Hacker News Reader

Even more important: I hope Wifi 8 makes all the good stuff MANDATORY even if it's expensive!

For example, Wifi 7 doesn't make actually useful MLO mandatory. So most wifi router manufacturers - even Ubiquiti - don't implement it! What's the point of adding something to the standard if it's optional.

Ideally, the standards body should make expensive stuff mandatory- then prices will come down as soon as everyone is building it, due to economics of scale.

Ubiquiti has a half-hearted MLO implementation with AFAICT utterly silly restrictions on WPA mode.

> because all those cheap smart home things like roku sticks and pet feeders and so on are built for cost and a decent 5Ghz chip is just too much to ask.

Cost certainly is the primary factor in the decision, but you definitely want those low-bandwidth but long-range devices OFF your precious 5GHz band.

Unless you want the same crappy experience of 2.4GHz band in 5GHz.

This is true if you only have one access point.

If you have a mesh system with more than one access point, your network benefits greatly by using WiFi 7 (or 8, now) as a dedicated wireless backhaul that connects the access points to each other.