What Is WiFi 6? Should You Upgrade?

WiFi 6 has been around and widely available for a couple of years now, but I still get questions every week about whether it's worth upgrading to. In this video, I break down all of the improvements that WiFi 6 and WiFi 6E offer vs.
previous wireless generation standards.

Whether you're a home user or a business user, make sure to watch this video to learn about WiFi 6 and how it can benefit you. We'll talk about the different benefits of WiFi 6 and whether or not you should upgrade to it. So make sure to watch and decide for yourself!

Timeline
00:00 Intro
00:47 WiFi 6 Basics - IEEE 802.11ax
01:46 WiFi 6 and WiFi 6E Frequency Ranges
02:46 WiFi 6 Channel Widths
03:23 MIMO and MU-MIMO
04:49 OFDMA - Orthogonal Frequency-Division Multiple Access
05:49 QAM - Quadrature Amplitude Modulation
06:51 Spatial Frequency Reuse
07:30 Beamforming
08:48 Target Wait Time & Upload Resource Scheduler
09:58 Should You Upgrade to WiFi 6?
11:41 What is the future of WiFi?
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[JeffGeerling]

This is an excellent overview, and what's crazy is almost every feature you talk about (QAM, beam forming, etc.) could probably be covered in a multiple-hour video and barely touch the surface! RF stuff is like black magic, and the engineers and those who test the cutting-edge stuff are basically wizards.

[bobchen]

Agree with your assessment. Our church added/replaced a bunch AP's with WiFi6 version for allowing many simultaneous Zoom meetings occurring at the same time. It was a day and night difference after the upgrade, and the real time video transmission over Zoom becomes much more stable.

[richarddcrossley]

It took a lot of tweaking but thanks to your advice and literally experimenting with every channel on my dream router and U6 lite I've now got maximum performance thanks to 60 and 100DFS and 80mhz WiFi 6 from my 1GB connection all over the house. Keep up the good work and WiFi 6 has been a game changer for me as I was getting lots of interference otherwise and slow speeds.

[ronamadeo]

One thing I'd bring up is that it's not necessarily about how many devices YOU own, but also what kind of distance you have from your neighbors. For instance a NYC apartment building, where every neighbor has their own access point, is probably a great environment for any of these "higher density" Wi-Fi versions. Some people have absolutely terrible Wi-Fi at home because the airways are just full.

[markbell-kosel]

I wish a could double like this video. It's so nice to hear an industry (and Unifi) expert speak in real world terms about this. I have multiple Unifi wifi 5 APs and have really struggled with why should I have to upgrade. You made it clear. Thank you so much!

[valentinene]

a few observations, if I may: WiFi5 has MU-MIMO only from AP to STAs, WiFi6 supports both up and down; all the efficiency goodies WiFi6 brings can only be seen if both APs and STAs are WiFi6 capable, an WiFi6 AP with many WiFi5 clients will not make any difference. Let's hope ESP32-C6 from Espressif will power soon most of our IoTs so we can all benefit from this more efficient piece of tech

[Cmmander]

Antenna gain, size, number of antennae also play a role.

Just a few raw numbers:

Client: iPhone 11 Pro Max (802.11ax, 2x2)

Unifi nanoHD:

5 Ghz, 80 MHz VHT, max transmit power:

Best case I measured: 650 mbit net bandwidth @ 866 mbit PHY speed.

Unifi U6-LR:

5 GHz, 80 MHz HE, max transmit power:

Best case I measured: 844 mbit @ 1200 mbit PHY speed.

Clients with more antennae, like a laptop with 3x3 and 160 MHz support, exceed 1 Gbit+.

The U6-LR also provides higher top speeds further away from it, even through multiple walls. To get the maximum out of the nanoHD, you have to be rather close to it, probably line of sight.

[angusmacd]

from the first word I was listening. no random filler for the first 10 seconds. straight away a sub. good job.

[WLNI]

Chat GPT is mind blowing and a little scary at the same time. It can do some amazing stuff. But also remember it can be very convincingly wrong and will confidently spit out responses that may be off the mark. However, when used by someone who has a decently knowledge base, it will easily remove some repetitive tasks or give you a good start to something you want to work on.

That said, you presented good info on this topic. So many just see the marketing, “Wi-Fi 6 is one higher than 5, I must need it” without understanding what it really means. You video was deep enough and you summarized it well. Keep them coming!

[ianc.]

