Li-Fi Market Trends

Growth Drivers

• Smart cities & urban infrastructure initiatives: The continued expansion of smart city projects worldwide is a significant growth catalyst for the Li-Fi market. Cities across the globe are making continued investments in infrastructure that combines illumination with data connectivity, for example, Li-Fi-enabled streetlights and urban sensors. In September 2025, Velmenni and Niral Networks announced they had allied to deliver fiber-like, cable-free industrial connectivity by integrating Li-Fi wireless backhaul with private 5G networks. The collaboration has already been successfully deployed at a power plant in Odisha, proving reliable, secure connectivity in RF-restricted and hard-to-wire environments. The company also states that by combining Velmenni’s high-speed, interference-free Li-Fi technology with Niral Networks’ Private 5G platform, the partnership enables ultra-secure and resilient connectivity for mission-critical industrial operations, hence denoting a positive market outlook.
• Rising demand for high-speed wireless connectivity: Li-Fi offers considerably faster data transmission rates when compared to conventional Wi-Fi, achieving speeds that exceed 10 Gbps by leveraging visible light rather than radio frequencies. This makes it attractive for bandwidth-intensive applications and reduces network congestion in dense environments, driving business in the Li-Fi market. As per the article published by NIH in December 2024, its 2024 study in Sensors highlights the integration of Wi-Fi, Li-Fi, and broadband over power lines to create a very secure and high-speed indoor communication system. Besides, Li-Fi provides ultra-fast data transfer up to 224 Gbps that too with very minimal interference and enhanced security, by complementing Wi-Fi and BPL for broader coverage and reliability. In addition, this approach improves network efficiency and ensures connectivity for applications in smart buildings, industrial sites, and critical infrastructure.
• Enhanced security requirements: This is one of the primary growth drivers for the Li-Fi market since it utilizes light that cannot penetrate walls, limiting signal leakage outside physical spaces. This is a major influencing factor for sectors that prioritize secure communications, such as finance, healthcare, defense, and enterprise applications.  In April 2024, Vibrint entered into a partnership with pureLiFi and launched the Vibrint LiFi, which is a wireless communication system especially designed for classified and national security environments. Using light waves instead of radio frequencies ensures military-grade encryption, interference-free operation, and ultra-fast connectivity, which in turn addresses the critical data as well as security needs. The solution, along with the LiFi-enabled laptops and LiFi Cube systems, provides flexible and rapidly deployable networks that efficiently enhance operational security for government as well as defense agencies.

Challenges

• Limited range and line-of-sight requirement: Li‑Fi relies mainly on visible light communication, which limits its operational range and, in turn, necessitates a clear line-of-sight between the transmitter and receiver. Simultaneously, the obstacles such as walls, furniture, or even human movement can block the light signal, causing interruptions in performance. Also, the regular Wi-Fi can penetrate objects using the radio waves, but Li-Fi cannot provide building coverage without deploying multiple access points. The existence of this restriction makes it challenging in indoor environments such as offices, hospitals, or industrial floors, where mobility is highly essential. Furthermore, to overcome this, manufacturers are focused on developing mesh networks and hybrid Li‑Fi or Wi-Fi solutions, resulting in complexity and cost, making Li-Fi market adoption slow.
• Standardization and interoperability issues: This is yet another major obstacle hindering the expansion of the light fidelity (Li-Fi) market. The IEEE 802.11bb has provided a framework for optical wireless communication, but many companies still use proprietary solutions, which can create compatibility issues across most devices and networks. Also, the absence of universally adopted protocols hinders integration with both the existing networking infrastructure and IoT ecosystems.  In this context, enterprises in this market might hesitate to adopt LI-Fi owing to the aspects of vendor lock-in or difficulties in integrating with Wi-Fi, Ethernet, or cloud systems. In addition, the standardization gaps also affect regulatory compliance and global deployment, particularly in industries such as defense or healthcare, where secure communication is highly essential.