However, SU-MIMO did have constraints in addition to antenna requirements.

SU was included in the 802.11n standard update of 2007, and was slowly introduced in new product lines. Of course this required new lines of router with multiple antennas, but manufacturers had been looking for an excuse to stick some more knobs and points on their routers anyway. Each antenna could handle a different device. The SU standard allowed routers to send and receive multiple streams of data at the same time, based on the number of antennas it had. SU-MIMO (single user, multiple input, multiple output) is older. They sound like Pokémon, but are actually different ways to get routers to talk to multiple devices.

These developments allow advanced wireless routers to communicate with several devices at once. What if you could have a router that transmits data to multiple devices simultaneously? Wouldn’t it increase efficiency, be faster, and allow for more interesting network configurations? So advances like MU-MIMO were developed and eventually included into today’s wireless standards. But the people who do think about it have long believed that it could work better. It works so well that we rarely think about it. However, it can only pay attention to one device at one time, which is one reason why Internet quality goes down if Wi-Fi bandwidth is too low. Much like how film tape looks like a constantly moving image instead of a bunch of stills, accessing Wi-Fi feels like a constant connection to the Internet because the router switches between devices so quickly. They rattle off bits of data very, very quickly to multiple devices in turn. “But wait,” you’re saying, “I can’t count the number of times that I’ve played video games while my SO watches Netflix on the laptop, so this is clearly wrong.” Yes, you can run multiple devices on your Wi-Fi network – otherwise, what would be the point? But older routers accomplish this by acting like a machine gun mounted to a merry-go-round. If you are getting video streamed onto your computer, your router cannot also be streaming online video gameplay to a console. In other words, they can only talk to one device at a time. Routers – probably including the one you use – are very good at sending and receiving data, but only in one direction.

To get a proper understanding of how MU-MIMO works, let’s take a look at the way that a traditional wireless router handles data packets. Let’s take a look at the technology and what makes it so cool for the average consumer. Fitbit Versa 3ĭoes the term MU-MIMO ring any bells? If it doesn’t, it soon will. Ready or not, this new Wi-Fi standard update is set to revolutionize the wireless networking world forever.

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