Tp-Link Conducts Wi-Fi 8 Trials, Promises Better Reliability and Lower Latency
Posted3 months agoActive2 months ago
techspot.comTechstory
calmpositive
Debate
40/100
Wi-Fi 8Tp-LinkWireless Technology
Key topics
Wi-Fi 8
Tp-Link
Wireless Technology
TP-Link has conducted successful Wi-Fi 8 trials, promising better reliability and lower latency, sparking discussion on the future of wireless technology and its potential applications.
Snapshot generated from the HN discussion
Discussion Activity
Very active discussionFirst comment
14h
Peak period
57
Day 5
Avg / period
10.5
Comment distribution63 data points
Loading chart...
Based on 63 loaded comments
Key moments
- 01Story posted
Oct 18, 2025 at 2:46 PM EDT
3 months ago
Step 01 - 02First comment
Oct 19, 2025 at 4:27 AM EDT
14h after posting
Step 02 - 03Peak activity
57 comments in Day 5
Hottest window of the conversation
Step 03 - 04Latest activity
Oct 29, 2025 at 5:06 AM EDT
2 months ago
Step 04
Generating AI Summary...
Analyzing up to 500 comments to identify key contributors and discussion patterns
ID: 45629522Type: storyLast synced: 11/20/2025, 3:35:02 PM
Want the full context?
Jump to the original sources
Read the primary article or dive into the live Hacker News thread when you're ready.
I bet companies will release WiFi 8 products even when it's still a draft, just as they did with WiFI 7.
I upgraded my home setup to WiFi 7 a few weeks ago, and after being a WiFi hater for so long, was actually surprised at how much better it was over my previous experiences with WiFi. With MLO clients get 2-3ms latency with 2.5Gbit links, I'm all for WiFi 8 trying to reduce the latency further, I don't need more speed.
This is part of what opening up the 6 GHz was about.
But there are also provisions in newer standards like Target Wake Time: the client can be told to sleep for a while, not using radio spectrum (and also saving battery).
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_802.11ah#Target_Wake_Time
OFDMA allows multiple clients to use the same frequency at the same time (using sub-channels):
* https://airheads.hpe.com/blogs/antar1/2020/10/19/why-is-ofdm...
* https://community.tp-link.com/us/home/stories/detail/201
What airports have you seen issues lately? It's one thing I haven't thought about in a long time.
I got the pros as a vanity move to be 6GHz ready but truthfully there’s zero reason for it.
No need to be left behind. They can already release WiFi 9 products. /s
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.
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 haven’t thought about it since I set it up, three years ago. 100% reliability, seamless handoff between APs.
Although I have previously encountered significant issues with WiFi, I now do not see a need to replace these devices despite the availability of WiFi 7.
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?
It doesn't really matter which part in the chain requires the stinking cloud as long as they sneak it in somewhere.
Speaking of which, I just bought a Razer mouse again because I've read they gave up on the login requirement for configuring your blinkenlights. But they didn't. They invented a 'guest login' instead.
Burned twice so far.
AFAICT, the controller is needed for fast roaming of clients.
So can I just ignore that option or do they make me register to the stinking cloud just in case?
IIRC the controller is needed to configure your AP anyway when you first set it up.
Indeed. You need the controller running first before you can configure AP, Switches, and gateways.
None of my ubiquity stuff uses their cloud stuff at all.
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".
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.
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.
Are there any such routers? And even if there are, are there any clients? The last 4x4 MIMO Wi-Fi client I can remember was the Asus PCE-AC88, a Wi-Fi 5 NIC from 2016.
With MAP 2.4GHz can serve as long range network that can be filled with High-Rate 5GHz / 6GHz cells. And all of them can be utilized in parallel.
802.11be (Wifi-7) still lacks this.
Infrastructure side handovers are great for load balancing though, for enterprise networks with very high client density.
That's not what you want to have in an enterprise environment.
A roaming decision must be based on the signal level readings from both sides from the infrastructure side.
Everything else is gambling.
I have a lot of low bandwidth devices that love to connect to a router further away and congest it. Makes the devices I actually care around run much slower.
The only solution is restarting my network one-by-one so they have a better chance of getting the right device.
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_802.11bn
So they're explicitly look at more than just adding more bits per second.
“Now More Reliable!” in a spiky red circle alongside the unchanged highly theoretical bandwidth numbers?