Huawei has launched a breakthrough short-range wireless connection tech, aiming to combine the advantages of Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. Faster, more efficient and with a vastly reduced delay, it’s also got more than 300 companies and institutions on board.

Today’s official launch comes after the technology was presented at Huawei’s Developer Conference in August. Compared with “traditional wireless technologies,” Huawei says NearLink offers:

• 60% lower power consumption
• Six times higher data transmission speed
• 1/30th the latency
• 7 dB improvement anti-interference for a more stable connection
• Twice the coverage distance, and
• 10 times more network connections

It’ll roll out in a variety of devices, including consumer electronics like phones, laptops, smart watches, connected-home gadgets, electric vehicles and industrial manufacturing gear, becoming a part of Huawei’s HarmonyOS 4 operating system. It’s already integrated into the company’s latest Mate 60 smartphone.
“This technology,” reads a press release, “brings together the collective collaboration of more than 300 leading enterprises and institutions at home and abroad.”

According to Techradar, nearly all the companies involved with NearLink thus far are Chinese, notably including Hisense, Honor and Lenovo. The only internationals, it seems, are Taiwan’s Mediatek and French construction materials manufacturer St. Gobain.

Given that Huawei remains on a US sanctions blacklist, it seems NearLink is unlikely to roll out on American devices. Apple, for its part, has already released its own ultra-wideband (UWB) technology in the form of its new U1 chip – although according to Apple Insider, UWB’s main advantage over Bluetooth is highly-accurate location tracking rather than bulk speed and latency improvements.

Source: Huawei