What Is IrDA?
Many data transfer protocols have been introduced over the years including USB, FireWire, and SCSI. IrDA is one of the more antiquated formats that were introduced in the late 1990’s. IrDA stands for Infrared Data Association- a lot more into how this came to be can be read on its Wikipedia page. Because it was the first “wireless” way to transfer data, IrDA became popular during this time period. Laptops, PDA’s, and desktops were all on board the Infrared highway until later formats such as WiFi and Bluetooth rendered IrDA almost obsolete.
The main sticking point between the newer formats and IrDA is that IrDA works very much like a remote control interface. IrDA needs a direct line of sight between the two units, for instance if two Apple Powerbook 1400’s want to transfer files over IrDA they need to sit a short distance between each other with nothing in between. There are still some uses of the Infrared technology in the current climate of technological advances. Display Devices, Cell Phones, Digital Cameras, and some Printers are utilizing IrDA to the fullest.
IrDA does have great merits such as being less expensive that the other formats and that it doesn’t have security problems like the other formats have. The IrDA does not do that well speed-wise in comparison with today’s standards. Original IrDA components were rated at approximately the same rate as a traditional parallel port as far as data speed is concerned. As with any standard, refinements are always being made to the IrDA protocol. Many of today’s components run on a version of IrDA called IrSimple. IrSimple is rated at four to ten times the speed of original IrDA, with pictures from a cell phone being able to transfer in one second. IrSimpleShot is another offshoot with the ability to allow camera phones to wirelessly transfer pictures to printers and flat panel TV’s.