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Pre-standard Wi-Fi 8 is on the way, but the soonest you'll see it is in Q3 2026.
At first, Wi-Fi 8 will not be notably faster than Wi-Fi 7.
It will, however, be much more stable.
Officially, Wi-Fi 8 is known as IEEE 802.11bn or Ultra High Reliability (UHR) Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN). The keyword in that mouthful of a name is reliability. Instead of chasing higher speeds, which Wi-Fi 7 was all about, Wi-Fi 8 is designed to deliver a more consistent and reliable connection.
Wi‑Fi 7 is now firmly established in high‑end gear, but the first Wi‑Fi 8 chipsets and "pre‑standard" routers, such as Asus's ROG NeoCore Wi-Fi 8 router, are surfacing. Keep in mind, though, that even if everything goes perfectly, the Wi-Fi 8 standard won't be finalized until 2028.
Also: The 13 best and most useful smart home devices I've seen at CES 2026
This will not be the first, nor the last, time Wi-Fi equipment appears before its standard has been formally ratified. Every networking vendor wants to be the first out the door with the latest and greatest tech.
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