iPhone Mu Mimo support

[airlung]

Do iPhones 12 and up support mu mimo. Did a lot of digging around some says they do and some says they doesn’t

 

[L&LD]

Apple supports what Apple supports.

My best guess (again, because I don't have them) is they don't. Based on others experiences and observations.

 

[tgl]

According to this pretty official-looking documentation, all current iPhone models support 2-stream MIMO. It's not very clear to me whether MU-MIMO has additional demands on the STA beyond plain MIMO, or if it's just an AP-side feature.

 

[airlung]

Thx, under the Asus routerwireless system log, my 2 iPhone 14 connected indicates “no” under STBC and MUBF, what this means? Thx so much

 

[sfx2000]

Do iPhones 12 and up support mu mimo. Did a lot of digging around some says they do and some says they doesn’t

No... Apple does not support MU-MIMO

 

[sfx2000]

Thx, under the Asus routerwireless system log, my 2 iPhone 14 connected indicates “no” under STBC and MUBF, what this means? Thx so much

To answer your question..

STBC - space time block codes - it's a MIMO related error correction mechanism, it's an optional item in 802.11
MBUF - memory buffers, in the broadcom code, it's for power saving mode and fragmented packets

Not much to worry about here..

 

[sfx2000]

According to this pretty official-looking documentation, all current iPhone models support 2-stream MIMO. It's not very clear to me whether MU-MIMO has additional demands on the STA beyond plain MIMO, or if it's just an AP-side feature.

MU requires device support - when the device attaches to a MU capable AP, it will be assigned an AID that indicates it could be a MU group candidate.

 

[airlung]

Thx all, so does the iPhone support explicit beamforming? Seems related to Mu mimo… thx

 

[sfx2000]

Thx all, so does the iPhone support explicit beamforming? Seems related to Mu mimo… thx

Explicit Beamforming is part of 802.11ac/11ax - so yes they do.

As mentioned above, no support for MU-MIMO

What is the point of these questions?

 

[airlung]

Just brought a new router and wanted to get the best settings for it. Thx for the reply

 

[sfx2000]

Recommended settings for Wi-Fi routers and access points - Apple Support

For the best security, performance, and reliability, we recommend these settings for Wi-Fi routers, base stations, or access points used with Apple products.

support.apple.com

 

[airlung]

This pdf stated that iPhone supports DL Mu Mimo but not UL Mu Mimo, this stuff is so complicated

 

[sfx2000]

This pdf stated that iPhone supports DL Mu Mimo but not UL Mu Mimo, this stuff is so complicated

Maybe for HE mode (11ax), I know for VHT (11ac) it does not.

When I took a look at a wireless PCAP - not clear if MU is fully supported or not on the Association (this is the feature negotiation between the AP and the client).

This was on both ath11k and mt76 based AP's - the ath11k is qsdk based (qualcomm drivers/firmware), and the mt76 was on openwrt with the mediatek opensource drivers...

Anyways, MU is fairly harmless, and the only time I've seen it actually used is in carefully scripted scenarios on the lab bench, and even there, it's hard to trigger.