# We use Wi-Fi every day to connect our devices to the internet, but how does it actually work? How do our devices communicate with the router and what makes Wi-Fi different from other types of wireless communication?
In: Technology
Really deep question that requires several undergraduate and graduate level electrical engineering and computer science classes to thoroughly answer (Google “introduction to digital communications” if you care) but this is ELI5 so I’ll bite.
A few centuries ago, scientists realized the following natural phenomenon: if you put electricity (more precisely an alternating current) through a piece of metal, a tiny voltage would appear on other nearby pieces of metal too. All of digital communications (whether WiFi, Bluetooth, cellular, car remote key etc.) is about exploiting this phenomenon to send information in a reliable way. A few subproblems involve include: How to represent digital information in a way that’s resistant to distortion (similar to a QR code)? How to undo said distortion at the receiver? How can multiple devices cooperate and take turn in transmitting and receiving? How to stop eavesdropping? How to chop data into multiple transmissions and reconstitute it on the other hand? How to compress (reduce) the volume of data to transmit in a reversible way? How to verify that the data received is correct? How to ask the transmitter to resend incorrect data? How to signal where the data transmitted needs to be delivered?
The rabbit hole goes deep and spans multiple specialties from analog software design all the way up to JavaScript programming.
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