About once every five years, Wi-Fi goes through a generational change. But, one thing is missing. Despite this new faster version of the Wi-Fi showing up on routers across the CES this week, it is still absent in our many computing devices.
Only a handful of laptops; no smartphones, tablets, smart home devices, PCs, or other gadgets that have been announced this week, support the new generation of Wi-Fi. That means that, even though you can buy a next-gen Wi-Fi router today, very few devices can actually take advantage of its faster speeds.
The new generation of Wi-Fi or the Wi-Fi 6, is supposed to reduce battery demand, pack more information into each broadcast, and allow more devices to be reached at a time. It won’t necessarily provide significant speed gains, but it’s designed to do a better job of holding up inside households with a multitude of Wi-Fi-connected devices, as our homes increasingly are.
No guarantee this year’s new gadgets will have Wi-Fi 6
Wi-Fi 6 has been in the works for some years, and 2019 is supposed to be the kickoff point. The Wi-Fi Alliance, the group that oversees implementation of the standard, plans to begin certifying devices this autumn. We’ll just have to wait a little bit longer for Wi-Fi 6 to arrive everywhere else.
The faster speeds are coming, though. HP and Dell, two of the world’s top three PC makers, each announced a laptop that included Wi-Fi 6 at the CES, as did MSI, Asus, and Asus’ ROG. Intel also announced that its next generation of processors would support Wi-Fi 6. And while there were no smartphones with Qualcomm’s upcoming Snapdragon 855 processor at the show, the chip will include support for Wi-Fi 6, too.
A spokesperson for the Wi-Fi Alliance said,
“based on what we are hearing at CES, we expect to see more of those Wi-Fi 6 consumer products this year.”
Still, if you’re buying a new gadget this year, it’s not guaranteed that it’ll come with support for next-gen Wi-Fi. That doesn’t mean you’ll be missing out in any major way, but it does mean the transition will take just a little bit longer.
So don’t expect to see Wi-Fi 6 everywhere for now. Very likely, the move to Wi-Fi 6 won’t kick off fully until 2020.
