[HN Gopher] Glass Antenna Turns windows into 5G Base Stations
___________________________________________________________________
Glass Antenna Turns windows into 5G Base Stations
Author : thunderbong
Score : 249 points
Date : 2024-09-19 14:53 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (spectrum.ieee.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (spectrum.ieee.org)
| westurner wrote:
| Would this work with _peptide_ glass?
|
| "A self-healing multispectral transparent adhesive peptide glass"
| https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07408-x :
|
| > _Moreover, the supramolecular glass is an extremely strong
| adhesive yet it is transparent in a wide spectral range from
| visible to mid-infrared. This exceptional set of characteristics
| is observed in a simple bioorganic peptide glass composed of
| natural amino acids, presenting a multi-functional material that
| could be highly advantageous for various applications in science
| and engineering._
|
| Is there a phononic reason for why antenna + window?
| westurner wrote:
| Bass kickers, vibration speakers like SoundBug, and bone
| conductance microphones like Jawbone headsets are all
| transducers, too
|
| Transducer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transducer
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41442489 :
|
| > _FWIU rotating the lingams causes vibrations which scare
| birds away._
| preisschild wrote:
| The new HSR trains in my country use similar tech to improve cell
| phone reception while traveling
|
| https://press.siemens.com/global/en/pressrelease/obb-puts-fi...
| 1udsdhoasfih wrote:
| No. The article is about windows as _active_ antennas.
| Meanwhile, trains now start having permeable windows that let
| the radio coverage from outside through. Train windows are
| metallized to protect from the sun - unfortunately blocking
| radio waves as well.
| loa_in_ wrote:
| Maybe not in your country but I know there's cell repeaters
| all over civic infrastructure in Europe
| kurthr wrote:
| I'm all for more innocuous cell antennas. I'm just not convinced
| in this case. Just looking at the picture it seems neither
| innocuous nor particularly transparent even thought it's on
| glass. Maybe they can make the connections less apparent without
| exposed coax, and maybe they won't need to add (extra) windows on
| top of windows, and maybe they can make the conductive areas more
| transparent, but this is only useful as a proof of concept.
|
| Let's see what they can do for a commercial product. Usually,
| there are tens of antennas on a single tower so they can't all
| look like this. Also, I'm going to assume that you have to keep
| anyone from getting within 3 meters just due to radiated
| emissions, so don't go just looking out that window!
| juancn wrote:
| Do you mean inconspicuous?
|
| - innocuous: not harmful
|
| - inconspicuous: not clearly visible or attracting attention
| Bjartr wrote:
| I think it can be used as "non-objectionable" or "non-
| irritating" which would still work here
| furyofantares wrote:
| Sure although the article says inconspicuous and
| transparent and the comment it saying it's neither of those
| things.
| asveikau wrote:
| The harm considered here is being conspicuous. So you could
| make an argument for either term.
| jauntywundrkind wrote:
| The transparency is hard to judge from this one photo, where
| there's a flat background to it and a line or two.
|
| This seems not at all unreasonably subtle to me. Even with the
| array of feeder lines, yeah, maybe it's not for very high end
| stash places but for most places this seems ay okay.
|
| Given what the alternatives are for urban and commercial
| spaces, this feels like a big win.
|
| My main concern is power level. How much power can you emit if
| Joe in accounting is 8 feet away from it, and how does that
| compare versus normal building mounted or pole mounted
| antennas? Also, what frequencies is this antenna designed for;
| it seems like 5g can run on lots of spectrum; is this mmWave
| gear or lower?
|
| Apologies for soapboxing, but I want to chip in my belief that
| this world is driven by those who see possibility & potential.
| Swizec wrote:
| > Apologies for soapboxing, but I want to chip in my belief
| that this world is driven by those who see possibility &
| potential.
|
| Cynics never lose but optimists win.
| generic92034 wrote:
| > My main concern is power level. How much power can you emit
| if Joe in accounting is 8 feet away from it, and how does
| that compare versus normal building mounted or pole mounted
| antennas?
|
| My thoughts exactly. Who would like to sit that close to a 5G
| Base Station?