I’m a homeowner of a single family dwelling. There’s just 4 of us under our roof, and our Wi-Fi-5 internet service was horrible. Movies buffered, connections were dropped, speeds were slow. I upgraded to wifi-6 and my only regret is that I didn’t do it sooner. The monthly service fee is less than I was paying before and the modem was free of charge (all that from my existing internet service provider). And all of my wifi issues are a thing of the past, plus it’s blazing fast. Friends and family notice it right away when they come over and connect to it. Based on my experience, I highly recommend the switch.

[bgable]

EXCELLENT CLEAR yet EN-DEPTH video on WiFi 6/6E I've seen. Great Job!

A great overview of Wi-Fi 6 technologies, solutions and features. The best starting point for diving deeper. A very useful overview of the tip of the iceberg.

[jonfr]

Don't forget to disable 802.11b (Wi-Fi 1) if you are not using it. That improves speed on 2, 4Ghz network. This is not possible on every Wi-Fi Access point and router, but many have this option now. Its not possible to disable 802.11g yet, but if you can disable 802.11g (if not in use). Do so, since there are almost no 802.11g devices out there in use today.

[libertarian]

I have a business with numerous APs and still run N, AC, & AX; N is still holding on just because we have so many and replacement costs are a thing. I still recall installing our first AP a mix of As and Bs as operability was mixed, though that was also when we were still using 10/100. Been running our computers and networking since we bought our first Apple II back in the mid-80s and very much enjoy how things have improved.

[webluke]

When I moved into my new place almost 2 years ago, the Unifi U6-Pro was in beta, and I got 2 of them for the house. The U6-Lite was suitable for my detached shop, and a UAP-AC-M for the yard. I knew that with a NEW install of Unifi, it would be good to use the newest APs. But for an old setup, I would keep the old APs until we did a more extensive network update or needed a better AP for the location. In most business setups I have done, if you start with good equipment and organize everything from the start, you rarely need to go back for years.

[madboyreadynow]

I hate when tech reviewers tell us all about new technology and say there is no difference. As a tech, Geek, let me tell you. As soon as I plugged in my WiFi 6 router. I noticed everything from computers, cell phones, tablets and TVs ran much faster than wifi 5. You should always upgrade to new important technology. I have Spectrum. Most people keep the same equipment for years. You should trade out your equipment every 2 or 3 years with whoever your provider is. New customers always get the latest and great deals. You also have the right to trade out your old equipment for new equipment. Tech reviews should be honest and direct and leave opinions from their reviews. Of course, wifi 6 is better. My cell phone now shows a wifi 6 signal when connected and has been much faster than before.

[Juraiprince]

Sir, with your conclusion on whether or not to upgrade from Wi-Fi 5 to 6, you have earned my subscription. I have an ASUS Blue Cave 2600 Wi-Fi 5 router that I love and have been using for a few years. I love it because it allows much more flexible placement and looks way more nicer than all these alien looking routers with the wild antenna sticking all over. I tried a NETGEAR AX3000 Wi-Fi 6 Router but it was not any faster in my day to day use, and it was really finicky to set up. I still keep it around as a back up for if or when my Blue Cave stops working, but that is it. Plus, the Blue Cave reminds me of that old Star Trek "City on the Edge of Forever" episode with the crew standing in front of The Guardian of Forever. That blue light on the Asus is so much cooler looking than the majority of routers out even today, in my opinion! Anyway, cheers and Happy New Year to you and all your subscribers!

[miketel]

Great explanation Chris - its very basic. This WI-FI 6 technology models the current proposed air interface “5gNR” the wireless carriers are starting to deploy currently. Also good to point out that the 265 and 1024 QAM are max. Best rates. they are constantly variable based on special and signal characteristics. Also one note is that most mobile devices currently will not increase to a 6x6 Mimi be safe they are too small to stuff more antenna into them. Most mobile devices are 2x2 mimo and high end — maybe 4x4. In my home space upgrading to WIFI 6, I noticed lower latency and a very marginal speed increase only on higher end wifi 6 devices. WI-FI 5 devices only experienced slightly lower latency no speed increase. Still happy I upgraded for the lower latency on the high end devices.

[JamesAutoDude]

This has answered every damn question I had. Obviously WiFi 6 is worth it and now I know why people see improvements just from switching from 5 to 6 even with the same kinda routers

It still definitely helps and keeps things stable, as I've seen from many places I've swapper

Thank you

[biglogied]

I use UniFi for providing wifi to large music festivals, we probably won’t see much use of wifi 6. However there is cases where artists need to download very large graphics data files - 30-40gb whilst in the middle of no where on a fairly congested network with only say 50mbps down for 60 devices.

Will be testing a UniFi mesh 6 and see how it goes, I’m getting 500/500 Speedtest via UniFi 6 mesh on gigabit fiber internet circuit.