Wi-Fi 8 Overview: Features, Release Date, and More

Everyone expects the same moment access to the Internet, and that’s probably because Wi-Fi standards have advanced significantly over the past few years. Wi-Fi 8 is next, but it’s a little different from its predecessors. No faster speeds are seen as important this time around, but what you can expect is increased reliability, seamless handoffs between different devices and routers, and slower download speeds.

Wi-Fi problems are decreasing, most people are still making do with Wi-Fi 6, although most homes will have Wi-Fi 6E or Wi-Fi 7 devices by now. If you’re in the market for an upgrade, that’s it best routers or mesh systems I am asking for help now Wi-Fi 7. You don’t have to worry about Wi-Fi 8 for a while (the benchmark isn’t even finished yet), but we can still take a look at what Wi-Fi 8 has in store to see what’s to come.

What is Wi-Fi 8?

The eighth generation of Wi-Fi represents a paradigm shift. While the first incarnation of the Wi-Fi standard promised super-fast speeds, Wi-Fi 8 seems to aim to improve the basics: reliability, stability, and slow downlinks. Wi-Fi 8 also promises seamless roaming, keeping devices connected while on the move and reducing connection drops and dead zones.

Photo: Simon Hill

For those staying at home, Wi-Fi 8 is IEEE 802.11bn using the old naming convention, while Wi-Fi 7 was IEEE 802.11be and Wi-Fi 6 was IEEE 802.11ax. If you are wondering, a IEEE and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, the people responsible for these new standards (and yes, they love acronyms). As with all previous standards, Wi-Fi 8 will be backward compatible, meaning that if you buy a Wi-Fi 8 router, it will still work well with older devices. But to take advantage of the new features and enhancements that promise, you’ll need to upgrade your hardware. This means buying new routers and mesh devices, of course, as well as new phones, laptops, TVs, and other devices.

What Benefits Does Wi-Fi 8 Bring?

There is an interesting list of improvements that we can expect from Wi-Fi 8, but the headline is Ultra High Reliability (UHR). Wi-Fi 7 focused on Extremely High Throughput (EHT), but now that speeds are so much better, the focus has shifted to ensuring reliable connections. This is not an exhaustive list, but here are some of the things that will help UHR:

• Multi-Access Point Coordination (MPC): There are many things that have been developed to help the access point to work together instead of interfering with each other. This should improve performance, increase coverage, and reduce energy consumption.
• Seamless Travel System (SRD): Most Wi-Fi drops, which can be interpreted as video being saved or calls being dropped, are caused by your device changing from one access point to another. SRD is designed to minimize latency and packet loss that occurs during handoffs.
• Low Latency Indication (LLI): This allows devices to share their latency requirements, so a game stream (where latency is important) can be queued and prioritized. Combined with features like TXOP Preemption and High Priority EDCA, we can expect high priority and Quality of Service (QoS) performance, so you can make sure kids streaming on Netflix don’t interrupt your video call.
• In-Device Coexistence (IDC): Although it’s not talked about much, it’s painfully common for other connections like Bluetooth, Thread, or Zigbee to affect Wi-Fi performance on devices like cell phones. This reduces interference between different radios and helps them to coordinate.
• Long Distance (ELR): This feature allows devices to be connected and remain reliably connected remotely without increasing access points. Combined with a Distributed-Tone Resource Unit (DRU), which broadcasts a device’s signal over a wide area, your Wi-Fi signal should be reliable at the end of your home.

How does Wi-Fi 8 compare to Wi-Fi 7?

Photo: Simon Hill

With the same top speed of 46 Gbps and Wi-Fi on the same three bands (2.4 GHz, 5 GHz, and 6 GHz) with a width of 320-MHz channel, Wi-Fi 8 may not feel like a big change over Wi-Fi 7 for many people.

Some of the things I mention about the advantages of the Wi-Fi 8 section above can bring a noticeable improvement, especially for anyone who lives in a very noisy environment like an apartment building in the city, but how reliable it will be remains to be seen. Chances are, if Wi-Fi 7 is working well for you now, Wi-Fi 8 will be a tough sell.

When is Wi-Fi 8 Coming?

It usually takes four to five years for a new Wi-Fi standard to be fully released. This may sound like a long time, but it takes time for chip, router, and hardware manufacturers to spend on new products. Starting from Wi-Fi Alliance Wi-Fi 7 certification was released in January 2024, we can expect Wi-Fi 8 certification sometime in 2028. But chip makers are already producing Wi-Fi 8 chipsets, and router manufacturers like TP-Link it has already been announced Wi-Fi 8 routers are mesh machines, which are first released before the end of 2026.

The same thing happened with Wi-Fi 7, and this is because the IEEE already has a set of standards that allow manufacturers to think seriously about what certification would require. Early adopters of Wi-Fi 8 systems can expect to pay a fee, as always, and the benefits may not be as compelling as jumping from Wi-Fi 6 to Wi-Fi 7. That’s why I recommend waiting for official approval and maybe even longer for prices to fall.

For everyone in the US, it is Restrictions on routers manufactured by the FCC is another problem that can limit your options.