Wi-Fi 6, Mesh Networking, and the Growth of More Intelligent Distributed Wi-Fi

From a Wi-Fi perspective, CES 2019 represented another significant milestone in the rollout of Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax), with the event giving rise to several new announcements spanning chipsets, routers, multi-AP systems, platforms, and client devices. MediaTek announced their new Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth combo chip portfolio for home and enterprise APs, routers, gateways, and repeaters supporting 2x2 and 4x4 MIMO. Cypress Semiconductor announced a 2x2 combo Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth solution targeting automotive infotainment applications. Celeno launched their new CL8000 Wi-Fi 6 chip, while Intel and Qualcomm demonstrated their existing Wi-Fi 6 solutions and growing market traction.

On the device side, new Wi-Fi announcements and demonstrations from TP-Link, NETGEAR, ASUS, ARRIS, EnGenius, and HP, among others, further demonstrated the growing traction and expectation of Wi-Fi 6 growth in 2H 2019 and throughout 2020. However, beyond the headline attraction of Wi-Fi 6 in itself, it is becoming clear that different aspects of the Wi-Fi industry are converging to form unique opportunities and enable the creation of more holistic, integrated, and valuable distributed home Wi-Fi networks with additional features and functionalities that stretch beyond improvements to network connectivity on their own.

CES 2019 highlighted several key Wi-Fi industry trends that are increasingly combining to deliver unique user experiences and create more intelligent distributed Wi-Fi networks throughout the home:

• Wi-Fi 6 Rollout: In addition to the aforementioned announcements, at CES 2019 the Wi-Fi Alliance also announced that the Wi-Fi 6 certification program will begin in Q3 2019, ensuring that the Wi-Fi 6 ecosystem will meet all interoperability and security requirements as with previous standards. While Wi-Fi 6 deployments will begin to gain traction in 2H 2019, ABI Research expects wider adoption to begin in 2020, and by 2023 the Wi-Fi 6 rollout is expected to account for over 1/3 of annual Wi-Fi chipset shipments.
• Growth of Mesh Devices: CES 2019 also saw further traction in the Wi-Fi mesh networking space, with Wi-Fi 6 increasingly being leveraged as part of these solutions.  ARRIS unveiled its SURFboard mAX Pro, a tri-band residential Wi-Fi 6 mesh networking solution. TP-Link announced its first Wi-Fi 6 mesh networking solution, the Deco X10, available in Q3, while Netgear announced that its next-generation Orbi mesh networking product line will support Wi-Fi 6 later this year. Qualcomm had a stand dedicated to their mesh networking products from the likes of EnGenius, Google, and Netgear. The combination of Wi-Fi 6 with mesh networking devices will become an increasingly attractive proposition for end users over the next few years, with ABI forecasting residential Wi-Fi systems to achieve a CAGR of 46% between 2018 and 2023.
• Tri-Band Mesh Systems:  In addition to Wi-Fi 6 enhancements, some mesh vendors are leveraging tri-band functionality to provide additional performance enhancements throughout the whole home. ARRIS, for example, recently introduced their SURFboard mAX Pro Mesh Wi-Fi System that leverages three 4x4 Wi-Fi 6 radios, leveraging the second 5GHz band for a dedicated backhaul connection between the two routers to ensure gigabit speeds throughout the entire house. At CES 2019, NETGEAR also announced that its tri-band Orbi Mesh Wi-Fi System will be expanded to support Wi-Fi 6 in 2H 2019.
• Performance Flexibility: Chipset vendors are also providing innovative solutions to improve whole-home Wi-Fi coverage and performance. Quantenna’s Wi-Fi 6 QSR10GU-AX chipset offers adaptive MIMO algorithms, offering dynamic switching between 8x8 MIMO and dual 4x4 MIMO in the 5GHz band to provide better performance tailored to the specific deployment environment. At CES 2019, Celeno unveiled its ElasticMIMO Wi-Fi 6 chipset with the ability for its radios to change MIMO configuration between the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands, ranging from 2x2 and up to 6x6, and adapting to the specific requirements and usage scenarios to further increase performance.
• Integration with Voice-control Platforms and Smart Speakers: A further trend bringing additional value to Wi-Fi networking equipment in the home is the increased integration of voice control platforms and smart speaker functionality. Late in 2018, NETGEAR announced their Orbi Voice solution, a smart speaker with built in microphones and Alexa support that also works as an additional Wi-Fi satellite as part of the Orbi Mesh Wi-Fi system. Similarly, ASUS’s Lyra Voice is a tri-band mesh Wi-Fi router and Bluetooth speaker with Alexa voice control support.
• Value-added Services and Software Enhancements: In addition to audio functionality and voice control, networking vendors are working towards adding additional value-added services to their access points. In 2018, chipset vendor Quantenna and motion analytics provider Aerial announced a strategic partnership to bring Wi-Fi motion detection to service providers, enabling value-added services such as intrusion detection, elderly monitoring, and occupancy detection for smart home automation purposes without the need for cameras or additional sensor devices. Cognitive Systems also made its Aura Wi-Fi motion detection technology available to products based on Qualcomm’s Mesh Networking Platform, enabling numerous device manufacturers to take advantage of this solution and drive additional value. More recently, Cognitive Systems, Plume, and Qualcomm partnered with Stanley Black and Decker for their Omni security product, a Wi-Fi mesh and security and motion detection system alerting users to motion in and around their homes.
• Integration with Smart Home Connectivity Technologies: In recent years there has been an emergence of smart home hubs that have integrated multiple wireless connectivity technologies to support a wide range of networking use cases from high throughput Wi-Fi to low-power wireless sensor networks. Finally, Wi-Fi AP providers are beginning to integrate additional wireless technologies beyond Wi-Fi to support new smart home use cases and functionality. In October 2018, Calix unveiled their Wi-Fi 6 GigaSpire MAX smart home mesh system which incorporates Bluetooth Low Energy, ZigBee 3.0 and Z-Wave support in addition to built-in Alexa voice recognition. TP-Link’s Deco M9 Plus mesh solution and Securifi’s Almond 3 both incorporate a ZigBee radio, with the latter able to support Bluetooth and Z-Wave via a dongle.

