Need help understanding Wifi 6 benefits and real-world performance

Wifi
1

I just upgraded my router and devices to Wifi 6, but I’m not seeing the speed, range, or stability improvements that were advertised. My older Wifi 5 setup felt almost the same. Can someone explain what real advantages Wifi 6 should give in a normal home network, how to set it up correctly, and what settings or hardware might be limiting my results?

2

Wifi 6 marketing sets some wrong expectations. In many homes it feels similar to Wifi 5 unless your setup matches what Wifi 6 is good at.

Key points.

  1. Internet speed vs Wi‑Fi speed
    If your ISP is 300 Mbps and your Wifi 5 already did 300 Mbps near the router, Wifi 6 will not look faster.
    Wifi 6 helps more when:
    • Your ISP is 600 Mbps, 1 Gbps or more.
    • You transfer files inside your network, like from NAS to PC.

  2. You need Wifi 6 end devices
    Router alone is not enough.
    Check your clients:
    • Windows: Device Manager > Network adapters > properties > advanced > standard like 802.11ax = Wifi 6.
    • Phones: spec sheet, look for 802.11ax or Wifi 6.
    If a device only supports Wifi 5, it will work about the same as before.

  3. Channel width and settings
    Log into the router. Look for:
    • 5 GHz channel width. Try 80 MHz. 160 MHz helps on clean spectrum, but fails in noisy areas.
    • Use WPA2/WPA3, avoid mixed legacy modes if possible.
    • Put 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz on separate SSIDs so you can force fast devices to 5 GHz. Many routers stick you on 2.4 GHz if the signal is a bit stronger, which kills speed.

  4. Range expectations
    Wifi 6 does not magically extend range.
    The 5 GHz range is similar to Wifi 5.
    2.4 GHz range is similar too.
    Improvement is more about stability with OFDMA and better handling of many clients, not throwing signal farther.

  5. Where Wifi 6 helps in real life
    You notice gains when:
    • You have many devices active at once, like 10 to 30 wifi clients.
    • You stream 4K, do video calls, and download at the same time.
    • Latency matters, like online gaming or remote work.
    Even if speed tests look the same, lag spikes often drop.

  6. Interference and placement
    If your neighbors use the same channels, Wifi 6 features get blocked by noise.
    Use a wifi analyzer to scan channels and signal strength in each room.
    For Windows or macOS, NetSpot WiFi analyzer and site survey helps you:
    • See congested channels.
    • Check dead spots.
    • Decide where to place the router or if you need an extra access point.

  7. Mesh or extra access point
    If your old Wifi 5 router sat in a bad spot, a Wifi 6 router in the same spot will still be bad.
    Often the real fix is:
    • Put the router in a central open area.
    • Add a wired access point or a good mesh node where signal drops.

  8. Simple tests you can run
    • Stand next to the router. Run a speed test on a Wifi 6 phone and a Wifi 5 device.
    If your ISP is fast enough, the Wifi 6 device should hit higher link rates, maybe 700 to 900 Mbps on a gigabit plan.
    • Then test through two walls. See if Wifi 6 keeps a bit higher speed or smoother latency.
    • Try a big file copy from a wired PC to a Wifi 6 laptop. That will show real LAN gains.

Short version.
If your ISP is moderate speed, devices are mixed, and you have one or two users, Wifi 6 feels similar to Wifi 5.
You gain more consistency, better multi device handling, and higher LAN throughput, not a night and day speed jump.
Tuning channels, separating bands, and doing a quick survey with something like NetSpot often gives more visible improvement than the Wifi 6 label itself.

1 Like
3

Wifi 6 feels “meh” for a lot of people, so you’re not crazy. Marketing makes it sound like you’re going to open a wormhole in your living room and instead you get… basically your old Wifi 5 with a new logo.

Let me try to frame what Wifi 6 is actually good at, without rehashing all the config tips @nachtdromer already dropped.

1. Wifi 6 is mostly about efficiency, not magic speed

If your Wifi 5 setup already:

  • Hit your full internet speed near the router
  • Covered your home decently
  • Handled a few devices at once

then Wifi 6 often feels identical. The real perks show up when stuff gets busy:

  • 20+ devices connected, many of them talking at once
  • Smart home junk (cams, bulbs, plugs) all chirping in the background
  • Multiple people streaming, gaming, on calls, downloading

The tech terms behind this are OFDMA and better scheduling. Instead of letting devices yell over each other, Wifi 6 cuts the channel into chunks and organizes them better. That reduces “wifi traffic jams” more than it boosts headline speeds.