| vel0city wrote:
| > My main concern is power level. How much power can you emit
| if Joe in accounting is 8 feet away from it
|
| That was my first takeaway from the photo from outside. The
| kinds of antennas they put on top of buildings routinely run
| many hundreds to a thousand watts or more of power
| directionally out into the city. That's fine when you're
| putting it on equipment outside the building on a controlled
| access roof pointing away from the occupants in the building.
| Everyone actually in the beam pattern is going to be far away
| from the active elements.
|
| This design doesn't seem to be incredibly directional
| especially outwards. You're not going to be able to run much
| power on that antenna, and now you're going to have it on the
| inside of metallized glass. A lot of that energy is going to
| stay in the building. I wouldn't want the desk next to this
| if it's going to run even 100W. Just asking to get some good
| RF burns.
| Reason077 wrote:
| > _"A lot of that energy is going to stay in the
| building."_
|
| Right. The point of these small cell sites is usually to
| improve coverage _within_ the building.
|
| Occupational RF exposure is pretty strictly regulated in
| most countries. I'm sure there is design/installation
| guidance to ensure they stay well within legal limits.
| vel0city wrote:
| > The point of these small cell sites is usually to
| improve coverage within the building
|
| That's not what the article is stating. If that was its
| use, there are plenty of 5G antennas that can look like
| any of the other warts commonly found on office ceilings
| like smoke detectors and other wireless ap's and what
| not.
|
| > attached to a building window inside and turn the
| outdoors into a service area
|
| These aren't specifically for indoor coverage, its
| specifically for outdoor coverage.
| wolrah wrote:
| > Also, what frequencies is this antenna designed for; it
| seems like 5g can run on lots of spectrum; is this mmWave
| gear or lower?
|
| The article says it's for the "sub-6" 5G bands, a.k.a. normal
| cellular frequencies, not mmWave.
|
| As always, these are non-ionizing frequencies, they pose
| absolutely zero risk to health or safety unless you're
| absorbing enough power to be meaningfully heated by it.
|
| > How much power can you emit if Joe in accounting is 8 feet
| away from it, and how does that compare versus normal
| building mounted or pole mounted antennas?
|
| Assuming an antenna gain of 10 dBi, which seems to be
| "normal" for panel-style antennas in the 5G low band, just
| short of 30 watts in to the antenna would be safe according
| to the guidelines the FCC gives us amateur radio operators
| for "uncontrolled" environments if the antenna were aimed
| directly at a person eight feet away.
|
| Obviously in the real world these antennas will be aimed
| outward so the energy being absorbed by anyone in the
| building will be significantly less than that.
|
| These should not be installed in places someone could
| directly touch it or the cables feeding it, but there's no
| reason to believe there's any danger to someone just existing
| normally in the same room.
| gamblor956 wrote:
| This is a demonstration setup to show that it works.
|
| It's fairly obvious that there are thousands of different
| ways to camoflauge this equipment in a real-world customer
| deployment, just like how routers, etc., are hidden in
| restaurants and stores.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| The patent indicates there is a ground plane on the back
| layer. The antenna is presumably only intended to radiate
| outside the building.
|
| https://patents.google.com/patent/EP3828994B1
| smsm42 wrote:
| I don't think it needs to be fully invisible. There are a lot
| of places in the building where slightly darkened glass panel
| would not look too out of place, as opposed to a bulky ugly
| opaque plastic box. Especially if architects really work on
| integrating it, it can be made very unobtrusive without needing
| 100% transparency. And, in a lot of buildings there are glass
| panels which aren't within the foot traffic areas - high
| windows, ceilings, technical areas, etc.
| avianlyric wrote:
| This is a commercial product, that's actually been installed
| and being used. The magic here is a "transparent" antenna. The
| magic is a carefully tuned, small and innocuous antenna, that
| when mounted on a window it's been tuned for, allows 5G to
| easily propagate through the glass.
|
| Glass facades almost universally use Low-E glass to avoid
| turning the building into a huge greenhouse. Problem for 5G, is
| that low-e glass is remarkably good at blocking 5G
| frequencies[1]. Pair that with 5G smaller propagation
| distances, and issues of finding viable locations to mount 5G
| antenna becomes a real problem.
