Infrared Data Association

IrDA stands for Infrared Data Association. It is an industry focused interest group that was founded in 1993 with around 50 companies. This association provides specifications for a broad set of protocols for wireless infrared communications, and "IrDA" also refers to set of protocols. The main reason for using IrDA is wireless data transfer over last one metre using point and shoot principles. Thus, it is implemented in portable devices such as mobile phones, laptops, printers, cameras and medical devices. The main characteristics of this type of wireless optical communication are physically secure data transfer, line-of-sight and very low error rate that makes it very efficient. IrDA on Windows provides core services to those exposed by Transmission Control Protocol. Like TCP, applications on different devices can open numerous, reliable IrDA connections to send and receive data. IrDA applications associate to a server application by stipulating a device address, and further require their connection using an application address.

Like many interacting protocols and services, IrDA connectivity and data transfer are automated through Windows Sockets function calls. This association reference section clarifies how to use Windows Sockets functions and structures with IrDA protocols, services, and devices.