If your network is usually “Netflix + phone + a laptop,” that efficiency is overkill and looks invisible.

2. The “range boost” is mostly marketing fluff

You almost never get a meaningful range bump from Wifi 6 alone:

  • 5 GHz on Wifi 6 vs 5 GHz on Wifi 5 is similar in range
  • The laws of physics don’t care about router generation

Where you might notice something better is:

  • Slightly more stable speeds at the edge of coverage
  • Fewer random slowdowns when many clients are active

But if there’s a brick wall and a staircase between you and the router, a Wifi 6 sticker won’t punch through it. You fix that with better placement or extra APs / mesh, not with a new standard.

3. When Wifi 6 actually does feel faster

A few legit speed-up scenarios:

  1. Very fast internet (600 Mbps to 1 Gbps or higher)

    • On Wifi 5, it’s common for real-world speeds to top out somewhere in the 400–600 Mbps range on many clients.
    • A good Wifi 6 client + decent router, close range, can get you 700–900 Mbps or so in real tests.
      If you’re on a 200–300 Mbps plan, you simply won’t see the difference.

  2. Local transfers in your home network

    • Copying big files from NAS to laptop
    • Editing video off a server
    • Backing up PCs over wifi
      Wifi 6 can make that noticeably faster and more stable, if both sides are Wifi 6 and your router isn’t junk.

  3. Latency-sensitive stuff under load

    • Gaming while someone else is running OneDrive / Steam downloads
    • Zoom / Teams calls during heavy usage
      Wifi 6 is better at keeping ping spikes in check when the channel is busy. Your speed test might still show “same 300 Mbps,” but the feel (less stutter, less rubberbanding) is better when pushed.

4. Why your upgrade feels pointless right now

Based on how you describe it, a few likely reasons:

  • Your ISP speed is the bottleneck, not the wifi
  • Your old Wifi 5 gear was already decent
  • Your usage pattern is light to moderate, not the chaos Wifi 6 is built to handle
  • Your environment (walls, layout, interference) didn’t magically change with a new router

This is the part I slightly disagree with @nachtdromer on: tweaking channels, widths, and splitting SSIDs can help, but if your usage and ISP speed are modest, you may still feel no difference after all that nerding around. Sometimes the honest answer is: your upgrade is mostly “future proofing,” not an immediate jaw drop.

5. Check if interference is killing your gains

One thing people underestimate is neighbor noise. If your building / neighborhood is wifi soup:

  • Your shiny Wifi 6 router gets stuck negotiating with everyone else’s chatter
  • Features that rely on cleaner airspace don’t shine

This is where a tool like NetSpot is actually useful, not just marketing fluff. Install it on a laptop and walk around your place:

  • See which channels are crowded
  • Find dead spots or weird dips in signal
  • Decide if a different channel, router move, or extra AP is needed

You can grab it here and use it to analyze and improve your home Wi‑Fi coverage. If the graphs look like total chaos, that alone explains why Wifi 6 “does nothing.”

6. The real-world advantage summary

What Wifi 6 is actually good at in normal homes:

  • Handles lots of devices a bit more gracefully
  • Keeps latency more stable under load
  • Gives higher real LAN speeds when all parts are Wifi 6 and internet is fast
  • Adds better battery life for some phones / IoT via target wake time

What it is not:

  • A magic cure for bad router placement
  • A big range extender
  • A guaranteed “double your speed” upgrade on a 200–300 Mbps plan
  • Something you’ll always “feel” in a low-device, low-congestion setup

7. TL;DR version

If your old Wifi 5 was already solid, your ISP speed is moderate, and you don’t have a small army of devices hammering the network, Wifi 6 will absolutely feel like a side-grade. The benefits are mostly in edge cases: high speeds, heavy concurrent use, and dense environments.

So, no, you didn’t necessarily “set it up wrong.” You just bought gear that’s better at problems you might not really have yet.

4

The short version: Wifi 6 is an infrastructure upgrade more than a visible “wow” upgrade, and your experience is pretty normal.

Let me zoom in on a few angles that weren’t fully covered by @suenodelbosque and @nachtdromer, especially around expectations and how to decide if the upgrade was actually worth it for you.

1. Think in “capacity” and “headroom,” not raw speed

Most marketing talks about “up to 9.6 Gbps” and similar nonsense. In a home, what really matters is:

  • How many devices can be active before things feel crappy.
  • How much “spike” traffic (big downloads, syncs, updates) your network can absorb without wrecking calls or gaming.