|
| This product neatly solves that problem by allowing carriers to
| mount these antenna on the _inside_ of a buildings facade,
| while providing coverage _outside_ the building. Which will
| substantially reduce the cost and difficulty of installing 5G
| masts. You can place all your sensitive equipment in normal
| building voids, without the need for bulky and ugly weather
| proofing, and you need to break the buildings weather tight
| seals (which a landlord isn't gonna let you do without
| significant assurances you're going the cover the costs of any
| water that comes through) to run cables to external antenna.
|
| To make all of this viable, someone has had to do a fair bit of
| work to figure out how to build an antenna that effectively
| incorporates the low-e window it's attached to, into its RF
| design. The fact the physical antenna is made of glass and
| partial transparent isn't actually the interesting part. That's
| likely been done because glass is a very rigid material that
| will make it easy to ensure the conductive parts of the antenna
| are kept at a specific distance from the window it's mounted
| on, to ensure the correct RF coupling occurs.
|
| [1] https://www.ranplanwireless.com/gb/resources/low-e-glass/
| erikerikson wrote:
| See also the Pivotal Commware[0] repeater solution.
|
| [0] http://www.pivotalcommware.com/
| 4star3star wrote:
| > turns a window into a base station that can be attached to a
| building window inside and turn the outdoors into a service
| area
|
| You could easily enclose this by some architectural feature on
| the interior of the building or even use a window that's off
| the back of a maintenance closet.
| Reason077 wrote:
| > _"Usually, there are tens of antennas on a single tower so
| they can 't all look like this. Also, I'm going to assume that
| you have to keep anyone from getting within 3 meters just due
| to radiated emissions"_
|
| Those towers you see with lots of antennas are massive MIMO
| installations designed for very high capacity and coverage over
| a wide area. But not all sites need to look like that. In this
| case, it's just a small cell designed to improve coverage
| within a building and/or on a few local streets. Power levels
| are also much lower, not all that much different to a WiFi base
| station. People aren't going to get cooked if they get close to
| it.
| throwaway48540 wrote:
| Is it possible to create a mesh 5G network run by volunteers
| supplying their connectivity, thus remove the need for mobile
| network operators?
| yieldcrv wrote:
| mesh is a pipe dream
|
| change my view
| pdabbadabba wrote:
| Maybe we'd have a chance if you told us why you have that
| view in the first place.
| throwaway48540 wrote:
| Why is it a pipe dream? It could also be something like
| roaming (in foreign countries), whatever - just a community
| mobile network that anyone can join.
| RandallBrown wrote:
| https://www.vice.com/en/article/detroit-mesh-network/
| vel0city wrote:
| That's less a "mesh" than it is a community-run WISP.
|
| Mesh would be each home (or some percentage of the homes)
| act as nodes. These have all the homes hit a few towers
| around the city. Traffic isn't routed directly between (or
| through) the homes in this example, it is all centralized.
| They hit a single big tower that then does all the routing.
| 0xEF wrote:
| The link in the Vice article to the project's site is old.
| Here's a current one; https://detroitcommunitytech.org/eii
| t-3 wrote:
| If you're talking about wireless-only mesh and using it as
| the only form of connectivity, sure, you're right. If it's
| just another way to connect then it is very practical for use
| in high-density urban areas, but highly unlikely to be widely
| implemented as ISPs are the main distributors of the most
| suitable node devices and they are the ones with the most to
| lose if mesh is easily available.
| foxyv wrote:
| Yes it is possible. However, it would probably require
| regulatory changes. It would really suck to have your internet
| shutdown because someone was pirating movies on the mesh.
| throwaway48540 wrote:
| Let's start with the technology, then it can be used to argue
| for legal changes.
| foxyv wrote:
| I think the technology is already there to hook into a 5g
| network and repeat it. However, you would need to create a
| network "Provider" for the mesh. Then you would need to
| connect all the nodes. In the end you have made one more
| wireless company. I think the governance model for the mesh
| provider would be way more important than the tech itself.
|
| However, creating the Wikipedia/Internet Archive of
| wireless ISPs would be pretty awesome.
