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Wi-Fi 8 is the first wireless upgrade in years that isn't chasing speed

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Re: Wi-Fi 8 is the first wireless upgrade in years that isn't chasing speed

#51

Post by rbinv »

avhception wrote: post #23

We need reliable, real-world ~20mbit/s for our warehouse scanners, not 382722 theoretical Gbit/s 5cm from the access point. And roaming that works instead of stupid clients clinging to somewhere or being thrown into a reconnect loop when the AP tries to get them to roam. I know this is theoretically possible today. But in the real world, I have inherited the setup, so AP locations are fixed for now, clients are some…

I've had similar issues with clients (Blink camera sync modules) connecting to far-away APs instead of the much closer router. I could not force them to connect directly to the router no matter what.

Turns out the 2.4 GHz radio of my router had died (Fritzbox 7590, apparently a common issue), thus forcing 2.4 GHz-only clients to use those other APs.

Re: Wi-Fi 8 is the first wireless upgrade in years that isn't chasing speed

#52

Post by Reason077 »

Grombobulous wrote: post #22
Reason077 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's nice to have the fastest Wi-Fi possible even if your upstream internet is slower. Sometimes you want to transfer files locally between devices, or run backups etc. Faster Wi-Fi here can make a huge difference to those tasks.

I have found that higher tier WiFi aids local game streaming significantly, but most of that benefit seems to be the 6Ghz band that you get with WiFi 6E.

Yeah. I ran ethernet from my router specifically to improve games streaming (GeForce NOW). It was a huge improvement over standard 5 Ghz WiFi.

Re: Wi-Fi 8 is the first wireless upgrade in years that isn't chasing speed

#53

Post by asymmetric »

abhinavk wrote: post #43
avhception wrote: post #23

We need reliable, real-world ~20mbit/s for our warehouse scanners, not 382722 theoretical Gbit/s 5cm from the access point. And roaming that works instead of stupid clients clinging to somewhere or being thrown into a reconnect loop when the AP tries to get them to roam. I know this is theoretically possible today. But in the real world, I have inherited the setup, so AP locations are fixed for now, clients are some…

Ensure your network has no <WiFi6 devices.

Care to expand?

Re: Wi-Fi 8 is the first wireless upgrade in years that isn't chasing speed

#54

Post by Hendrikto »

mschuster91 wrote: post #49
WhyNotHugo wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree completely. Higher speeds are a bit pointless for most users. Unless you have an extremely fast NAS, where you need to copy (not stream) data over Wi-Fi, you're unlikely to be anywhere near the current limits. I'm using 802.11ac and see no need for higher speeds.

> Higher speeds are a bit pointless for most users. Higher speeds automatically means less latency and that does matter, especially if you are into stuff like games where every millisecond matters.

I think the point is that these numbers are theoretical, and only reachable in a lab. So in practice you do not really benefit.

Re: Wi-Fi 8 is the first wireless upgrade in years that isn't chasing speed

#55

Post by maccard »

rbinv wrote: post #51
avhception wrote: post #23

We need reliable, real-world ~20mbit/s for our warehouse scanners, not 382722 theoretical Gbit/s 5cm from the access point. And roaming that works instead of stupid clients clinging to somewhere or being thrown into a reconnect loop when the AP tries to get them to roam. I know this is theoretically possible today. But in the real world, I have inherited the setup, so AP locations are fixed for now, clients are some…

I've had similar issues with clients (Blink camera sync modules) connecting to far-away APs instead of the much closer router. I could not force them to connect directly to the router no matter what. Turns out the 2.4 GHz radio of my router had died (Fritzbox 7590, apparently a common issue), thus forcing 2.4 GHz-only clients to use those other APs.

