Global wireless video devices (targeting wireless display applications) market shipments are expected to cross 50 million units in 2015, according to a new research by ABI Research.
According to the report, the market will most likely favor hybrid offerings with many companies already laying the foundation with standards such as P1905.1 and products featuring tri-band offerings in the works.
ABI Research industry analyst Michael Inouye said each of the wireless video technologies targeting the facet of the wireless market Wi-Fi (802.11n and 802.11ac) + video compression, UWB + video compression, WHDI, and 60 GHz (WirelessHD and WiGig/WGA) has strengths and weaknesses.
The hybrid offerings have been announced between Wilocity and Atheros (WiGig and 802.11n).
WirelessHD has shown a hybrid product with WiGig, both based on 60GHz and in terms of wired technologies, these wireless offerings could be paired with platforms such as MoCA and Powerline.
The research firm said that given Wi-Fi’s near ubiquity in many networked households Wi-Fi IC manufacturers including Broadcom, Atheros/Qualcomm, Texas Instruments, Intel, Ralink, and Marvell will also play pivotal roles.
However, the market growth has been dragged down due to the lack of standardisation and interoperability.
Though standard products are starting to arrive, their benefits will take time to realise.
Range is another problem: as some of the technologies only perform optimally with ‘line of sight’ between devices.
The research firm said that cost is another factor, and with the growing numbers of connected (and Wi-Fi-enabled) devices there may be less need to stream content between devices.
ABI practice director Jason Blackwell said wireless is driving so many markets now that, with a push towards educating consumers and the arrival of truly seamless user-friendly systems, the longer-term prospects for wireless video may be good.