| throwaway48540 wrote:
| Connecting the nodes through a common backbone shouldn't
| be necessary in a mesh network. Nodes can provide
| connectivity by relaying even if they don't have access
| to internet directly.
| poorman wrote:
| Not sure I'd classify this under "volunteers", but you can run
| a 5G hotspot on the Helium network: https://www.helium.com/5G
| kotaKat wrote:
| It feels like they've partially given up on the whole Helium
| 5G model as much as it still exists. Their current sham is
| instead to rely on user-installed Wi-Fi hotspots that use
| Passpoint 2.0 it looks like, and they're steering more
| adoption of their cursed WiFi implementation.
| vel0city wrote:
| Is it possible? Sure, its possible. Would it actually be
| feasible and good? Probably not.
|
| Take a look at WiFi-dense apartment buildings. So much
| crowding, no centralized assignment or management of the bands.
| It is a wild west of people transmitting on whatever channels
| and whatever power levels they want (within the legal limits).
| It ends up with few people actually having a good experience
| when there's no centralized management. 5GHz/6GHz makes WiFi
| more usable because it naturally limits your ability to hear
| your neighbors. Going to 700MHz/900MHz/1.2GHz (the normal
| frequencies used in a lot of 5G deployments) is only going the
| opposite direction of where WiFi has been going to solve this
| problem. Expect more noisy neighbor problems as you lower the
| frequencies.
|
| Then we're not only going to saturate the bands with people
| doing whatever they want (within legal limits), we're going to
| depend on mesh routing through all that noise? There goes your
| reliability and efficiency of sending data.
| throwaway48540 wrote:
| I'm talking about creating a single mesh network, not a Wifi-
| like situation with many networks on the same bands.
| vel0city wrote:
| There is no difference in the end. It is still a single
| collision domain for everyone talking.
|
| And who's to say they want to join _your_ mesh and not Bob
| 's super awesome mesh? Or start their own mesh? Oh, _you_
| get to decide how to operate the mesh but I can 't? I guess
| you'll end up getting some kind of license so you can
| standardize how this particular mesh should operate and
| prevent others from running competing services on the same
| frequencies as your one mesh.
|
| You'll put out standards on what kinds of devices are
| certified to work on it and ensure certain settings so
| tx/rx errors are reduced to ensure good usage. You'll start
| encouraging people to not put up more nodes in a certain
| area because it's just getting too crowded here, but hey we
| need to incentivize someone to set up a node on the other
| side of town.
|
| Snap now it seems like we're running a regular carrier.
|
| I participate and use city-sized WiFi mesh networks in the
| amateur radio world. They're not anywhere near a
| replacement for what normal people think of as internet
| connectivity. I can't imagine swapping WiFi for 5G cellular
| stacks would end up making a radical difference. The issues
| are largely with having to make multiple wireless hops,
| mesh routing inefficiencies/problems, and having everyone
| actually play nice all the time.
| gruez wrote:
| How do you prevent selfish leechers that use network bandwidth,
| but don't contribute to it, like on public torrents? Using
| people's cellphones as relay nodes is a non-starter because
| it's going to be a massive drain on battery life, so you'll
| have to rely on volunteers setting up their own wired base
| stations.
| throwaway48540 wrote:
| That should be fine. If it's part of every modem/gateway
| router, there should be so much bandwidth it doesn't matter.
| Standard QoS techniques can apply - don't allow someone to
| take it all when there are more people who want bandwidth.
| vel0city wrote:
| > If it's part of every modem/gateway router
|
| That's not really a "mesh" then. It is just a bunch of
| infrastructure AP's everywhere.
| throwaway48540 wrote:
| Why is it not a mesh? There are fundamental differences
| between normal and mesh networks in the ways they route
| packets, and I think this is still a mesh network.
| vel0city wrote:
| > If it's part of every modem/gateway router
|
| If it's a part of every modem/gateway router, why would
| you bother routing it through a bunch of mesh hops just
| to eventually get out instead of just routing it through
| the far more reliable wired networking available at every
| modem/gateway router?