And actually debugging this unless you have a bunch of enterprise level kit, or know exactly what the failure you’re looking for is is absolutely impossible

Re: Wi-Fi 8 is the first wireless upgrade in years that isn't chasing speed

#56

Post by rbinv »

maccard wrote: post #55
rbinv wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've had similar issues with clients (Blink camera sync modules) connecting to far-away APs instead of the much closer router. I could not force them to connect directly to the router no matter what. Turns out the 2.4 GHz radio of my router had died (Fritzbox 7590, apparently a common issue), thus forcing 2.4 GHz-only clients to use those other APs.

And actually debugging this unless you have a bunch of enterprise level kit, or know exactly what the failure you’re looking for is is absolutely impossible

I used Wireless Diagnostics.app on macOS ("Scan" window) and looked for the 2.4 GHz radio's MAC address which was nowhere to be found. But yeah, you have to have a hunch.

Re: Wi-Fi 8 is the first wireless upgrade in years that isn't chasing speed

#57

Post by maccard »

eviks wrote: post #44
bjackman wrote: post #41

I recently upgraded from a WiFi 5 router to a WiFi 7 one, and my bandwidth increase was a grand 0% (that's ok though I was actually just sick of my old router's shitty UI!) There is about 10m and a brick wall between my AP and my desk so yeah, a fancy new MCS that can theoretically deliver 25Gbps was just never gonna be useful to me. Also I've worked on (other non-WiFi) 802.11 products where our competitive edge was…

How often do you see your router's UI to justify any change?

I have a multi AP setup for the same reasons as the parent - large thick internal walls (and a “long” home instead of evenly shaped), and frustratingly more than I want to is the answer…

Re: Wi-Fi 8 is the first wireless upgrade in years that isn't chasing speed

#58

Post by Grombobulous »

Reason077 wrote: post #52
Grombobulous wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have found that higher tier WiFi aids local game streaming significantly, but most of that benefit seems to be the 6Ghz band that you get with WiFi 6E.

Yeah. I ran ethernet from my router specifically to improve games streaming (GeForce NOW). It was a huge improvement over standard 5 Ghz WiFi.

Oh yeah, to be clear, my host PC is always wired.

Re: Wi-Fi 8 is the first wireless upgrade in years that isn't chasing speed

#59

Post by BlackRabbit1 »

euduhdhbene wrote: post #45
avhception wrote: post #23

We need reliable, real-world ~20mbit/s for our warehouse scanners, not 382722 theoretical Gbit/s 5cm from the access point. And roaming that works instead of stupid clients clinging to somewhere or being thrown into a reconnect loop when the AP tries to get them to roam. I know this is theoretically possible today. But in the real world, I have inherited the setup, so AP locations are fixed for now, clients are some…

I was recently made aware of WiFi HaLow. Official standard, ranges into the hundreds of meters. Speed suffers at long ranges of course, but still respectable (50-100kbs). Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_802.11ah

Difficult within the EU due to ISM limits.

Maybe ok for your garden camera where the authorities just don't care. But no go for any industrial usage.

Re: Wi-Fi 8 is the first wireless upgrade in years that isn't chasing speed

#60

Post by spockz »

rbinv wrote: post #51
avhception wrote: post #23

We need reliable, real-world ~20mbit/s for our warehouse scanners, not 382722 theoretical Gbit/s 5cm from the access point. And roaming that works instead of stupid clients clinging to somewhere or being thrown into a reconnect loop when the AP tries to get them to roam. I know this is theoretically possible today. But in the real world, I have inherited the setup, so AP locations are fixed for now, clients are some…

I've had similar issues with clients (Blink camera sync modules) connecting to far-away APs instead of the much closer router. I could not force them to connect directly to the router no matter what. Turns out the 2.4 GHz radio of my router had died (Fritzbox 7590, apparently a common issue), thus forcing 2.4 GHz-only clients to use those other APs.

In ubiquity gear you can “lock” devices to a specific endpoint. I suspect ultimately you would prefer to have failover available but at least for troubleshooting you can see how it connects to that specific AP. Similarly you could see the amount of clients connected to an AP on every frequency and WiFi version.
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