Wi-Wi is wireless time sync at 1 nanosecond
98 points
2 days ago
| 6 comments
| jeffgeerling.com
| HN
NkVczPkybiXICG
4 hours ago
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Why does the title say 1ns but the body of the article says 30ns (with hopes to eventually get it down to 5)?
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geerlingguy
3 hours ago
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The 2nd revision of the hardware is 1ns in simulation, likely 5ns in real-world scenarios. The first revision of the hardware (which I saw at NAB) is more like 30ns (with 20ps jitter, I believe).

1ns is about the best you can do with the nearly 1 GHz carrier (as mentioned in a sibling comment).

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larpingscholar
4 hours ago
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It's the period of the carrier wave (900MHz)?
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Lammy
3 hours ago
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> Wi-Wi stands for Wireless 2Way interferometry

> 2Way

Does that mean you won't get to know the time unless you let them spy on your physical location too? That's what the diagram implies: https://www.gps.gov/sites/default/files/2025-06/CGSICMeeting...

GNSS time is still cooler because you can have extremely accurate time and a reading of your position without the broadcasting satellites knowing you're there.

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reed1234
57 minutes ago
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They’re comparing it to GPS which also uses multi-lateration (multiple measurements of time/distance) for positioning based off the known positions of satellites.

In this case it is only figuring out the distance from the other receivers for time synchronization and not positioning you on the globe.

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bigfatkitten
2 hours ago
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There are lots of situations where GNSS isn’t available, especially in broadcasting.

A live event in a convention center for example. You might have a truck outside with GNSS, but it’s blocked inside by the building.

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Lammy
1 hour ago
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I would rather not know the exact time than be spied on.
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wildzzz
25 minutes ago
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It's not for you. It's for a broadcasting team so all of the wireless camera feeds are properly synced.
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PowerElectronix
3 hours ago
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I think it only needs the travel time of the signal, but it's not well explained.
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rkagerer
1 hour ago
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Most important question: Is it pronounced Why-Why, or Wee-Wee?
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simoncion
4 minutes ago
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Why not "Why-Wee"?
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ectospheno
2 days ago
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That is cool. I use a gps NTP server on my home network and live with sub-millisecond time sync. I’d go PTP but the equipment is a bit too expensive if the only value add is better time sync and I don’t need additional bandwidth. Prices coming down would be nice.
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Youden
5 hours ago
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What's expensive? PTP is widely supported on commodity hardware these days. I think most Intel NICs support it, quite a few Realtek and a lot of embedded stuff, down to even MCUs like STM32.

Even if you want a NIC with a stable oscillator or GPS inputs to act as a grandmaster, you can buy an E810 with the necessary hardware from eBay etc. for a few hundred or DIY something yourself much cheaper.

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geerlingguy
4 hours ago
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Switches that properly support PTP are expensive, at least for now.

You can achieve microsecond accuracy with a lot of non-timing-specific networking hardware, but it's around as good as you get with modern NTP...

To get sub-microsecond, you need hardware that supports transparent/boundary clock and doesn't just 'say' it does, but actually does (vendors have stamped PTP support on things that definitely don't account for time correctly internally!).

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jcelerier
4 hours ago
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out of dozens of laptops and computers we have where I work, we have maybe 3 that have a PTP-compatible NIC.
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simulator5g
5 hours ago
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Better signal penetration with Wi-Wi could be a game changer for battery life.
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chrisallick
2 hours ago
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thats insane
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