|
| Those regular WiFi networks only have tons of available
| bandwidth because they're not trying to repeat a bunch of
| wireless traffic. Even the current mesh WiFi networks
| only really work when you're using frequencies that
| aren't trying to compete with neighbors. Start getting
| actual density and it'll all fall apart.
|
| Also your idea of "standard QoS can still apply" isn't
| exactly true. That QoS is only going to work if people
| play along with it. In the end its a shared medium. Get
| some clients to not play along with your configurations,
| you'll start getting collisions regardless of what you
| configure your QoS settings.
| ianburrell wrote:
| If it isn't doing mesh routing, then it isn't a mesh.
|
| The question is can devices connect to other devices that
| route to router with internet. Is it possible to have
| router for house without internet connection that routes
| to the neighbors that do?
| throwaway48540 wrote:
| Yes, that should be possible.
| gruez wrote:
| >If it's part of every modem/gateway router, there should
| be so much bandwidth it doesn't matter.
|
| Why would it be part of every modem/gateway? Since there's
| no monetary incentive to participate, in all likelihood all
| nodes would be run by volunteers who are shelling out extra
| for a compatible modem/router.
|
| Actually come to think of it, you can run a volunteer
| network providing internet connectivity with off the shelf
| equipment right now. It's called setting your wifi network
| to "open". Why don't people do that? How would your mesh
| network fix those issues?
| vel0city wrote:
| Not only just shelling out more for that compatible
| modem/router, that volunteer would also have to be
| willing to set up at least the antennas in a place
| optimal for others to actually use it instead of
| potentially optimal placement for their own services. A
| client on the street is not going to get good
| connectivity to someone's cell repeater tucked deep in
| their media cabinet next to their game console and under
| their TV in the center of their home. You'll need to get
| your volunteers to bother placing these antennas on their
| roofs, on the top of flagpoles, etc. to get good
| propagation. They better have properly grounded it as
| well and put fourth good lightning protection for this
| new wire high point at the top of their home.
| sybercecurity wrote:
| Yes via sidelink:
| https://www.abiresearch.com/blogs/2022/11/08/5g-sidelink/
|
| Not used everywhere, but seen as something that would be rolled
| out for critical communications, natural disasters, etc.
| voytec wrote:
| 5G for just internet is somewhat doable, but unlikely
| reasonable. There is a volunteer-driven LoRaWAN Helium[0] mesh
| network which added 5G some 2 years back. But it's
| cryptocurrency-driven and apparently unprofitable for
| volunteers investing in radios and antennas. At least where I
| live.
|
| My neighbor still has the Helium antenna and radio on his
| balcony but it's offline due to costs/profits disproportion.
| It's the LoRaWAN, pre-5G hardware though, and I don't know
| anyone running the 5G version, if it's even a real thing. I
| liked the idea from technical perspective but the project
| itself was off-putting for me due to being built around a
| crypto token and having overall web3 smell.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helium_Network
| toast0 wrote:
| There's some specs out for 5G on unlicensed bands, but even
| that uses licensed bands for coordination.
|
| So, if you want to run legally, you're going to need spectrum
| licenses and transmitter licenses and all that. That will make
| you a mobile network operator, regardless of how you arrange
| labor and sites.
| woah wrote:
| I participated in community mesh networks for years and even
| did a startup where people could get paid for installing mesh
| nodes on their roof. Many others have done this as well over
| many years, and have either pivoted (Meraki) or gone out of
| business and sold their assets to conventional ISPs (Common
| Networks).
|
| The biggest hurdle is that reliably running high performance
| transmitters is not easy for amateurs, and the payoff for any
| one transmitter is not that much. I'm going to use the example
| of a residential ISP but this applies to cell networks as well.
| The "meshier" the network is, the more people revenue needs to
| be split between, exacerbating the problem.
|
| Another issue is that reliability is extremely important for
| internet access. Given the fact that amateurs are not going to
| be able to maintain high uptime, for a decentralized mesh
| network to succeed at actually providing internet service, you
| need to have a lot of redundancy in any given area, further
| reducing income from any one node.
