GUY COCKER, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Do You Think I’m 6E?

Finally upgrading from decade-old WiFi

THIS MONTH, I took a look at Netgear’s Nighthawk A8000 (see review, page 87), a USB dongle that allows you to upgrade any Windows 11 device to WiFi 6E. The problem is that I don’t even have WiFi 6 at home, let alone the latest WiFi 6E standard (let’s just leave WiFi 7 out of this for now). Luckily, Netgear were kind enough to loan me their Orbi 960 system, a top-of-the-line ($1,100 for the two-satellite kit I needed to cover my apartment) mesh system that looks as good as it is easy to set up. But then again, for that money it should probably make me a caramel latte as well.

Anyway, I digress. Like many people, I’ve come to take WiFi for granted—I absolutely depend on it for work and play day in, day out, but I also kind of forget it’s there. As a result, I’ve been running a WiFi 5 system for the five years since I moved in, and was surprised when I learned that’s now nine year-old tech. It’s fine for most tasks, but there are always those little annoyances, like the fact the signal won’t quite reach the back of the garden where I want to have a smart speaker playing music at BBQs, or the front door security camera that’s always dropping in and out and sending annoying alerts to my phone.