Test, Test

I usually have more than two dozen internet-connected devices running, including smart speakers, a thermostat and a bathroom scale. That appeared to make my home an ideal test environment for Wi-Fi 6.

For a Wi-Fi 6 router I picked Netgear’s Orbi, and compared against an old 2016 Google Wifi router.

One test involved downloading an episode of the Netflix series The Final Table on two smartphones and a tablet, while streaming video on another tablet.

The Wi-Fi 6 router did better than the older router, but only marginally:

• On the Orbi it took about 45 seconds for all three devices to finish downloading the TV episode. On the older Google router, the task took 51 seconds, 13 per cent slower.
• When I tried streaming a high-definition video on a tablet while the other devices were downloading files, there wasn’t a noticeable delay in the playback of the streaming video on the Wi-Fi 6 router or the older router.

I ran the routers through many tests like the one above, including downloading video games while doing a video call. The results were often underwhelming. So, what gives?

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Nick Weaver, chief executive of Eero, the router-maker owned by Amazon, said the benefit of reduced congestion with Wi-Fi 6 would be more visible in an environment with many more devices, like an office with hundreds of computers doing heavy tasks at the same time.

“It’s less important in the home environment,” he said. Most homes still don’t have so many devices.

Keerti Melkote, founder of Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company that offers Wi-Fi products for businesses, offered another theory. The majority of the devices in my home would need to have chips that made them compatible with Wi-Fi 6 before the benefits were more pronounced, he said. Only about one-quarter of my internet-connected devices have those.

Upsides

Those weren’t jaw-dropping results. But the good news was that using Wi-Fi 6, I noticed subtle changes throughout my home.

For one, my Amazon smart speakers are now more responsive. In my bedroom, I ask Alexa to control a pair of internet-connected light bulbs. With the older router, whenever I said, “Alexa, turn on the lights,” there was a delay of about two seconds before the lights turned on. Now it’s less than a half-second.

I noticed something similar about MyQ, which lets me use a smartphone app to control my garage door. Previously, after pressing the button, I waited several seconds for the door to open. Now the wait is a split second.

My video calls also look clearer than they used to, and they take less time to connect.

This suggests that Wi-Fi 6 is a long-term investment. The more internet-connected devices that enter people’s homes in the coming years, the more the perks will become visible.

“It will take time, but the improvements will be real,” Melkote said.

Bottom Line

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My experience indicated that people who bought a router in the past five years probably wouldn’t see major improvements immediately, so there is no rush to upgrade.

Those customers are probably better off waiting for Wi-Fi 6E, a newly unveiled technology that supposedly offers even more improvements to reduce network congestion in dense neighbourhoods. Routers that work with Wi-Fi 6E are just beginning to roll out — and are very expensive — so it could be several years until it’s practical to consider upgrading.

But if you bought a router more than six years ago, upgrading to Wi-Fi 6 would offer a big boost in speed, and the overall benefits would be more noticeable.

Here’s an even simpler rule of thumb: if you are happy with your internet connection at home, hold on to what you have and upgrade when you feel you must. Even Melkote hasn’t made the jump to Wi-Fi 6. He said he planned to this year because his family was working and attending school from home for the foreseeable future.

As for me, even though the improvements over my older router were only marginal, there’s no turning back. I seem to connect a half-dozen new devices to my network each year, so I’ll need those extra lanes.

The New York Times