|
| The solution to this is to have a team of technicians that can
| go around and fix and optimize nodes as soon as there is any
| problem. This is basically what an ISP or cell carrier does. An
| added difference is that in a mesh network, the idea is
| generally that the property owner owns the node, while with a
| conventional ISP, the property owner leases to the ISP who owns
| the node. Property owners generally prefer the latter, since
| this is the model they are used to operating under as
| landlords.
| ianburrell wrote:
| There are a few problems with this. Mesh is cool for other uses
| but can't replace the infrastructure of mobile operator.
|
| One, what frequency are you going to use? If you use 2.4GHz or
| 5GHz, your Wifi-using neighbors will hate you. There is the
| 6GHz spectrum but has problems with long ranges. The 3.5GHz
| CBRS is probably the best bet but that requires spectrum
| allocation and organization to run it. The mobile operators
| have all the good low frequency, long range spectrum.
|
| Two, the range with home routers is going to be pretty short,
| maybe 1mi. That means lots of node to cover a city. Also, 5G
| routers are not that cheap. It also means that there will be no
| reception away from the city. Most routers are meant to be used
| inside, and good coverage, requires mounting them outside on a
| pole.
|
| Three, I'm not sure there is 5G device-to-device. There was
| LTE-Direct but it never got implemented. There D2D in 5G spec
| but I can't find any implementations.
| rspoerri wrote:
| My first thought was, which windows version does it need? /s
| mrvenkman wrote:
| Which way up is that picture?
| MisterTea wrote:
| Pretty sure we're lookup up at a slight angle. Those high hat
| lights are usually on the ceiling and not walls or floors.
| 1udsdhoasfih wrote:
| The product website has a bit more helpful pictures:
| https://wavebyagc.com/en/hidden-antennas-for-urban-
| environme...
| bee_rider wrote:
| I don't 100% get the story. TLDR, skeptical due to the issue of
| the two 5G frequency ranges.
|
| > Because 5G networks include spectrum comprising higher
| frequencies than 4G, base stations for 5G networks serve a
| smaller coverage footprint.
|
| Sure
|
| > It [the window antenna] is compatible with frequencies in the
| 5G Sub6 band--meaning signals that are less than 6 gigahertz
| (GHz). Sub6 antennas represent critical portions of a 5G
| deployment, as their lower frequency ranges penetrate barriers
| like walls and buildings better than the substantially higher-
| bandwidth millimeter-wave portions of the 5G spectrum.
|
| But 4G seems to go into at least the 3-ish GHz range just fine.
| At least my layman understanding is that sub-6Ghz doesn't have
| the range problem, the whole point of adding that (IMO, less-
| than-intuitive-to-consumers) frequency band was that (while it
| didn't fulfill the bandwidth promises of 5G) it also _didn't_
| have the range problem. So it is there to fill the gaps.
|
| The ability to deploy sub-6GHz antennas everywhere seems like it
| misses the whole point of that band.
|
| I'm sure there's some advantage to the 5G tech in general,
| because it is newer. But that's a different pitch, right?
| toast0 wrote:
| Sub6 is more or less the same frequencies as 4G. I know there's
| more low frequency (additional spectrum formerly used for over
| the air TV), and there might be some slightly higher frequency
| too, but this is the general purpose stuff. The mmWave stuff is
| really for locations with dense crowds like stadiums and maybe
| airports and busy train/transit stations.
|
| 5G is still better than 4G on sub6 for lots of reasons, but
| yeah, it doesn't have the oodles of bandwidth that 5G promised.
|
| Being able to put more sub6 base stations in more places is
| still good though. There's plenty of areas with poor coverage,
| and sometimes the reason there's no coverage is the aesthetics
| of the base stations are poor. Blending in helps. Which is why
| some antennas look like weird saguaro or palm trees and pine
| trees. It might be nice to have antennas in windows in office
| buildings instead hanging on the side, and it might be easier
| to install as well.
| hammock wrote:
| Glass is silicon and silicon is conductive metal, after all...
| blueflow wrote:
| a semiconductor.
| hammock wrote:
| "Silicon substrate, as one of the most important materials
| for the integrated circuit industry, can be used to
| manufacture mm-wave antennas for a highly integrated purpose"
|
| Here's an interesting paper on how to make it work
| efficiently:
|
| https://www.mdpi.com/2079-9292/12/24/4983#:~:text=Silicon%20.
