Wi-Fi 6

Wi-Fi 6 is the IEEE 802.11ax standard, ratified in 2019 and widely deployed since 2020. It uses the same 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands as Wi-Fi 5 but adds OFDMA (efficient sub-channel allocation), MU-MIMO improvements, target wake time (better battery for IoT), and 1024-QAM modulation. The result: faster real-world performance in crowded environments (apartment buildings, offices, conferences) where many devices share the same airwaves.

How Wi-Fi 6 differs from older standards

• vs Wi-Fi 5 (802.11ac): 4x more capacity in dense environments, lower latency under load, ~25% higher peak throughput per device.
• vs Wi-Fi 6E: Wi-Fi 6E adds the 6 GHz band on top of Wi-Fi 6's spec — same protocols, more spectrum.
• vs Wi-Fi 7: Wi-Fi 7 (802.11be) adds 320 MHz channels (twice as wide), Multi-Link Operation, and 4096-QAM. Successor generation.

Devices that support Wi-Fi 6

Practically every flagship phone shipped in 2019 and later supports Wi-Fi 6: iPhone 11 family, iPhone 12+, Galaxy S10+, Pixel 4+, recent Galaxies/Pixels/iPhones across all tiers. Wi-Fi 6E adds the 6 GHz band — supported on iPhone 15 Pro+, Pixel 6 Pro+, Galaxy S22 Ultra+. Wi-Fi 7 is the newest tier, supported on iPhone 16 Pro, Galaxy S24 Ultra, Pixel 9 Pro family.

Practical impact

If you upgraded from a pre-2019 router to a Wi-Fi 6 router, you probably noticed the household feels less laggy when many devices are streaming/working simultaneously. The peak speed gain is modest; the multi-device gain is real. For single-user small homes the difference is small.