Australian-designed low-energy Wi-Fi chips are set to power a new generation of smart devices which can talk across neighbourhoods and run for years on a single battery.

Based in Cisco's Sydney Innovation Centre, Australian start-up Morse Micro has built a prototype wireless chip based on the newly-ratified 802.11ah standard.

Morse Micro co-founders Andrew Terry and Michael De Nil expect their chips to be in smart homes by 2020. Credit:Adam Turner

Wi-Fi HaLow — pronounced "halo" — reaches up to one kilometre yet demands only one per cent of the power consumed by traditional Wi-Fi chips.

Cisco will produce the first equipment based on Morse Micro's HaLow chips, which is expected to hit the shelves in 18 months. HaLow-enabled devices will initially focus on industrial and agricultural applications but will also find their way into smart cities and eventual smart homes by 2020, says Morse Micro co-founder Andrew Terry.