Wi-Fi 6 vs Wi-Fi 6e: What's the difference? (2024)

Although Wi-Fi 6 (aka IEEE standard 802.11ax) is currently the most popular wireless standard with home Wi-Fi routers, there’s another new standard (with another on the way soon) that could improve your home internet connection significantly.

Wi-Fi 6e is an extended implementation of 802.11ax that not only pushes data throughput higher by adding more than a gigahertz of wireless spectrum but also opens up ultra-wide data channels.

However, Wi-Fi 6e routers often cost much more than their Wi-Fi 6 counterparts and there still aren’t that many laptops, smartphones or tablets that are compatible with this new standard. Read on to figure out whether Wi-Fi 6 or Wi-Fi 6e is right for you or if it’s worth waiting for the launch of Wi-Fi 7 later this year.

Wi-Fi 6

When the first 802.11ax routers appeared in 2019, it was like a breath of fresh air for wireless home networking. Dubbed High Efficiency Wi-Fi, or HEW for short, Wi-Fi 6 was a major reworking of the way wireless data traveled through the air and was a big step up from 2012's 802.11ac standard (retroactively rebranded as Wi-Fi 5).

In addition to the use of 1024 Quadrature Amplitude Modulation (1024-QAM) to squeeze as much as 25% more data into the same frequency range, Wi-Fi 6 added Orthogonal Frequency-Division Multiple Access (OPFDMA) to reduce the downtime between bursts of data transmission. It could also handle up to eight independent streams of data to create reliable connections to devices throughout the house.

Wi-Fi 6 can send and receive data over both the 2.4- and 5-gigahertz (GHz) bands (Wi-Fi 5 is 5-GHz only) and can move even more data by running a single ultra-wide 160-megahertz (MHz) channel on its 5-GHz band.

Perfect for gaming, this data-hog channel is a specialty feature that requires grabbing eight 20-MHz general-purpose channels. In other words, it comes at the expense of less-data-hungry users around the house.

The new standard added up to a big increase in available bandwidth for everything from streaming 4K movies to catching up on ignored emails. For instance, the Wi-Fi 6 routers on our best Wi-Fi Routers page moved an average of 1.146 gigabits per second (Gbps) at a range of 15 feet in our tests. That's more than one-third faster than the average 739 megabit-per-second (Mbps) rate delivered by our top six Wi-Fi 5 routers.

Want yet more performance? Read on to see what Wi-Fi 6e can do for your home wireless network.

Wi-Fi 6e

The Wi-Fi 6e specification made its debut on consumer devices in the spring of 2021. In addition to lowering a router's latency to create faster network response, Wi-Fi 6e added more than a gigahertz of fresh electromagnetic spectrum space in the U.S., ranging from 5.925 GHz to 7.125 GHz.

This additional block of spectrum, generally referred as the 6-GHz band, allows routers to create an extra 14 data channels that are 80 MHz wide or as many as seven heavy-duty 160-MHz-wide data channels. In the real world, this means that an online gamer or an augmented-reality-goggle wearer can now grab a 160-MHz channel without starving the rest of the household of data.

Virgin territory as far as Wi-Fi is concerned, the 6-GHz realm helps those who live (and often work) in areas crowded with different Wi-Fi networks, such as apartment buildings. In other words, if it's hard to get a reliable connection to your router with a 5-GHz network, due to congestion on that band, then Wi-Fi 6e's 6-GHz band will likely work better and deliver more data.

This 6-GHz advantage is also one of Wi-Fi 6e's greatest shortcomings. Higher frequencies mean shorter range, and the 6-GHz frequency is so high that its range is limited to same-room or next-room connections. Once you're out of 6-GHz range, the router automatically switches your connection over to a 5-GHz link.

Which devices support Wi-Fi 6e?

There's no shortage of Wi-Fi 6e routers, including several mesh Wi-Fi kits, now available. The limiting factor is at the client-device level. At the moment, there are Wi-Fi 6e-compatible Windows PCs and Android smartphones, though Apple's new Mac mini M2 and MacBook Pro 14-inch (2023) both include Wi-Fi 6e. There are also rumors that the iPhone 15 will support this new wireless standard as well.

If you're looking for devices from last year that feature Wi-Fi 6E, the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra, Motorola Edge 5G and Google Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro smartphones and the Samsung Galaxy Book Pro laptop are all compatible

Among the Wi-Fi6e routers on our best Wi-Fi routers page, the average data throughput in our tests was an amazing 1.788 Gbps. Not enough? The Netgear Nighthawk RAXE500 led with 2.396 Gbps of total bandwidth available.

This blows away Wi-Fi 6, was more than twice as fast as the typical Wi-Fi 5 router and makes a credible case for ditching gigabit-Ethernet wired local networks, at least for short-range uses.

On the other hand, Wi-Fi 6e routers are much more expensive but their prices will likely drop once Wi-Fi 7 devices begin rolling out. Netgear offers the Orbi RBKE963 three-piece mesh kit for $1,500, and it is hard to justify paying that when there are competent Wi-Fi 6 routers that cost $150.

Also, bear in mind that the average home broadband speed in the U.S. is currently about 50 Mbps. The fastest broadband that most people can buy for their homes tops out at 1 gigabit, or 1 Gbps — far less than what Wi-Fi 6 can deliver, not to mention Wi-Fi 6e. Your internet speed won't get much faster if you upgrade from a Wi-Fi 6 router to a Wi-Fi 6e one, although the connection speeds between compatible devices in the home may.

At least for the moment, getting a Wi-Fi 6e router makes sense only for homes that have gigabit internet connections from their ISPs and the latest and most expensive Windows, Android and Apple client devices. Otherwise, Wi-Fi 6e remains a luxury that most people don't yet need.