you are. IR is a wireless mobile technology used for device communication over short ranges. IR communication has significant limitations because it requires line-of-sight, has a short transmission range and cannot penetrate walls. IR transceivers are pretty cheap and serve as short-range communication solutions. IR communication uses the same principles as radio waves but operates at a much lower frequency. The infrared spectrum lies between 3 and 300 GHz and covers two bands: near-infrared (NIR) and far-infrared (FIR). Humans use NIR to transmit data from one device to another, while FIR is used in remote controls, security cameras and night vision goggles. Infrared (IR) is a wireless technology that's been around since the 1960s. It was first invented by engineers at Xerox PARC and later adopted by other companies to allow data transfer between devices without a cable. Due to IR's limitations, communication interception is brutal. Infrared Data Association (IrDA) device communication is usually exchanged one-to-one. Thus, data transmitted between IrDA devices is generally unencrypted. As of this unencrypted nature, infrared transmissions are not secure and can be intercepted by third parties. In addition to being unencrypted, IR communications are vulnerable to eavesdropping because they travel in the same spectrum as visible light waves. IR-enabled devices are IrDA devices because they conform to the standards of the Infrared Data Association (IrDA). IR light-emitting diodes (LED) transmit IR signals, passing through a lens and focusing on a beam of IR data. The beam source is rapidly switched on and off for data encoding. Human eyes can't see IR light, but most digital cameras have an infrared filter that lets them capture their image.