Wifi 6 is like widening a highway and improving traffic control. If you only have 4 cars on it, it looks the same as before.
Where it helps:

  • Kids streaming + work calls + background OneDrive/Steam + cameras uploading clips.
  • Lots of IoT sensors/cams constantly chattering.

If your house pattern is “one or two users, moderate ISP speed,” all that extra headroom just sits unused and feels like no upgrade.

2. Stability vs “Speedtest dopamine”

A subtle but real benefit of Wifi 6 is reduced variability under load:

  • Fewer random 1–2 second stalls when multiple devices hit the net at once.
  • More consistent latency for gaming or video calls when someone starts a big download.

This often does not show in a single speed test. Speedtests are bursty and short. To actually see the improvement:

  • Run a ping or gaming session.
  • At the same time, start a big download on another device.
  • Compare how much the ping spikes vs your old setup, if you remember.

If you are not pushing the network hard very often, the improvement hides in the background and you feel “no change.”

3. Your client hardware and drivers matter more than people admit

Everyone already pointed out that both router and client need Wifi 6, but one thing they did not stress enough:

  • Drivers and OS power management can completely kill the benefits.

Especially on laptops:

  • Old or generic Wi-Fi drivers can limit modulation schemes or channel width.
  • Power saving modes can downshift performance aggressively.

What I would do:

  • Update the Wi-Fi driver from the laptop or card vendor, not just Windows Update.
  • In device properties, disable “power saving” / low power modes for testing.
  • Check if the link speed (in Windows: Wi-Fi status) looks reasonable (500+ Mbps on 5 GHz near the router for Wifi 6).

If your devices are stuck at 200–300 Mbps link rate even next to the router, no standard will magically fix that until drivers and settings are right.

4. Environment can erase generation differences

Here is where I slightly disagree with the “just tweak channels” approach. In a lot of dense environments:

  • Moving from channel 36 to 44, or 80 to 40 MHz, helps a bit.
  • But if you live in an apartment with 10+ networks, that only gets you so far.

At that point, the more structural questions are:

  • Do you have any way to run an Ethernet line and place a second access point?
  • Is your router hidden in a cabinet, behind a TV, or in a corner by the ISP drop?

If your Wifi 5 router was also in a suboptimal spot, and you kept the same placement, the physics did not change. Wifi 6 does not have a “wall bypass” feature.

This is where I like a tool like NetSpot more than random guesswork:

Pros of using NetSpot:

  • Visual heatmaps of signal strength so you see where your coverage actually dies.
  • Channel usage per area so you can pick the least congested options, instead of just guessing.
  • Helps you plan where a second AP or mesh node would do the most good.

Cons of NetSpot:

  • Desktop-focused; not as convenient as a quick phone app for casual checks.
  • The more advanced site survey features can be overkill if you only want a quick look.
  • There is a learning curve if you want to interpret all the graphs properly.

Competitors exist, like inSSIDer or other Wi-Fi scanners, and they can also help, but the principle is the same: measure first, then decide.

Once you actually see that your “bad room” is getting something like -80 dBm and heavy neighbor overlap, it becomes clear why Wifi 6 feels just like Wifi 5 there.

5. When you should actually care about Wifi 6

Beyond what was already said, I would frame it like this:

You genuinely benefit from Wifi 6 if:

  • You are moving toward gigabit or multi-gig internet.
  • You use NAS / home servers / large backups over Wi-Fi regularly.
  • You have 20+ devices connected and multiple heavy users at the same time.
  • You plan to keep the router 5+ years and want future devices to be efficient.

You will mostly not notice Wifi 6 if:

  • Your ISP speed is 100–300 Mbps.
  • You only have a handful of active clients.
  • You rarely transfer large files within your LAN.
  • Your main problem is physical layout and walls, not congestion.

In that second category, you did not really buy a speed boost, you bought “future capacity” and maybe slightly better behavior under stress.

6. What I’d actually do in your position

Instead of endlessly tweaking:

  1. Verify your fastest client is truly Wifi 6 and up to date.
    • Check link speed near the router.
  2. Run a quick “stress” test.
    • One device on a call / game.
    • Another starts a big download.
    • Watch how bad ping or quality gets.
  3. Use NetSpot or a similar tool to look at your home layout.
    • Confirm if there are real dead zones or insane congestion.
  4. If coverage is the main issue, plan for one of these:
    • Move the router to a more central, open location if at all possible.
    • Add a wired access point.
    • Or a decent mesh node where NetSpot shows coverage falls off.

If after this you still see “no difference” and your usage is light, the answer is simply: your old Wifi 5 was already good enough for what you do. The new gear is more about resilience under heavier, future loads than immediate visual gains.