New wireless standard: Wi-Fi 8 offers relief from congestion
Even though it will likely be another year until the adoption of Wi-Fi 8, also known as IEEE 802.11bn, first router prototypes are already in operation at CES.
Prototype of a Wi-Fi 8 router from Asus, still with a fan at this stage.
(Image: Florian MĂĽssig / heise medien)
The next Wi-Fi standard, Wi-Fi 8, is casting its shadow. First router prototypes are already on display at CES, whose chips implement the associated standard IEEE 802.11bn in the current developer version. Unlike Wi-Fi 7, Wi-Fi 8 does not bring a new top speed but primarily focuses on improving the interaction between hosts and clients. In practice, no connection consistently reaches maximum speed but rather struggles with overloaded channels, changing attenuation, and unexpected interference.
Among Wi-Fi 8's new countermeasures is a finer gradation with 13 instead of the previous 9 levels, in which modulation is adjusted according to signal strength. In case of interference on one channel, parallel data transmission on the adjacent channel will no longer be slowed down to its lower data rates. In a mesh network, a moving client can establish a connection to the next host before the old one drops, ensuring no interruption. And each access point is intended to become smarter and better able to filter out neighboring networks.
All of this is intended to benefit wireless connections in critical situations such as apartment buildings, where a multitude of routers and end devices are active in parallel and compete for bandwidth. The key advantage: Even switching to Wi-Fi 8 in your home is expected to improve wireless traffic. Additionally, every switched-over device, such as laptops or smartphones, helps.
(Image:Â Florian MĂĽssig / heise medien)
Adoption at year-end, clients later
The companies that heise spoke with at the CES tech show expect 802.11bn to move into the so-called draft phase around the turn of 2026/2027, meaning all new functions will be finalized and will “only” need to be approved by all participating players. Around the same time, the first routers and mesh kits supporting Wi-Fi 8 could then appear.
The early chip versions of the prototypes shown at CES, incidentally, all came from Broadcom. The usual other suspects like MediaTek, Qualcomm, or Intel are also said to have products in the pipeline. The initial focus is clearly on the host side, i.e., chips for routers and access points. Clients, as with Wi-Fi 7, will take longer, so Wi-Fi 8 might not appear in laptops and smartphones until 2028.
heise medien is an official media partner of CES 2026.
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