The backbone of your home is your WiFi. Okay, power is also important, but without WiFi the modern home grinds to a halt and makes everyday life a headache. In the current climate, where lots of us are still working from home or even running a business from home, a reliable and fast WiFi network is essential. Add in the demands from streaming and online gaming, plus smart home devices controlling your security, lights and heating, it's essential that your home WiFi network never skips a beat.
WiFi 6 is the next generation of WiFi which can bring more than just faster speeds. It is a future ready upgrade designed to be more efficient and to make sure WiFi speeds stay fast in the future. Whilst WiFi 6 will have speeds up to 9.6 Gbps, that can be split up across all the devices on your home network, meaning all devices will benefit from the speed upgrade. Improving the network for all devices connected is important; when its predecessor WiFi 5 came out the average US household had five devices in it. Now homes have nine and it is predicted this will increase to fifty within several years (theverge.com). WiFi 6 offers new features that make it easier for your router to communicate with multiple devices at the same time, keeping the connections strong as more and more devices are added to your network.
Whilst you may not see huge increases in the speed on your WiFi 6 devices (many phones and laptops are already WiFi 6 enabled), your devices will be kept fed with the data they need, even as more and more devices are added. Previously, your router may have struggled to maintain the quality of your Zoom call whilst someone else in the house was gaming online or streaming Netflix.
Sounds good, how do I get it? Sadly it's not just a software update, you will need new devices starting with your router. Devices will start to come with WiFi 6 by default, but if you don’t upgrade your router, there will be no benefit to your new WiFi 6 phone or laptop. So if you have lots of connected devices in your home and your network struggles, now would be a good time to upgrade your router to WiFi 6. Get in touch to discuss upgrading your home network to WiFi 6.