This could not be used for 'smart houses' .. willscott had it right when he mentioned RFID stuff. You cannot have 'ultra-low power' and have a transmitter powerful enough on a WLAN.
I'm not sure what you mean. This thing is not a transmitter, it piggybacks on existing waves by modulating their reflections - that's the whole point of the paper. It won't have to compete with a WLAN.
Presumably range can be increased, specially if the principle is adapted to use that WLAN's 2.4ghz stronger signal instead of VHF.
