It’s been almost two years since Wi-Fi 6 technology made its debut, and there is now a wealth of router and client devices available that will take advantage of all that this powerful wireless networking standard has to offer. Wi-Fi 6 (otherwise known as 802.11ax) brings faster throughput speeds, better battery life, and less bandwidth congestion than what you get with Wi-Fi 5 (802.11ac) technology. But there are some important things to consider before you run out and buy a Wi-Fi 6 router.
What Is Wi-Fi 6?
A lot has been written about Wi-Fi 6 up to this point, but here’s a brief rundown on what to expect from the newest wireless standard. (For more history, check out our explainer.) Wi-Fi 6 routers employ several new technologies that are designed to boost overall performance by offering increased throughput speeds (nearing 10Gbps, theoretically, compared with max speeds of around 3.5Gbps for 802.11ac).
In addition, Wi-Fi 6 aims to relieve network congestion, provide greater client capacity, and reduce client power consumption. For example, Wi-Fi 6 uses Orthogonal Frequency-Division Multiple Access (OFDMA) modulation, which allows up to 30 clients to share a channel at the same time, thereby improving efficiency by boosting overall capacity while reducing latency. Long story short, OFDMA assigns time intervals to clients that allows them to better parse out available network channels. For example, 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.
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. The new standard 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.
Additionally, Wi-Fi 6 offers eight-stream uplink and downlink Multi-User Multiple Input Multiple Output (MU-MIMO), which streams data simultaneously rather than sequentially, allowing a more equitable sharing of bandwidth among connected MU-MIMO enabled clients. Wi-Fi 5 MU-MIMO topped out at four streams.
So, Should You Upgrade Now?
The short answer is likely “yes” if your current router is more than three years old. Notebooks that support Wi-Fi 6 are becoming more common, including both higher-end models, like the Editors’ Choice-winning Dell XPS 15 OLED, as well as lower-priced units such as the Microsoft Surface Laptop Go 3. The same goes for newer tablets and smartphones, like the OnePlus 9 Pro and the Apple iPhone 13.
Even if your devices are still operating on 802.11ac, it’s still worth the trouble to consider a Wi-Fi 6 router upgrade now. Prices are coming down on both standalone Wi-Fi 6 routers as well as Wi-Fi-6-compatible wireless mesh systems that provide wall-to-wall coverage for homes of all sizes. Among the latter, the TP-Link Deco X20 is an affordable three-piece Wi-Fi 6 mesh system designed for homes of up to 5,800 square feet. It’s around $200 less than many alternatives, which almost lets it qualify as a budget router. At the higher end of the spectrum is the Asus ZenWiFi AX (XT8), one of the best-performing mesh options we’ve tested.
Meanwhile, adding a Wi-Fi 6 range extender could be an alternative if you’re happy with your existing Wi-Fi 6 router but have a larger home or live in a dense neighborhood with lots of competing wireless signals.
Is Wi-Fi 6 Finalized?
The Wi-Fi Alliance started certifying Wi-Fi 6 devices in 2019, and since then devices and routers have become plentiful and reasonably priced. The advanced connectivity features delivered in these devices make them significantly superior to Wi-Fi 5, so if an upgrade is in your budget, now is definitely a good time to pull the trigger.
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 will use features like robust password protection and 256-bit encryption algorithms to make it harder for people to hack into your network.
Your network will also run faster due to background networking improvements, like support for 1,024-QAM (Quadrature Amplitude Modulation), a method that allows more data to be packed into each signal for increased throughput. This can deliver up to 25 percent more capacity than the 256-QAM method used in most Wi-Fi 5 routers.
All this jargon is a lot to unpack, but rest assured that any device you get that supports the final Wi-Fi 6 standard will have all these features in place. On the other hand, there are some Wi-Fi 6 devices with enhanced capabilities that go beyond the basic features that the Wi-Fi Alliance certified. Called Wi-Fi 6E, these products support 6GHz wireless spectrum. Essentially, this means Wi-Fi 6E enables faster speeds and lower latencies than Wi-Fi 6 and earlier iterations.
Wi-Fi 6E devices will be backward compatible with Wi-Fi 6 and 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.
Upgrade One Step at a Time
If you’re panicking at the number of network and client devices you need to upgrade, relax. There’s no need to replace every Wi-Fi 5 device and network component simultaneously. Wi-Fi 6 routers will support Wi-Fi 5 devices just fine, though the latter will run at their rated 802.11ac speeds. Similarly, Wi-Fi 6 devices can still talk to a Wi-Fi 5 router, though again, their throughput will be constrained and most of the advanced features mentioned above will be disabled until they can find supporting devices. If you’re a gamer, you might start with a Wi-Fi 6 gaming router and then move on out to supporting devices. If, perhaps, work dictates certain high-performance clients, you can start there and work inward.
Bottom line: you can upgrade to Wi-Fi 6 one step at a time, which will definitely make things easier. You’ll not only save your wallet from a sudden pummeling, you’ll also be able to configure and master one device at a time instead of finding yourself frustrated with a slew of new features and documentation.
