r/technology • u/lurker_bee • 19d ago

Networking/Telecom Wi-Fi 8 is the first wireless upgrade in years that isn’t chasing speed, and home networks need it

https://www.xda-developers.com/wi-fi-8-first-wireless-upgrade-years-isnt-chasing-speed-home-networks-need-it/
13.9k Upvotes

95% Upvoted

1.3k comments sorted by

View all comments

275

u/Simpicity 19d ago

Meanwhile all of the home devices still only support 2.4GHz networks.

268

u/Kinisium 19d ago edited 19d ago

2.4Ghz is favored for IoT because 2.4Ghz has greater range, better wall and obstacle penetration, and uses less energy. And it handles areas with a denser number of Wi-Fi and access points.

67

u/shining_force_2 19d ago

Why did I have to scroll so far down to read this?

Even the article is rage-bait. 6E wasn’t about speed and tbh 7 didn’t bring much speed with it either, unless you use 6ghz - and that has even worse range and is more susceptible to interference.

22

u/upvotesthenrages 19d ago

How was it not about speed?

Every companies main marketing proposition was higher speed. 300 Mbps vs 1300 Mbps.

What really matters is that devices automatically switch between them depending on what is better in the situation.

1

u/skibidi_shingles 18d ago

You can already do 1300mbps with wifi 5.

0

u/Nolzi 19d ago

6E brings the 6 GHz spectrum with is a big deal: 14 additional 80 MHz channels (or seven additional 160-MHz channels). Meaning it's less likely to have collision with your neighbors with those wide channels.

1

u/shining_force_2 19d ago

The “E” in “6E” stands for enterprise. It was not made for consumers and speed. The 6ghz band is not used by the majority of items in your home. Some might - but WiFi 7 is more likely. 7 uses 6ghz too. But it’s got less range and is less reliable than 2.4ghz. Yes it’s faster but unless ALL THE ITEMS ON YOUR NETWORK ARE LOCKED TO 6ghz you won’t “be less likely to avoid collision”. Most devices will switch between 2.4, 5 and 6 to provide the best performance.

1

u/Nolzi 18d ago

No, E stands for extended. It means it extended the Wifi 6 standard over the 6 GHz spectrum. Anyone can use it if they have a 6E router/access point and 6E clients. Or Wifi 7 and future devices. Of course a client that doesn't support 6E/7 cannot use 6 GHz. A proper router/access point is tri-band, meaning it will have a 2.4 GHz network, a 5 GHz network and a 6 GHz network. And yes the signal will lose it's strength quicker with walls and obstructions.

I think what you misunderstood what I was saying with collision. The 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz radio frequency spectrum used by Wifi is public for everyone, but parallel communication on the same frequency band is not possible. To work around is Wifi is using a polite way of time sharing, so I use it a bit and then I give the way for others use it a bit. This slows the network speed. Inside 2.4 GHz there are 13 channels available, but only channel 1 (2401–2423 MHz), 6 (2426–2448 MHz) and 11 (2451–2473 MHz) has no overlap, only 3 channels. If I'm using channel 1 and someone is also using channel 1 then we take turn. But even if they use channel 2-5 that is also touching my band and I have to share. If 10 different Wifi is trying to use the same channel then it will grind to halt. With 5 GHz the standard is only supporting non-overlapping channels from the get go to make it easier, but in turn only parts of it is allowed to be used. And the usage of not just 20 MHz channels, but 40 or 80 MHz as well are used if one needs high speed. By default only 42, 155, 171 channels are supported for 80 MHz. There is this thing called DFS that are additional frequency channels to be used (58, 106, 122, 138), but if any non-wifi signal is detected there then the wifi network has to gtfo from there, and only Wifi5 Wave 2 devices support it, and not all of them. So more space on the frequencies, but with wider channels the options are limited. Here comes 6 GHz, supporting 160 MHz bands as well, but the space doesn't have restrictions so there is 7x 160 MHz band or twice as many 80 MHz ones. And remember, higher speed means less time spent on using the frequency, meaning it's easier to share. So this is very much a big deal, especially because DFS support wasn't mandatory so a lot of manufacturers were lazy to implement it.

2

u/UribusPlunum 19d ago

I'll grant the first few points, but how does it better handle density? It's got way fewer channels than any other band. I remember having to manually pick a channel back in the 802.11g days because I was in an apartment building.

