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Having WiFi 8 (or even 7) on your access point is only really useful if you have a population of clients that can use the features it offers. I regularly sample
by kjellsbells 1mo ago
Having WiFi 8 (or even 7) on your access point is only really useful if you have a population of clients that can use the features it offers. I regularly sample the devices attached to residential wifi routers and the facts are grim: in a house of 40+ devices, two can do wifi 7, about 10% can do 6Ghz, 50 to 60% can do 5GHz but not 6GHz, and a core rump of 50% of the devices are stuck on 2.4GHz. I suspect this is because all those cheap smart home things like roku sticks and pet feeders and so on are built for cost and a decent 5Ghz chip is just too much to ask.
- jychang 1mo agoEven more important: I hope Wifi 8 makes all the good stuff MANDATORY even if it's expensive! For example, Wifi 7 doesn't make actually useful MLO mandatory. So most wifi router manufacturers - even Ubiquiti - don't implement it! What's the point of adding something to the standard if it's optional. Ideally, the standards body should make expensive stuff mandatory- then prices will come down as soon as everyone is building it, due to economics of scale.
- amluto 1mo agoUbiquiti has a half-hearted MLO implementation with AFAICT utterly silly restrictions on WPA mode.
- riobard 1mo ago> because all those cheap smart home things like roku sticks and pet feeders and so on are built for cost and a decent 5Ghz chip is just too much to ask. Cost certainly is the primary factor in the decision, but you definitely want those low-bandwidth but long-range devices OFF your precious 5GHz band. Unless you want the same crappy experience of 2.4GHz band in 5GHz.
- rrrrrrrrrrrryan 1mo agoThis is true if you only have one access point. If you have a mesh system with more than one access point, your network benefits greatly by using WiFi 7 (or 8, now) as a dedicated wireless backhaul that connects the access points to each other.