In daily life, everyone is familiar with the term Wi-Fi, and we may encounter the following situation: When multiple people are connected to the same Wi-Fi at the same time, some people are chatting while watching videos, and the network is very smooth, meanwhile, you want to open a web page, but it takes a long time to load.
This is a shortcoming of the current Wi-Fi transmission technology. From a technical point of view, the previous Wi-Fi module transmission technology used was SU-MIMO, which would cause the transmission rate of each Wi-Fi-connected device to vary greatly. The transmission technology of Wi-Fi 6 is OFDMA+8x8 MU-MIMO. Routers using Wi-Fi 6 will not have this problem, and watching videos by others will not affect your downloading or browsing the web. This is also one of the reasons why Wi-Fi is comparable to 5G technology and is developing rapidly.
What’s Wi-Fi 6?
Wi-Fi 6 refers to the 6th generation of wireless network technology. In the past, we basically used Wi-Fi 5, and it is not difficult to understand. Earlier there was Wi-Fi 1/2/3/4, and the technology was non-stop. The update iteration of Wi-Fi 6 uses a technology called MU-MIMO, which allows the router to communicate with multiple devices at the same time instead of sequentially. MU-MIMO allows the router to communicate with four devices at a time, and Wi-Fi 6 will allow communication with up to 8 devices. Wi-Fi 6 also uses other technologies, such as OFDMA and transmit beamforming, both of which improve efficiency and network capacity respectively. The Wi-Fi 6 speed is 9.6 Gbps. A new technology in Wi-Fi 6 allows the device to plan communication with the router, reducing the time required to keep the antenna powered on to transmit and search for signals, which means reducing battery power consumption and improving battery life.
In order for Wi-Fi 6 devices to be certified by the Wi-Fi Alliance, they must use WPA3, so once the certification program is launched, most Wi-Fi 6 devices will have stronger security. In general, Wi-Fi 6 has three major characteristics, namely, faster speed, safer, and more power saving.
How fast is Wi-Fi 6 faster than before?
WiFi 6 is 872 times that of Wi-Fi 1.
Wi-Fi 6 rate is so high, mainly because the new OFDMA is used. The wireless router can be connected to multiple devices at the same time, effectively solving data congestion and delay. Just like the previous Wi-Fi was a single lane, only one car can pass at a time, and other cars need to wait in line and walk one by one, but OFDMA is like multiple lanes, and multiple cars are walking at the same time without queuing.
Why WiFi 6 security will increase?
The main reason is that WiFi 6 uses a new generation of WPA3 encryption protocol, and only devices that use a new generation of WPA3 encryption protocol can pass the WiFi Alliance certification. This can prevent brute force attacks and make it safer and more secure.
Why Wi-Fi 6 saves more power?
Wi-Fi 6 uses Target Wake Time technology. This technology can only connect to the wireless router when it receives a transmission instruction, and it stays in a sleep state at other times. After testing, the power consumption is reduced by about 30% compared with the previous one, which greatly extends the battery life, which is very in line with the current smart home market.
Which industries have big changes caused by Wi-Fi 6?
Home/Enterprise Office Scene
In this field, Wi-Fi needs to compete with traditional cellular network technology and other wireless technologies such as LoRa. It can be seen that, based on the very good domestic cell broadband, Wi-Fi 6 has obvious advantages in popularization and competitiveness in home scenarios. Currently, whether it is corporate office equipment or home entertainment equipment, it is often enhanced by 5G CPE relay to obtain Wi-Fi signal coverage. The new generation of Wi-Fi 6 reduces frequency interference and improves network efficiency and capacity, ensuring 5G signals for multiple concurrent users, and ensuring network stability when conversions increase.
High-bandwidth demand scenarios such as VR/AR
In recent years, emerging VR/AR, 4K/8K and other applications have high bandwidth requirements. The bandwidth of the former requires more than 100Mbps, and the bandwidth of the latter requires more than 50Mbps. If you consider the impact of the actual network environment on Wi-Fi 6 , Which can be equivalent to hundreds of Mbps to 1Gbps or more in 5G actual commercial testing, and can fully meet the application scenarios of high bandwidth.
3. Industrial manufacturing scene
The large bandwidth and low latency of Wi-Fi 6 extend the application scenarios of Wi-Fi from corporate office networks to industrial production scenarios, such as ensuring seamless roaming of factory AGVs, supporting real-time video capture of industrial cameras, etc. The external plug-in method supports more IoT protocol connections, realizes the integration of IoT and Wi-Fi, and saves costs.
The future of Wi-Fi 6
The future market demand and user scale of Wi-Fi 6 will become very large. In the past two years, the demand for Wi-Fi chips in the Internet of Things such as smart homes and smart cities has increased, and Wi-Fi chip shipments have rebounded. In addition to traditional consumer electronic terminals and IoT applications, Wi-Fi technology also has high applicability in new high-speed application scenarios such as VR/AR, ultra-high-definition video, industrial production and manufacturing, and Wi-Fi chips for such applications are expected to continue to increase in the next five years, and it is estimated that the entire Wi-Fi chip market of China will approach 27 billion yuan in 2023.
As mentioned earlier, Wi-Fi 6 application scenarios are getting better. The Wi-Fi 6 market is expected to reach 24 billion yuan in 2023. This means that chips supporting the Wi-Fi 6 standard account for nearly 90% of the total Wi-Fi chips.
The golden partner combination of "5G main external, Wi-Fi 6 main internal" created by operators will greatly improve users' online experience. The widespread application of the 5G era simultaneously promotes the full spread of Wi-Fi 6. On the one hand, Wi-Fi 6 is a more cost-effective solution that can make up for the defects of 5G; on the other hand, Wi-Fi 6 provides a 5G-like experience and performance. The indoor wireless technology will stimulate the development of applications in smart cities, the Internet of Things, and VR/AR. Eventually, more Wi-Fi 6 products will be developed.
Replated Wi-Fi 6 Modules