While these trends are innovative on their own, it is the combination and convergence of these various value-added features that can not only provide tremendous new value to end users and service providers alike, but also solve many Wi-Fi performance challenges, IoT connectivity fragmentation, and interoperability issues and be effectively managed and controlled through a voice control platform.The emergence of Wi-Fi 6 in conjunction with wider availability of more advanced mesh systems will provide additional incentives and growth of multi-AP systems in the near future. Wi-Fi’s rebranding to generational naming conventions could also help end users better understand the limitations of their existing network and incentivize upgrades to more capable systems. In addition, one of the challenges to smart home control and proliferation in the past has been the need for additional hubs and gateway devices, adding to the cost, complexity, and slowing down of adoption. Wi-Fi APs with integrated IoT connectivity technologies such as BLE/Bluetooth Mesh, 802.15.4, and Z-Wave can provide a more seamless and effective way of controlling smart home devices than ever before.

The proposition of seamlessly distributing multiple high-performance and dynamically adapting Wi-Fi 6 mesh nodes able to detect intrusion and occupancy and provide elderly monitoring through RF throughout the home in a smart speaker arrangement while being able to directly communicate and control lighting and other smart home and IoT devices via a voice control platform is an extremely powerful one. In the long run, 60GHz 802.11ay could also be integrated into mesh nodes to provide ultra-fast and extremely low latency in-room connectivity experiences, though the limited 1Gbps pipeline to the home becomes an obvious obstacle and choking point, at least in the short term. Ultimately, different aspects of the Wi-Fi, mesh, and smart home industry should continue this convergence to provide a faster, more reliable, and much more valuable home networking experience in the coming years.