| ...
| Joker_vD wrote:
| That neither makes silicon a metal, nor glass silicon (it's
| silicon oxide at best, and oxides generally have radically
| different chemical and electrical properties than the pure
| element).
| vel0city wrote:
| Glass is a resistor, it is not conductive. Its actually a
| pretty good resistor, its often used to separate extremely high
| voltages. Those little discs you often see holding high-voltage
| power lines are often made from glass.
|
| Silicon is not a conductive metal. Its a semi-conductor, it
| needs doping to become a good conductor. That's why its used in
| IC's. Naturally not very conductive but react a little with
| something else and suddenly it becomes a pretty good conductor.
| Make a mask of the channels where you want that conductivity,
| and suddenly you can draw little wires.
| jimmySixDOF wrote:
| Also why this system needs to be customized and tweeked to
| work with each specific panel of building glass it is placed
| with to get the full RF signal pass through
| ranger_danger wrote:
| It's not using the glass itself as an antenna though:
|
| >NTT Docomo reports that it uses transparent conductive
| materials as the basis for its antenna, sandwiching the
| conductive material along with a transparent resin, the kind
| used in laminated windshields, in between two sheets of glass.
| HumblyTossed wrote:
| That's not a glass antenna. That is an antenna encased in glass.
| iwontberude wrote:
| Agreed, also the article becomes orders of magnitude less
| interesting once you get past the click bait title.
| pests wrote:
| The glass and the antenna have been designed and tuned to work
| together. The antenna will not work without the glass, its part
| of its RF characteristics.
| istultus wrote:
| So the conspiracy theorists were right about Bill Gates all
| along!
|
| (sorry not sorry)
| caseyy wrote:
| > I don't think the idea for using transparent conductive
| materials as an antenna existed before
|
| Many slightly older cars (2000-2020) had antennas embedded in
| glass. The idea is solid. Antennas in glass are protected, so
| they can be very thin and almost invisible, more aesthetically
| pleasing than a shark fin or a rod on the roof.
|
| I would consider this an aesthetic choice, not so much
| engineering. A small antenna sticking out on the roof solves the
| engineering problem adequately.
| HPsquared wrote:
| They still do, I believe. Cars usually have several antennas
| embedded in e.g. the rear glass. Even something like the FM
| radio often has 3+ antennas in different locations and the
| receiver switches between them to get the best signal. One
| shark fin isn't enough.
| caseyy wrote:
| Now shark fins are in vogue again because they house multiple
| antennas -- FM/AM, DAB, GPS, and recently more importantly,
| 4G. Maybe even WiFi -- weird as it sounds, I saw some strings
| for WiFi antennas in a popular stock media/head unit's
| firmware.
|
| Though you are probably right and many cars with just FM/AM
| and DAB still put them in windshields.
|
| I'm not sure about that 3+ antenna claim for FM. Do a fact-
| check there. ;) I think most diversity antenna systems that
| you describe use 2. And they are still considered "premium".
| 3 is a bit overkill for FM, FM is very resilient against
| obstacles.
|
| If I'm wrong, would be interesting to see an example of a car
| that uses 3 or more. Probably far outside of my pay grade to
| say the least.
| HPsquared wrote:
| I'm going by the BMW E90 (Top HiFi option) which has 3
| physical FM antennas FM1, FM2 and FM3, all in the rear
| glass, and a fourth "FM4" which is not a physical antenna
| but a combination of FM1 and FM2.
|
| They really didn't want you losing signal!
|
| This isn't even mentioning the festoon of other antennas
| for DAB, mobile (which has a backup too and phones home in
| a crash: in case the shark fin is broken in a crash)
| caseyy wrote:
| I could be wrong, but E90 with the best HiFi package is a
| very rare exception to the rule. I wouldn't say you often
| see such configurations.
|
| It's cool they did that but it's almost like they are
| trying to prove some point -- maybe to be the best in the
| market for FM by a hair. :) One antenna is more common
| than 3 to my knowledge, by far.
