A number of phones, laptops, routers, and other devices are already shipping with WiFi 6 baked in, promising improved speed, capacity, and power efficiency, among other things.
But we’ll likely see a whole lot more WiFi 6 devices soon, because the WiFi Alliance says the official WiFi 6 certification program goes live starting today.
In a nutshell, that means you’ll start to see a WiFi 6 Certified logo on a growing number of products that feature support for the latest WiFi standard, also known as 802.11ax.
The Alliance says WiFi 6 offers almost 4x the capacity of WiFi 5 (802.11ac), speeds that are around 30-percent faster when it comes to real-world performance (theoretically top speeds are actually almost 3x higher), and support for better performance on busy networks, plus support for WPA3 security.
According to the Alliance, the first WiFi 6 certified smartphone is the Samsung Galaxy Note 10. But other phones, including the iPhone 11 which is set to hit the streets this Friday, also support the latest standard.
Of course, none of that matters unless you have a new router that also supports WiFi 6. Those have been rolling out in recent months as well, but odds are most folks aren’t going to upgrade until their existing router dies.