At this year’s most influential tech event, the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, new advances in Wi-Fi connectivity powered the latest products, including routers, advanced dashcams, and high-tech smart glasses. Starting first in 1967 as a small tech convention, CES has grown into the world’s largest and most powerful technology conventions, spotlighting the future of connectivity through products powered by the latest Wi-Fi technology.
In a fireside chat discussion with CTA’s President at the show, FCC Chairman Brendan Carr highlighted the importance of upgrading Wi-Fi and the benefits for consumers, “We’re going to be voting this month at the FCC to increase the utility of a big unlicensed spectrum band, the 6 GHz band. We’re going to effectively be supercharging Wi-Fi, probably the best way for consumers to understand it’s from higher power more outdoor uses, and everything you’re seeing right here from AR to VR is going to benefit from these increased enhancements that we’re doing in the 6 GHz band.”
If CES proved anything this year, it’s that Wi‑Fi underpins a wide range of consumer technologies people are eager to experience. Keep reading to learn more.
Innovations Powered by Wi-Fi
Wi-Fi is the backbone that is powering today’s technological innovations, and this year’s CES conference highlighted just how next-generation Wi-Fi is already making an impact, as technologists begin to transition from the seventh generation of Wi-Fi to the eighth. Companies like Broadcom showcased a new chipset and AI processor with Wi-Fi 8 capabilities. While this generation of Wi-Fi could start making its way into retail products as soon as this year, the excitement for Wi-Fi 8 is clearly already here, and industry is keeping up with the future demand. In their announcement, Broadcom highlighted two new dual-band Wi-Fi 8 devices, which will improve reliability.
MediaTek and ASUS also introduced Wi-Fi 8 at CES. MediaTek showcased their “Filogic 8000” platform, designed to support AI-driven products and applications while delivering high reliability. ASUS demonstrated “ROG NeoCore”, which is a Wi-Fi 8 concept router alongside the first real-world Wi-Fi 8 throughput test.
In addition to showcasing Wi-Fi 8, Wi-Fi 7 was also a central part of CES innovations this year. The Wi-Fi Alliance extended its successful Wi-Fi 7 certification program to the 20-MHz device category, directed at devices built for the internet of things (IOT). This device class creates multi-link IoT capability, resulting in more consistent connections, while using less power and providing greater range.
Captify, a San Francisco–based smart glasses company, won A $10,000 “pitch contest” award this year from AARP for its real-time captioning technology embedded in eyeglasses; leveraging Wi-Fi connectivity, Captify delivers accurate captions directly in the wearer’s field of view, even in noisy environments.
The Future of Wi-Fi
With more technologies and devices entering the market every day, these advances highlight how critical the entire 6 GHz band is for Wi-Fi and why expanding unlicensed spectrum for Wi-Fi, especially unlocking the lower 7 GHz band, is essential for faster, more reliable performance at home and at work. Today, the average American home has more than 20 connected devices. Activities like streaming, gaming, remote work, telehealth, online learning, and immersive apps all depend on Wi-Fi, as do smart home devices such as security cameras, smoke alarms, and connected appliances.
According to a study conducted by the Brattle Group, Wi-Fi congestion is already a problem for 17 to 30 million Americans. If policymakers don’t allocate additional unlicensed spectrum, an additional 54 million people could experience connectivity issues in the next five years. This would hurt the reliability of our devices, harm productivity, damage our economy, and cut good-paying jobs. Policymakers, industry leaders, and others need to act now to ensure everyone in the U.S. can continue to enjoy fast, reliable wireless connections, so the innovations we saw at CES can become available to consumers.
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