14 Facts About Wi-Fi Direct

Wi-Fi Direct is a Wi-Fi standard for peer-to-peer wireless connections that allows two devices to establish a direct Wi-Fi connection without an intermediary wireless access point, router, or Internet connection.

Wi-Fi Direct is single-hop communication, rather than multihop communication like wireless ad hoc networks.

One advantage of Wi-Fi Direct is the ability to connect devices even if they are from different manufacturers.

Only one of the Wi-Fi devices needs to be compliant with Wi-Fi Direct to establish a peer-to-peer connection that transfers data directly between them with greatly reduced setup.

Wi-Fi Direct negotiates the link with a Wi-Fi Protected Setup system that assigns each device a limited wireless access point.

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Conventional Wi-Fi Direct networks are typically based on the presence of controller devices known as wireless access points.

In contrast, Wi-Fi Direct devices are able to communicate with each other without requiring a dedicated wireless access point.

The Wi-Fi Direct devices negotiate when they first connect to determine which device shall act as an access point.

Common example is the Wi-Fi Direct Protected Setup system included in most access points built since 2007 when the standard was introduced.

Wi-Fi Direct Protected Setup allows access points to be set up simply by entering a PIN or other identification into a connection screen, or in some cases, simply by pressing a button.

Wi-Fi Direct has become a standard feature in smart phones and portable media players, and in feature phones as well.

The soft AP provides a version of Wi-Fi Direct Protected Setup with its push-button or PIN-based setup.

Wi-Fi Direct-certified devices can connect one-to-one or one-to-many and not all connected products need to be Wi-Fi Direct-certified.

One Wi-Fi Direct enabled device can connect to legacy Wi-Fi certified devices.