# Visible Light Communication for Wearable Computing

## TL;DR

This paper explores the challenges of implementing Visible Light Communication in wearable devices, demonstrating multiple receiver designs that adapt dynamically to changing light conditions to optimize performance and energy efficiency.

## Contribution

It introduces three novel VLC receiver designs for wearables and a dynamic switching mechanism that enhances performance across diverse lighting environments.

## Key findings

- Achieved throughput in the order of MBit/s.
- Dynamic switching incurs minimal overhead.
- Energy costs are lower than many RF devices.

## Abstract

Visible Light Communication (VLC) is emerging as a means to network computing devices that ameliorates many hurdles of radio-frequency (RF) communications, for example, the limited available spectrum. Enabling VLC in wearable computing, however, is challenging because mobility induces unpredictable drastic changes in light conditions, for example, due to reflective surfaces and obstacles casting shadows. We experimentally demonstrate that such changes are so extreme that no single design of a VLC receiver can provide efficient performance across the board. The diversity found in current wearable devices complicates matters. Based on these observations, we present three different designs of VLC receivers that i) are individually orders of magnitude more efficient than the state-of-the-art in a subset of the possible conditions, and i) can be combined in a single unit that dynamically switches to the best performing receiver based on the light conditions. Our evaluation indicates that dynamic switching incurs minimal overhead, that we can obtain throughput in the order of MBit/s, and at energy costs lower than many RF devices.