What you need to know
- Wi-Fi Alliance releases new Wi-Fi CERTIFIED 6 Release 2 with new features to improve performance and power management.
- This certification update adds support for uplink multi-user MIMO to support greater upload activity.
- Power management features included broadcast target wake time (TWT), extended sleep time, and dynamic multi-user spatial multiplexing power save (SMPS).
Wi-Fi networks are more important than ever with users pushing their Wi-Fi to the limit with new devices and increased demand all the time. Wi-Fi Alliance is evolving its Wi-Fi certification to meet this increasing demand with the release of Wi-Fi Certified 6 Release 2 adding support for increased uplink traffic as well as new power management features. These new features are supported across all supported bands for Wi-Fi 6 including 2.4GHz, 5GHz, and 6GHz.
These updates are designed to ensure the best performance possible while providing strong WPA3 security. President and CEO of Wi-Fi Alliance, Edgar Figueroa says these updates support Wi-Fi's evolution to support today's needs.
Wi-Fi delivers advanced capabilities that have driven tremendous global innovation, paving the way for massive growth in Wi-Fi applications that users rely on every day. Wi-Fi CERTIFIED 6 Release 2 furthers Wi-Fi's evolution to address today's market needs, and supports more high-performance Wi-Fi scenarios with greater capacity, efficiency, and reliability.
The first major update supports improved uplink capacity. Wi-Fi CERTIFIED 6 Release 2 adds support for uplink multi-user MIMO which enables multiple devices to upload data concurrently to the access point. Wi-Fi networks need to handle more upstream data thanks to people uploading more data whether it's work documents or sharing on social media. Uplink multi-user MIMO can also improve network performance and reduce latency for video conferencing.
This new certification also has a focus on power management features that bring improvements for devices in enterprise and IoT deployments. This includes broadcast target wake time (TWT), extended sleep time, and dynamic multi-user spatial multiplexing power save (SMPS). This allows multiple devices to receive extended sleep periods with specific times to wake up for transmitting data. It also allows for dynamic shut-off of redundant receive chains to further optimize power consumption.
These new features join the list of other great improvements that come with the upgrade to Wi-Fi 6 routers. If you're looking to improve your home network, there's a good chance you can already greatly improve your home network performance by upgrading to one of the best Wi-Fi 6 routers.