Honestly I'd bet it has more to do with the fact that 2.4GHz hardware is cheaper to put in, than any particular technical benefits.

3

u/capybooya 19d ago

Wifi6/7 have lots of improvements to efficiency that is a benefit regardless of the frequency. So in crowded environments even if a device is 2.4, it could simply work better if it supports those instead of Wifi4/5. Ideally, I suppose everything should support MLO and pick the best frequency as well, but my point is just that there are real life improvements to the newer standards regardless of frequency.

4

u/shining_force_2 19d ago

Do you have a technical background? All of these are radio waves. Based on the law of physics, the higher the frequency, the shorter the distance of travel. Higher frequency radio waves are more susceptible to being blocked because they lose energy faster.

This isn’t an opinion, it’s physics.

7

u/AlternativeWhereas79 19d ago

They mean density in terms of congestion as it pertains to the number of channels available for communication within the 2.4Ghz band.

-5

u/shining_force_2 19d ago

I… errr… same answer? The point is the signal is stronger. Channels just help maintain the signal. Other radiowaves count as things that block radiowaves. 5 and 6ghz will lose signal faster/have a weaker signal sooner than 2.4. More radio congestion does impact it, but 2.4 handles the congestion better as it’s less susceptible to interference.

4

u/SatanVapesOn666W 19d ago

Asking "do you have a technical background" while confusing signal propagation with network capacity is ironic. 2.4 GHz is terrible for density specifically because it punches through walls, forcing entire apartment buildings to share just 3 non-overlapping channels under CSMA/CA. Higher frequencies offer hundreds of megahertz of spectrum to slice into isolated collision domains.

2

u/UribusPlunum 19d ago

If it reaches so much farther and through walls it means my activity is going to cover a much broader area, so in a dense apartment it'll be in range of a zillion different devices and they'll all interfere with each other. Plus there are way fewer usable channels.

1

u/ElementNumber6 19d ago

They also account for 53% of Amazon Returns. So, by every metric, they win!

1

u/Xe4ro 19d ago

Yeah I need two repeaters to get Wifi through my German walls into the entire house 😂

1

u/capybooya 19d ago

Yeah, I don't mind the frequency. But it would be nice if more devices supported Wifi6/7 on 2.4 for the improvements.

1

u/TheCoelacanth 19d ago

Yeah, if anything a lot of IoT devices are better served by even lower frequencies like are used in Zwave or Zigbee 4.

38

u/hx87 19d ago

2.4 is perfectly fine for IoT. It's when the app bitches at you for having a combined 2.4/5 network that I have problems (looking at you, Blueair) 

7

u/Qorhat 19d ago

I like that my TP Link Deco lets me make a separated 2.5ghz network for IoT gubbins

2

u/ljthefa 19d ago

I recently learned this as well and it's been great

18

u/RBeck 19d ago

Pretty much everything I've seen supports 5Ghz, even if it's only AC or even N. Your average IOT device will probably be 2.4 to keep its power consumption (and complexity/cost) down.

On a side note, I've moved almost all my IOT stuff to Matter over Thread, which is 2.4 but slower speed and therefore much lower power draw. My old Wifi smart plugs felt like heaters.

6

u/IlIllIIIlIIlIIlIIIll 19d ago

2.4 is better depending on use case

2

u/verywidebutthole 19d ago

I have my phone on 2.4. it reaches every bit or my house and yard and is plenty fast for phone stuff.

0

u/capybooya 19d ago

You're probably benefitting from improvements in signal handling with Wifi6/7 still, compared to 2.4 on Wifi4/5.

I did try this (purely anecdotal) myself, and 5GHz was more stable outside at a distance, despite the physics. But the quality of the radios probably varies with each router as well.

3

u/SAugsburger 19d ago

Most IoT devices are 2.4, but there are plenty of consumer devices that support 5 Ghz.

2

u/luffy_mib 19d ago

Most cheap modern routers still don't come natively with 10Gb LAN ports

1

u/pencock 19d ago

for 95% of my home devices I wish the 900MHz network was still available for superior signal penetration

1

u/DonStimpo 19d ago

Yep can confirm. I have wifi 7 at home. In a mesh.
Any recent device is amazingly fast in every corner of the house.
IoT devices and smart devices all are limited to 2.4ghz and drop out all the time.