What is WiFi 7?

What makes it faster for the most part is channel bandwidth, or the size of the pipe that data is shoved through. Wi-Fi 7 doubles the maximum channel bandwidth to 320MHz, compared to the 160MHz you might get on nicer Wi-Fi 5, 6, and 6E routers. It’s a bigger pipe, and it fits more data. That’s pretty straightforward, although only the 6GHz band supports those big ol’ channels — there’s not enough room on the 5GHz band.

Note

1:- Will Wi-Fi 7 make my smart home reliable?

2:- What else will Wi-Fi 7 be good for?

3:- When will I get Wi-Fi 7 in my devices?

4:- So should I buy a Wi-Fi 7 router now or wait?

Will my smart home be dependable with Wi-Fi 7?

The smart home has gotten better over the years, but devices can still be sluggish or even nonresponsive in a busy wireless environment. There are features tucked into the Wi-Fi 7 spec that may help with that down the line.

One of the big bottlenecks with wireless transmission is airtime — if the router is too busy talking to one or more devices (depending on the standard being used), then others vying for attention have to wait for it to finish. It happens over scant fractions of a second, but with enough network chatter, that time can build up. When your smart home devices are sluggish, one reason can be that they’re just waiting their turn.

Wi-Fi 7 attempts to compensate for this by cramming extra data into what’s called a carrier wave, using a technique called OFDMA. Wi-Fi 6E does this, too, but interference can keep it from using all of that wave, even if the interference isn’t occupying more than a bit of it. Wi-Fi 7 basically ignores the interference and puts the rest of the data on the clear bits, like a river going around a rock and meeting back on the other side.

Unfortunately, OFDMA isn’t backward-compatible with older devices, so when a Wi-Fi 7 router encounters a smart home device that only uses Wi-Fi 4, for instance, it meets that device on its own terms, using that standard’s capabilities — so everyone else is back to waiting in line. So yes, Wi-Fi 7 can help your smart home be better, but it won’t until you’ve moved everything to the new standard — assuming it’s not all using Matter-over-Thread by then, if that ever happens.

What else will Wi-Fi 7 be good for?

1:- Mesh systems can be a great way to get Wi-Fi coverage throughout your home. But right now, they rely on single wireless connections for backhaul — the wireless or wired connection between mesh nodes — which can be tricky when that band gets congested, forcing the router to switch to another band, which, in turn, can impact throughput 2:- 2:- While the system rebuilds its backhaul connection. According to Asus’ website, a Wi-Fi 7 mesh system would, through MLO, be able to “switch freely between bands,” leading to no apparent connection loss.

You might also see less lag on your network thanks to MLO and OFDMA in Wi-Fi 7. The ability to connect to multiple bands at once combined with fancy signal modulation means there may be fewer occasions when your devices are waiting in line for other requests on your network to process.

When will I get Wi-Fi 7 in my devices?

1:- As I said above, you can buy Wi-Fi 7 routers now. But you shouldn’t rush out to get one — only a handful of devices can support the standard, which, again, isn’t even officially finalized yet.

2:- The chips are already out there, though. Qualcomm’s FastConnect 7800 mobile wireless chipset was released in 2022 and is even already in some phones, like the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra, though Samsung would need to enable Wi-Fi 7 for those phones to support it.

3:- You’ll also find Wi-Fi 7 compatibility in the 16-inch Acer Swift Edge laptop, and Intel’s BE200 Wi-Fi 7 network card is due out before the end of 2023. Other computers supporting the standard should start coming out throughout next year from the other major manufacturers.

So should I buy a Wi-Fi 7 router now or wait?

1:- If you’re hoping for Wi-Fi 7 to fix your whole network, you should wait. With the spec incomplete and so few devices supporting it, you wouldn’t see the benefit from it for months or even years.

2:- It’s also a good idea to hold off until the spec is finalized and the Wi-Fi Alliance starts certifying Wi-Fi 7 routers — that way you know it’s fully compliant with the finished standard. Until then, those routers are likely to be too expensive, with wireless devices supporting their fancy features too few to make it worth the cost.