Wi-Fi 8 is appearing at CES before most of us have switched to Wi-Fi 7

The first Wi-Fi 8 routers and chips made a surprise appearance at CES 2026 and could launch this year, just a few years after Wi-Fi 7’s debut. So if you don’t already have a Wi-Fi 7 router — and many of us don’t — you might want to consider delaying the upgrade.

Rather than focusing on speed improvements, Wi-Fi 8 promises improved stability. It offers the high speeds and bandwidth of Wi-Fi 7, but with improved power efficiency, higher throughput, and better peer-to-peer communication between devices. Wi-Fi 8 is also better at maintaining fast, stable connections when users move devices or move them away from their router. As a result, Wi-Fi 8 users will experience fewer “dropouts” or freezes and better streaming and gaming performance.

If this week’s CES announcements are any indication, we’ll be able to test Wi-Fi 8 for ourselves sometime this year.

Asus has moved from last year’s AI Spider router covered in antennas to the ROG NeoCore, a Wi-Fi 8 concept router with no antenna at all. The polyhedral model The edgeSean Hollister from , who I saw this week, looks like a 20-sided die with a hollow bottom. According to Asus, the production model will offer the same data speeds as Wi-Fi 7, but with higher throughput and lower latency, allowing it to move more data with fewer bottlenecks and less lag.

“The plastic model broke when I picked it up,” Hollister reported from the Asus booth. “Perfect,” replied Nilay Patel, editor-in-chief of The edge.

Broadcom also announced Wi-Fi 8 hardware at CES, including the BCM4918 APU and two new dual-band radios, the BCM6714 and BCM6719. All three devices are intended to power residential Wi-Fi 8 routers and service provider gateways.

Similarly, MediaTek on Monday announced its Wi-Fi 8 family of chips, Filogic 8000, which it said will power “high-end and flagship devices leveraging Wi-Fi 8 technology,” from enterprise hotspots to smartphones, laptops, TVs and smart home devices. The first equipment with a Filogic 8000 chip is expected to launch later this year.

These new routers and chipsets come just months after TP-Link showed off the first Wi-Fi 8 prototype in October. Although brands are moving full steam ahead with Wi-Fi 8, the official IEEE 802.11bn specification has not yet been finalized. The current IEEE timeline projects that the Wi-Fi 8 standard won’t be ratified until mid-to-late 2028. Still, Asus says its first Wi-Fi 8 routers are expected to launch this year. The first hardware would be based on a preliminary version of the specification and would likely require a firmware update later to match the final specification.