Next-gen Wi-Fi
Discover the latest Wi-Fi technology for your home.
We’ve looked at a wide range of home automation devices in the last few months, from smart lightbulbs to security cameras and thermostats. The one thing all these devices have in common is their reliance on Wi-Fi to connect them to the Internet of Things (IoT).
This explosion of devices means that there’s more and more pressure on our home Wi-Fi networks, whether it’s streaming video on Netflix, online gaming, or the kids vlogging their teenage fun to the world on YouTube. Wi-Fi technology has to evolve to take the strain of all this communication, and we’re currently at a tipping point where the next generation is about to arrive. The latest Wi-Fi routers include several new features that can improve both speed and reliability, so here’s our guide to the next-gen gear that you need to power your smart home.
There’s a lot of jargon surrounding Wi-Fi and routers, and it can be quite confusing for anyone thinking about upgrading to the latest, greatest Wi-Fi tech. However, there are a few key features that you should look for if you want to improve the speed and reliability of your home Wi-Fi network. wi-fi and mimo and halow, oh my The current version of Wi-Fi used by most recent home routers is called 802.11ac, although there are still quite a few people using routers based on the older 802.11n standard. Routers that use 802.11n have a maximum speed of 450 megabits per second (Mbps), whereas 802.11ac steps right up to 1.3 gigabits per second (Gbps), so that’s an obvious improvement that makes it worth upgrading.
All 802.11ac routers also provide “dual-band” features that allow them
MU-MI MO allows a router to transmit separate signals to multiple devices simultaneously, providing better performance and reliability
to transmit data at frequencies of both 2.4GHz and 5GHz. That’s important, as the 2.4GHz bandwidth has become increasingly crowded and prone to interference in recent years, so using the 5GHz band can help to reduce interference.
That said, 802.11ac itself is still a work in progress, and routers such as Apple’s AirPort Extreme are actually known as “802.11ac Wave 1.” These Wave 1 routers can use multiple antennae to transmit multiple signals simultaneously in order to improve the overall speed of data transfer. This technique is called SU-MIMO: Single User-Multi-In/Multi-Out. The “single-user” part means that the router transmits data to a single device at a time at high speed, rapidly switching between devices for simultaneous use.
The latest Wave 2 routers, however, use a more advanced feature called MU-MIMO (Multi-User). This allows the router to transmit separate signals to multiple devices simultaneously, providing better
performance and reliability. Wave 2 routers can provide greater speed too; the fastest we’ve seen so far is Netgear’s R7800 router, which can reach speeds of up to 2.53Gbps, although the forthcoming R8500 claims to go as fast as 5.3Gbps. These high-end routers are designed for demanding applications such as gaming and streaming video, which need really high performance. However, the Internet of Things is bringing new types of devices into our homes, which often have different requirements.
Devices such as security cameras and thermostats don’t require super-fast Wi-Fi speeds, but they do need to be very power-efficient as they generally need to run for 24 hours a day, often on batteries. With that in mind, the next step in Wi-Fi evolution is 802.11ah – also known as “Wi-Fi HaLow.”
Instead of providing higher speeds, 802.11ah adds the ability to transmit data on frequencies below 1GHz, which don’t need very much power. These lower frequencies also provide longer range, which means that you can use your smart devices all around your home, as well as in larger buildings such as schools and offices. However, 802.11ah isn’t due until early 2017, and it already faces some competition for control of the Internet of Things.
Some of the home automation devices that we’ve seen recently have already opted for rival wireless technologies known as Zigbee and Z-Wave. TP-Link has recently announced a router called the SR20 that is specifically designed for home automation, and will combine standard 802.11ac Wi-Fi with support for both Zigbee and Z-Wave.
can’t this thing go any faster?
At the other end of the spectrum to the low-speed, low-frequency technologies, there’s a more specialized form of Wi-Fi in the works, known as WiGig or 802.11ad. WiGig will step right up to 60GHz frequencies, which have fairly short range but are very, very fast. This will be useful for 4K video services and virtual reality games, which will need really high speeds but will only need to stream data to one or two nearby devices, such as a games console in your front room (or an updated Apple TV that can actually handle 4K video…).
We’ve already heard news of one WiGig router that is on its way from TP-Link, called the Talon 7200. More interesting are the rumors that the iPhone 7 will include WiGig for streaming your 4K video recordings, so that’s one important new Wi-Fi technology that you could find in your pocket before the end of 2016.