It’s undeniable that Bluetooth redefines ubiquitous.. Bluetooth existed almost everywhere in our personal wearable devices such as your Iphones, smart watches, headset, and speakers… almost every electric devices you can name.

However, What if I tell you Bluetooth is not the ultimate technology anymore? Researchers at the university of California have developed a prototype to reveal a new wireless communication technique which could use the human body itself to help send data between devices. They are saying this tech would outperform any existing wireless gear in today’s world.

The method of transferring data is called “magnetic field human body communication”. The technique uses the body as media to deliver magnetic energy between wearable electronic gadgets, such smart watches or apple belts (which just came out recently). In order to make the transfer successful, the wearable device needs to be circular in nature, like the image shown below.

What’s it advantage? The greatest benefit is its lower power consumption. However Bluetooth devices transmitting data via radio signals made up by electromagnetic radiation, which would be blocked by your bodies themselves. Our bodies created obstructions and result some losing data. In this case, the only thing we use to prevent that situation is to boost the device power. The ultimate result is when you buy a Bluetooth devices, it either end up with a big battery or not very power efficient. Unlike Bluetooth devices, this new gear send data via magnetic field directly through our bodies. Thus the path loss can be cut down to the minimum amount. The researchers say path loss using magnetic field of human body is 10 million times less than using electromagnetic radiation in Bluetooth devices.

One should be not concerned about if using magnetic energy through human body would hurt you health. Researchers are also saying that those signals communication is much less power than things like MRI scanners and wireless implant devices. Small amount of magmatic fields passing through our body should have been a harmless situation, and will not hurts biological tissues.

Compared to Bluetooth, the new tech is way more safe than ever before. Magnetic field communication prevents any kind information leaking, since the signals are largely contained to your body. While this new tech is stilling under developing, such method cannot send data to a remote device such as audio speakers or computer. At the mean time, limitation is actually not bad. Some people like me think increased privacy is more desirable.

the following link to the presentation of this new founding37th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society