What Is Wi-Fi 6?

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Now that Wi-Fi 7 routers are readily available, you may be tempted to ditch your old wireless router and upgrade to the latest technology, but you can save a bundle and still get speedy performance by opting for a Wi-Fi 6 router. If you’re not sure which wireless standard will best suit your networking needs, read on to find out what you need to know before you buy a new router or mesh system.

All the Wi-Fi 6 Terms You Need to Know

Although Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax) has been around for half a decade, it's still a viable wireless technology that will satisfy most home users. First announced in 2019 and made official in 2021, it brought a slew of new technologies that enabled faster throughput speeds, better battery life, and less bandwidth congestion than what you got with its predecessor, Wi-Fi 5 (802.11ac).

One of these technologies, Orthogonal Frequency-Division Multiple Access (OFDMA) modulation, allows up to 30 clients to share a channel at the same time, thereby improving efficiency by boosting overall capacity while reducing latency. In a nutshell, OFDMA assigns time intervals to clients that allow them to better parse out available network channels. If one person in your home is streaming a movie and another is checking social media on a phone, OFDMA allows a router to assign channels to each device based on when it needs it most.

The Best Wi-Fi 6 Routers and Mesh Systems We've Tested

Wi-Fi 6 also uses Target Wake Time (TWT), which allows devices to determine when they will normally wake up to begin sending and receiving data. This extends the battery life of mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets, as well as battery-powered smart home devices such as security cameras and video doorbells. Wi-Fi 6 also takes advantage of previously unused radio frequencies to provide faster 2.4GHz performance, and it uses refined bandwidth management to provide enhanced Quality of Service (QoS) options.

Multi-User Multiple Input Multiple Output (MU-MIMO), which streams data simultaneously rather than sequentially, is a feature of Wi-Fi 5 as well, but it tops out there at four streams. Wi-Fi 6 allows eight-stream uplink and downlink transmissions, allowing more equitable bandwidth sharing among connected MU-MIMO-enabled clients.

What Is Wi-Fi 6E? 6GHz Transmissions, Explained

Wi-Fi 6 should be able to deliver adequate speed to households of any size, even those of 5,000 square feet and up, assuming you choose a Wi-Fi 6 mesh system with enough nodes to cover all the space. However, although Wi-Fi 6 provides superior throughput speeds compared with earlier Wi-Fi standards, it can only use the 2.4GHz and 5GHz radio spectrum to send and receive data. In April 2020, the FCC opened up the 6GHz radio spectrum for unlicensed use, paving the way for Wi-Fi 6E, an extension of Wi-Fi 6 that allows compatible routers to send and receive data over the 6GHz radio band (along with the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands).

The benefits of Wi-Fi 6E include faster data rates due to a less crowded radio band, lower latency, and wider channels, but it has a few downsides, too. The 6GHz band uses much shorter wavelengths than the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands and is therefore limited in range. While it provides speedy data rates in close-range (same-room) applications, it does not do well when walls and other obstructions separate the router and client device. Additionally, your PCs, phones, and other client devices must support Wi-Fi 6E in order to connect over the 6GHz band.

If you have a gigabit fiber connection from your internet service provider, or you frequently move a lot of large files between Wi-Fi 6E-compatible devices that are in the same room as a router or mesh node, you should consider buying a Wi-Fi 6E router or mesh system.

Is Wi-Fi 6 Secure?

Aside from the capabilities mentioned above, Wi-Fi 6 also offers features like beamforming, which transmits Wi-Fi signals directly to clients rather than over a broad spectrum. All Wi-Fi 6 devices can also handle WPA3 encryption, which is the newest iteration of Wi-Fi security. It offers robust password protection and 256-bit encryption algorithms to make it harder for people to hack into your network.

Keep in mind that in order to use WPA3, your laptop, smartphone, and other devices must also be compatible with the security protocol. According to Microsoft, Windows 11 and Windows 10 (Version 2004) both support Wi-Fi 6 and WPA3. Many of Apple's devices also support the protocol, starting with the iPhone 7, 5th Gen iPad, Apple Watch Series 3, Apple TV 4K, and its late 2013 Mac computers. Android 10 introduced support for WPA3 in 2019.

For smart home devices that connect to your network, check with the manufacturer to see if individual equipment supports the WPA3 security protocol.

Is Wi-Fi 6 Backward Compatible?

Both Wi-Fi 6 and Wi-Fi 6E devices are backward compatible with earlier Wi-Fi standards, but in order to use the new 6GHz channels, you'll need a Wi-Fi 6E router and a Wi-Fi 6E client device (meaning computers, phones, smart home devices, and other gadgets that support Wi-Fi 6E). That means even if you have a relatively new Wi-Fi 6 router, you'll still need to upgrade to a Wi-Fi 6E model in the future if you want to leverage 6E's benefits.

Should I Just Skip to Wi-Fi 7?

The latest wireless networking standard, Wi-Fi 7 (802.11be), builds upon the Wi-Fi 6 standard but offers new technologies that make it possible to hit potential data rates of more than 40Gbps using the 2.4GHz, 5GHz, and 6GHz radio bands. That’s a significant improvement over Wi-Fi 6 and Wi-Fi 6E, which top out at around 9.6Gbps. Wi-Fi 7 offers 320MHz channel bandwidth (as opposed to 160Mhz with Wi-Fi 6) and Multi-Link Operation (MLO), which allows the router to send and receive data simultaneously across multiple radio bands and channels (previous Wi-Fi versions only use one band at a time). As with Wi-Fi 6E, Wi-Fi 7 is backward compatible with older Wi-Fi clients, but you’ll have to use a Wi-Fi 7-compatible client to take advantage of Wi-Fi 7 technologies.

If you’re still using Wi-Fi 6 clients around your home and don’t plan on upgrading anytime soon, a Wi-Fi 6 router will handle your networking needs without breaking the bank. You can pick up a midrange model with 1GbE connections for around $100, but if you require multi-gig connectivity, expect to pay a bit more. If you’ll be connecting over the 6GHz band, Wi-Fi 6E routers have come down in price and can be found for around $150 if you shop around.

That said, if you want to future-proof your network using the latest technology, a Wi-Fi 7 router is the way to go. You’ll have to use Wi-Fi 7-compatible clients to take advantage of this standard, but in return, you’ll get the fastest data rates available, more channel bandwidth, and the ability to utilize more than one radio band at a time. However, be prepared to pay a premium for all this Wi-Fi 7 goodness.