> I bet companies will release WiFi 8 products even when it's still a draft, just as they did with WiFI 7.

They must. Otherwise it cannot be tested within the labs.

And producing chips before a standard is finalized is usually no problem at all: there are gates within the standardization process where the will be no more changes that are relevant for the silicon.

These 802.11n-draft APs were a singular fuckup regarding this.

Similar transition for me. Basic dual AP setup that I took from first gen UAPs (wifi 4) to U7 Pro. I think I have only one client (a Lenovo laptop) that connects with wifi 7, but even the wifi 6 devices are screamers now; my phone can get 600mbps symmetric with line of sight or 200-300mbps from two floors away. Just bonkers.

I don't need lower latency, I need better congestion management. WiFi in busy areas (like airports) sucks.

> I bet companies will release WiFi 8 products even when it's still a draft, just as they did with WiFI 7.

They've been doing this since the dawn of wifi pretty much. I distinctly remember seeing "802.11 draft n" being printed an all the hot new and faster wifi cards back in the day.

I have a computer with a 1G Ethernet phy designed before everything was ratified. Not great. I'll make sure to wait

>I bet companies will release WiFi 8 products even when it's still a draft, just as they did with WiFI 7.

No need to be left behind. They can already release WiFi 9 products. /s

You can already make a MAP network, and any modern client will automatically hop between APs pretty fast, based on which one has the strongest signal. There's a common misconception that devices will cling to one AP while better ones are available, which hasn't been true in many years now from my experience.

Infrastructure side handovers are great for load balancing though, for enterprise networks with very high client density.

They seem to suffer from all the same issues of out-of-date unsupported software releases that all the other consumer AP manufacturers have. But I haven't read anything which suggests more deliberate backdoors. Perhaps another HNer has. Personally, I've always installed OpenWRT for the superior support and updated packages, and TP-Link devices have been reliable platforms for that.

I think it's more a case of don't use cheap consumer grade hardware in any kind of remotely demanding scenario.

I have "enterprise" TP-Link equipment for my house which I bought 3 years ago now and am very happy with it, in particular I'm using:

- 4x EAP245 Access Points

- 1x SG3428 Switch (the APs came with PoE injectors and I wanted a fan-less switch, hence why the switch is not PoE enabled)

I rent out a room on my property and have my tenant on a separate VLAN to the main house. I also have my IoT devices on a separate VLAN.

I use a generic PC with pfSense as my "router".

My only complaint is that their Omada Controller software doesn't want to run as a Windows Service (I'm not interested in trying to manage a Linux box). Fortunately, it's not required at all, but is useful for centralized configuration management and facilitation of handover of WiFi clients between APs.

Before I moved into my current large-ish place, I used "cheap" ISP supplied TP-Link routers with WiFi, and aside from limited speed capabilities, were 100% reliable for me, in particular I used the following two models:

- TL-WR840N

- Archer C20.

I also use a few cheap (but again fully reliable) 5 port and 8 port TP-Link 1GB/s switches, for example under my desk in my office to allow both my laptop and desktop to share the single CAT6 cable to the room.

Before buying the "enterprise" TP-Link equipment I considered Ubiquiti, but the TP-Link stuff was less expensive, I liked the controller being optional and considering all my past TP-Link equipment's reliability was a non-issue, I was happy "to take a risk".

It's tough. On one hand side, TP-Link has some weird issues. On the other, I spent a while debugging an issue with their engineers and they seem to actually care to improve things. Maybe the lower price is worth it sometimes.

Can relate. I went through various consumer ish access points until I got tired of it and splurged on an Ubiquiti.

Haven't had any wifi problems since. To the point I don't remember what wifi standard my home is on :)

Too bad they may or may not have given up on the cloud connectivity requirement. I've been told (even on here) they have, but I've also been told that you can disable it after setup instead of setting up without any stinking cloud.

Say, did Ubiquity stuff work during the AWS outage?

Anecdotally, I switched from Ubiquiti to TP-Link and am very happy with the decision.

Ubiquity stuff was giving me constant buffer bloat issues and it was a pain to do basic configuration for. Just too many options.

TP-LInk generally works just fine as long as the WiFi channel is clear.

I use TP-link switches exclusively as they turned out far more reliable than any other I had.

For wifi I have been using ASUS's AI Mesh. Not that impressed tbh so looking to change to something else in the next upgrade cycle.

Better yet, buy actual enterprise gear even if it's a generation behind. You can find decent Aruba, Ruckus and Cisco kit on eBay going for decent prices.

I've always had good experiences with TP-Link, just not their stock firmware. They're cheap and reliable OpenWRT devices.

But: the Omada gear is awesome. I threw away all of Ubiquity stuff and can operate without cloud.

What I have read is that with Wifi-7 (MLO, dynamic channels), TP-Link is much improved.

Or better yet, Aruba Instant On. Enterprise hardware for SOHO money, truly plug and play, rock solid, no tinkering involved (which can be both good and bad depending on one's goals).

I bought a UniFi Dream Router 7 some months ago, very happy with it so far.

I had a tp-link router for a few years and never had any problems with it.

Anecdote time - I've had their BE550 Wifi 7 router for over a year now and it's been rock solid. Easily does 2Gbps over wifi, never had to reset it once despite having 40+ devices connected to it all the time, the 4x 2.5Gbps ports are super useful.....it is one of their more expensive devices so maybe that's why, but generally it's been very very solid.

I now run a TP-Link free household. I was disappointed with every one of my TPL purchases over the years, both on routers and client adapters.

I wonder how consumer Wi-Fi 8 products will be marketed.

“Now More Reliable!” in a spiky red circle alongside the unchanged highly theoretical bandwidth numbers?

Don't worry, by the time we get cheap mass produced Wi-Fi 7 4x4 MIMO routers, we'll have Wi-Fi 9 ready to be drafted.

I'm still waiting for 6 GHz APs to be the same price as 5 GHz. Can't find a basic AP under €100 yet.

> Not expected to arrive until 2028