The future of wireless connectivity in the home and office continues to evolve at an exciting pace as advanced protocols like Wi-Fi 7 are likely to see accelerating adoption since their launch in 2024. While Wi-Fi 7 initially made little sense for the average consumer or worker, there are a number of reasons why 2025 has me convinced it's finally time to adopt this super high-speed wireless technology.

More Wi-Fi 7 Devices

Wider adoption of the standard across connected devices in 2025

One of the barriers to the adoption of Wi-Fi 7 is the limited number of devices that can actually use the standard. If your most-used devices can't even take advantage of the speeds offered, then there's little point in having a router that supports it and paying through the nose to your ISP for high-speed fiber.

Among the most popular consumer devices that have recently added Wi-Fi 7 support are the newest iPhone 16 and 16 Pro models, making them the first generation of iPhones to support the newest wireless standard. For gamers, the PlayStation 5 Pro is the first major console to support Wi-Fi 7. Apple's 2024 lineup of Macbook Pros doesn't yet support Wi-Fi 7, though it seems a safe bet that we'll see support for Wi-Fi 7 added in the next generation. The latest Microsoft Surface laptops, on the other hand, now support it, as do the latest laptops from MSI and Dell.

I expect we'll see even more Wi-Fi 7-compatible devices released this year as compatible routers become more affordable and home access to high-speed fiber continues to proliferate. Moving my core devices, like my laptop, PC, PS5, and iPhone, onto the Wi-Fi 7 standard has me bullish on switching in 2025.

Smoother connected home

Expanded bandwidth improves connectivity even at moderate speeds

One of the most cogent points against investing in a Wi-Fi 7 router is that most service providers don't offer speeds anywhere near the peak capability of Wi-Fi 7. That being said, it's important to consider the expanded bandwidth used by the standard and not just the raw speeds you may or may not have in your home.

Even those of us with a fiber internet connection delivering upwards of 1Gbps have experienced a lag spike in an online game while someone else in the household starts buffering 4K content or downloading large files. The bandwidth of Wi-Fi 6 and 6E is limited to 160MHz channels per stream, while Wi-Fi 7 increases the channel width to 320 MHz. Thanks to these wider channels, Wi-Fi 7 is better equipped to handle multiple high-bandwidth demands simultaneously, whether gaming, streaming, or moving large files around your home network.

Wi-Fi 7 also introduces a feature called Multi-Link Operation, or MLO for short. This allows compatible devices to use multiple frequency bands simultaneously. Instead of connecting directly to a 2.4 GHz, 5 GHz, or, in the case of Wi-Fi 6E, 6 GHz, your Wi-Fi 7 router can push data to a compatible device using all available bands, which can help alleviate congestion on the bands more commonly used by legacy devices, like 2.4 GHz.

Finally cutting the cord

As an Ethernet faithful, Wi-Fi 7 might finally let me go wireless

I have a mess of Ethernet cables all around my home, and the cable management is cluttered and inconvenient as I run a 25-foot Cat6 cable from a network outlet on the opposite side of the room to the device I'm trying to connect to, and that's just one device. I tend to want to hardwire everything that I possibly can as I strive to achieve optimal connections for my PC, TVs, consoles, and streaming devices. It's honestly been years since I considered letting everything run wirelessly, and Wi-Fi 7 just might get me past my wire addiction.

Thanks to the aforementioned increase in bandwidth and technologies like MLO, my Wi-Fi 7-compatible devices — namely my PC, laptop, and phone — can more efficiently pull high-speed data from the router. Meanwhile, my TV or other gadgets that might not support Wi-Fi 7 yet would still benefit from my main devices not hogging the bandwidth in one particular band. Wi-Fi 7, when coupled with MLO, can result in a more balanced network load, which is reason enough for me to give it a chance in 2025.

Being a little early doesn't mean you're wrong

It seems we are living through an almost exponential increase in the bandwidth and speed demands of consumer devices. While previously, the cutting edge of connectivity was reserved for enterprise, the fact that so many of us now have AR and VR headsets, high-powered gaming PCs, and 4K or 8K streaming devices hoovering up the internet like there's no tomorrow means it might finally be time to consider the switch to Wi-Fi 7.

No doubt it will take some time for every single device in your home to be Wi-Fi 7 compatible, but high-speed fiber connections are here to stay and only expanding. You'd do well to start learning about and experiencing all the advantages Wi-Fi 7 has to offer so that you'll be prepared to make the most of it as more compatible devices come online.