| HPsquared wrote:
| Fair enough, I just happened to have an E92 and one day I
| read all about its systems when it had some major
| electrical issues :) (Turned out they were due to someone
| forgetting to clip a piece of harness back in place after
| some work, and as a result the harness rubbed against
| something in a wheel arch, eroding the insulation and
| letting water in intermittently screwing up the CAN bus!)
| anthomtb wrote:
| > WiFi -- weird as it sounds, I saw some strings for WiFi
| antennas
|
| This is probably so the car can act as a Wifi hotspot, with
| the Wifi antennas located in the interior rather than in
| the sharkfin.
| vel0city wrote:
| Sometimes both. My car can connect to my home's WiFi for
| its software updates. I doubt that antenna is inside the
| cabin of the car.
|
| It also can act as a hotspot if I bothered paying for its
| data plan. I'd rather if I could just load an eSIM for my
| existing service to have it be a hotspot for me. Since
| its antennas are on the outside it should get way better
| GPS and cellular connectivity than my phone in my pocket
| deep in a metal box.
| ortusdux wrote:
| I'd like to see a version that doubles as exit signage.
|
| https://www.exitsignwarehouse.com/products/esw-el-r
| n2d4 wrote:
| They do that in this article towards the end:
| https://wavebyagc.com/en/hidden-antennas-for-urban-environme...
| ortusdux wrote:
| Very cool, thanks. It looks like they can be used for WIFI as
| well, which would make these perfect for business mesh
| networks.
| russfink wrote:
| Why not just make a hawk silouhette into an antenna? They paste
| those on windows all the time to minimize bird strikes.
| kragen wrote:
| how do we end up with statements like 'millimeter waves can
| deliver typically between 10 and 50 GHz of bandwidth' getting
| published in _ieee spectrum_? are there no electrical engineers
| at the ieee anymore? apparently this article is by a 'tim
| hornyak' with a degree in journalism from carleton university in
| ottawa. what the fuck?
| system2 wrote:
| So you are telling me this looks better than a simple dish
| antenna resembling a Unifi AP dish? This thing might be a
| concept, but when it is implemented, it will still show a bunch
| of wires encased in glass. I am also not into being blasted by
| radio waves all day long from every angle.
| sgt wrote:
| Won't tapping on the glass disrupt the signal, or simply wind or
| heavy rain against it disrupt it as well?
| zonkerdonker wrote:
| It would if this was actually mm-wave 5g. The article says this
| antenna only functions in the sub 5ghz range, which makes a lot
| of sense.
|
| Most modern windows use an aluminuzed coating for UV reflection
| (usually called low-e glass), which surprise surprise, is
| absolutely great at attenuating mm-wave frequencies, making
| windows pretty much the worst possible place on a building to
| place an antenna.
|
| But, turns out most people also dont need gigabit wifi for
| their phones and other devices, so true mm-wave 5g seems to
| mostly be reserved for wireless home internet at the moment.
| humanfromearth9 wrote:
| Next step is to develop the use case for smartphones, then for
| foldable smartphones.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| What advantage does this actually confer over just a normal
| antenna you place at the top of your window? The "look it's
| glass!" hype claims it won't obstruct your view, but on an 8ft
| tall window, nothing is obstructing your view up there anyway!
| p0w3n3d wrote:
| It took me a moment to realise this is about window not an
| operating system even though 'windows' was lowercase
| J_cst wrote:
| Exactly the same here... Same happens when I see the word
| 'file' written somewhere (which in Italian means queues, and
| I'm Italian), and I read it as the English IT word 'file'. This
| always make me lightly smile.
| sexy_seedbox wrote:
| What or which "teams" are you taking about? Oh, the Microsoft
| Teams' teams.
| nakulgarg22 wrote:
| I'm exited to see if an array of antennas in the glass can
| 'beamform' in the building and increase signal strengths
| intelligently.
| zonkerdonker wrote:
| This device in this article seems to be mainly for serving
| signal outside of the building. However, devices like the one
| you descibe exist, such as:
| https://pivotalcommware.com/echo-5g/
|
| (Full disclosure, I'm a previous employee)
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