Everyone expects instant access to the internet, and that’s partly because Wi-Fi standards have advanced so far in recent years. Wi-Fi 8 is up next, but it’s a little different from its predecessors. No speed bump has been deemed necessary this time around, but what you can expect is increased reliability, seamless hand-offs between different devices and routers, and lower latency.

With Wi-Fi woes on the decline, many folks are still making do with Wi-Fi 6, though most homes will have Wi-Fi 6E or Wi-Fi 7 devices by now. If you’re in the market to upgrade, all the best routers or mesh systems I recommend now support Wi-Fi 7. You don’t need to consider Wi-Fi 8 for quite a while yet (the standard hasn’t even been finalized), but we can still take a peek at what Wi-Fi 8 has in store to see what’s coming.

What Is Wi-Fi 8?
The eighth generation of Wi-Fi represents a change in focus. While previous incarnations of the Wi-Fi standard have promised higher connection speeds, Wi-Fi 8 seems to be more about improving the basics: reliability, stability, and lower latency. Wi-Fi 8 also promises seamless roaming, keeping devices connected as you move and cutting down on dropped connections and dead zones.

There’s a pleasing list of improvements we can expect from Wi-Fi 8, but the headline is Ultra High Reliability (UHR). Wi-Fi 7 was focused on Extremely High Throughput (EHT), but now that speeds are generally great, the focus has shifted to ensuring connections are more reliable. This isn’t a complete list, but here are a few of the features that will enable UHR: Multi-Access Point Coordination (MAPC), Seamless Roaming Domain (SRD), Low Latency Indication (LLI) and In-Device Coexistence (IDC).

How Does Wi-Fi 8 Compare to Wi-Fi 7?
With the same theoretical maximum speed of 46 Gbps and Wi-Fi on the same three bands (2.4 GHz, 5 GHz, and 6 GHz) with a maximum 320-MHz channel width, Wi-Fi 8 may not feel like a substantial improvement over Wi-Fi 7 for most folks. Some of the features I mention in the benefits of Wi-Fi 8 section above could bring tangible improvements, especially for anyone living in a high-interference area like an apartment building in a city, but just how much better reliability will be remains to be seen.