Wi-Fi 6E products are available to consumers today, but you probably wouldn’t know that if you looked at the average family. While ancillary hardware has come out in the last couple of years, the lack of components, the satisfaction of Wi-Fi 6, and the impending arrival of Wi-Fi 7 have caused many to lose sight of the latest wireless standard. Netgear aims to ease adoption by announcing a USB adapter that provides Wi-Fi 6E to supporting systems via a USB 3.x Type-A connection.
On Wednesday, the Netgear AXE3000 WiFi 6E USB 3.0 Adapter (A8000) was announced to work with laptops and desktops. According to the San Jose, California-based company, it supports the 2.4GHz band up to 600Mbps, the 5GHz band up to 1200Mbps and the 6GHz band up to 1200Mbps.
The adapter uses a flip-down antenna, and there is an optional stand that can hold the adapter and connect to a PC via a USB-A cable, allowing you to move the adapter around to improve signal.
Of course, you won’t be able to make the most of the adapter without a Wi-Fi 6E router. And you won’t be able to use Wi-Fi 6E on Mac.
Wi-Fi 6E takes advantage of Wi-Fi 6 by using the 6 GHz band in addition to the 2.4 and 5 GHz bands for less congestion and lower latency. However, shorter wavelengths mean it peaks at shorter distances, especially if obstacles like walls come into play. Your performance will also depend on the maximum speed you can get from your ISP.
The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers is expected to complete the Wi-Fi 7 specification by 2024, with players like Intel predicting Wi-Fi 7 PCs by 2025. Wi-Fi 7 should improve Wi-Fi. Fi 6E by increasing the maximum channel bandwidth from 160 MHz to 320 MHz and increasing throughput by 20 percent when moving from 1024 quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) to 4096 QAM, and introduces multi-channel operation (MLO) and multi-resource puncturing.
However, a simple way to add Wi-Fi 6E to your computer may not be enough to guarantee the transition to the standard. But for those with the hardware, space, and interest to make the upgrade worth it, Netgear said it will release the AXE3000 this month for a suggested retail price of $90.