5G Reduced Capability (RedCap), also known as 5G NR-Light, is a version of 5G that caters to mid-tier use cases. It's a "lightweight" version of 5G that retains the essential features of the technology while optimizing bandwidth, power consumption, and price based on the specific requirements of the application.
The driving force behind 5G is New Radio (NR). Now, Reduced Capability (Red Cap) New Radio is helping expand the NR device ecosystem, enabling the growth of even more 5G use cases. The introduction of reduced capability NR devices can facilitate the expansion of the NR device ecosystem to cater to the use cases that are not yet best served by current NR specifications.
Use cases that motivate the specification work on NR RedCap include wearables (e.g. smart watches, wearable medical devices, AR/VR goggles, etc.), industrial wireless sensors, and video surveillance.
In 5G NR Release 17, 3GPP introduced a new tier of reduced capability (RedCap) devices, also known as NR-Light. It is a new device platform that bridges the capability and complexity gap between the extremes in 5G today with an optimized design for mid-tier use cases.
When compared to 5G enhanced mobile broadband (eMBB) devices that can support gigabits per second of throughput in the downlink and uplink, NR-Light devices can efficiently support 150 Mbps and 50 Mbps in the downlink and uplink, respectively, due to the designed optimizations. The reduced complexity contributes to more cost-efficient NR-Light devices, longer battery life due to lower power consumption, and a smaller device footprint, which enables newer designs for a broad range of use cases.
