Wi-Fi 7 certification goes official: What is it, devices supported and other details

The Wi-Fi Alliance has announced the official certification of devices that support Wi-Fi 7, the next-gen wireless home internet, which promises significant improvements in speed and efficiency, surpassing even Wi-Fi 6E. The “Wi-Fi 7 Certified” certification guarantees interoperability between Wi-Fi 7 devices. In 2024, new products such as phones, laptops, and routers will be certified with this standard.

What are the benefits of Wi-Fi 7

Wi-Fi 7 offers faster data transmission and stability with its new features, including increased channel bandwidth, quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM), multi-link operation (MLO), improved latency, multi-user, multiple-input, multiple-output (MU-MIMO) spatial streams, and multi-resource units (RU).

Additionally, MLO allows for seamless switching between bands, while MU-MIMO spatial streams enable routers to communicate with more devices simultaneously. Lastly, the multi-resource units (RU) feature promotes efficient use of the channel by allowing for sharing.

With Wi-Fi 7, you get double the maximum channel bandwidth, allowing for higher wireless download speeds. It offers a doubled channel bandwidth of 320MHz compared to the fastest devices on Wi-Fi 5, 6, or 6E standards. This means the potential for wireless downloads at over two gigabits per second. The Wi-Fi 7 devices will be backward-compatible with previous versions, resulting in more efficiency, throughput, and stability.

What devices will support Wi-Fi 7

The earliest adopters of Wi-Fi 7 will be smartphones, PCs, tablets, and access points (APs). Furthermore, customer premises equipment (CPE) and augmented and virtual reality (AR/VR) equipment will continue to gain early market traction. Companies such as Broadcom, CommScope RUCKUS Networks, Intel, MaxLinear, MediaTek, and Qualcomm are among the first Wi-Fi CERTIFIED 7 devices and form the test bed for certification.

The following chips are Wi-Fi 7-ready – MediaTek Dimensity 9200, 9300, Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, and Snapdragon XR2+ Gen 2. Intel’s new 14th-generation processors are also Wi-Fi 7-ready.

Wi-Fi 7 routers are already available from companies like Netgear, TP-Link, and Eero. However, it's uncertain whether they will receive certification. Nevertheless, they will still be compatible with the Wi-Fi 7 network, just that the certification guarantees compatibility with Wi-Fi 7 devices.