USB WiFi 6-adapters available?

[mrc]

Is there any WiFi 6-compatible USB-dongles available? Anyone seen info on products that have been announced at all?

 

[thiggins]

No and I see none on the horizon. If any come out, they are likely to be 6E. No sign of those either.

 

[mrc]

Well, if the will 6E I suspect they will be able to over 5 GHz also. At the same time, my guess could that we would see without 6 GHz support to make the cheaper models. And for large parts of the world, it could still be quite a while before 6E can legally be used.

Well, maybe I should look into what I can can do through upgrades of a couple of my laptops. But I think I'll start a separate thread for that after looking around for some info ;-)

 

[RMerlin]

No and I see none on the horizon.

Any idea why? I can see quite an interesting market for these, as people won't replace their laptop just to upgrade their wifi, and even in 2020 the majority of new laptops still ship with Wifi 5. Only high-end products are on Wifi 6.

I would have bought one myself before I had to replace my Thinkpad Yoga 15 - and finding a new laptop that actually had Wifi 6 proved to be difficult.

 

[thiggins]

Any idea why?

I'll see if I can ask Qualcomm. All my Broadcom contacts have gone underground again.

If I had to guess, I'd say it's relative volume. Smartphones dominate.

 

[RMerlin]

I'll see if I can ask Qualcomm. All my Broadcom contacts have gone underground again.

If I had to guess, I'd say it's relative volume. Smartphones dominate.

Device manufacturers like Linksys , TP-Link and D-Link who have lots of Wifi 5 USB interfaces on the market might be the ones to ask, unless adding a USB to PCI-E bridge to use an AX200 would be cost-prohibitive, and an alternative solution from Realtek/QCA/BCM would be necessary.

 

[mrc]

I'll see if I can ask Qualcomm. All my Broadcom contacts have gone underground again.

If I had to guess, I'd say it's relative volume. Smartphones dominate.

Yeah, I agree - these usb-adapters will not be the huge market it once maybe was, but was a bit strange that we hadn't seen anything announced.

 

[thiggins]

If you look at USB adapter listings on Amazon, the majority are from no-name Chinese/Taiwanese companies. That tells you it's not an attractive market segment for name-brand networking companies.

The hold up must be availability of a USB AX device from Mediatek or Realtek, who are the usual suppliers of the silicon for adapters (and Wi-Fi extenders).

 

[L&LD]

I also think that WiFi 6 USB adaptors aren't a big market either. USB C would be a requirement I think. With 2.4Gbps or 4.8Gbps connection speeds possible, anything less on the computer it was connected to would be a huge headache to support for the manufacturers.

Sure, some USB 3.2 'A' ports may have enough bandwidth, but tell that to the average consumer it's not available on their (old) computer.

 

[RMerlin]

I also think that WiFi 6 USB adaptors aren't a big market either. USB C would be a requirement I think. With 2.4Gbps or 4.8Gbps connection speeds possible, anything less on the computer it was connected to would be a huge headache to support for the manufacturers.

A dual-stream Wifi 6 adapter would have a max link rate of 1200 Mbps. Make that 2400 Mbps if you support 160 MHz channels - all is well within the bandwidth provided by an USB 3.1 Gen 1 (5 Gbps).