Unveiling the Future: Wi-Fi 7 and Smart Home Advancements Take Center Stage at CES 2024

In Las Vegas, Nevada, in January, some things never change. You can count on lots of glitz, the odds of rolling a hard six (one in 36, by the way), and thousands of electronics industry professionals descending on the desert for the Consumer Electronics Show (CES). This year, CES drew crowds that brought attendance back to pre-COVID levels, with more than 135,000 attendees and 4,300 exhibitors. For Qorvo, the CES constant was innovation. Qorvo’s 2,100 square foot booth greeted visitors with the theme, Smart Living Unlocked, showcasing the latest smart home, IoT, 5G, Wi-Fi, Ultra-Wideband (UWB), touch sensor and power solutions.

Many of the innovations demand continued evolution in Wi-Fi capabilities that allow new solutions to be optimized for performance, range, capacity, and security for home networks.

Qorvo Connectivity Components GM Tony Testa says he sees growing excitement about future applications in the Wi-Fi 6 space, as well as the newly ratified Wi-Fi 7. “There’s a lot of activity and conversations and a ton of work in the industry about this going forward,” Tony said.

Tony offers a look at how he and his colleagues are looking closely at the Wi-Fi 7 benefits and what they mean for how it comes to market:

Click the play button to listen.

Tony says these efforts amount to significant energy savings, “Fifteen plus percent reduction in overall energy in the boxes. So we're super excited as we move forward to Wi-Fi7,” he said.

He also notices a broader shift in Wi-Fi 7 towards nonlinear architectures, which helps drive efficiency in various products. “So again, that kind of feeds our vector as we look at efficiency and overall current draw,” he said. “Wider bandwidth and the frequency extension that occurred with Wi-Fi 6E is still happening out in the market. There's a host of RF complexities. So, if we look at folks rolling out new standards, new boxes, there are coexistence issues that continue to appear both from coexisting with other connectivity modes, whether it be Bluetooth®, UWB, cellular bands.”

As a result, Tony says coexistence is a key focus for many manufacturers. And as the industry looks at band separation, dividing and protecting the spectrum using filtering is still a critical feature.

Qorvo Connectivity & Sensors President Eric Creviston spoke with several CES attendees and said, “The smart homes of the future will increasingly rely on these technologies to connect, minimize power consumption and deliver exceptional levels of service quality quickly and securely. At Qorvo, we make it easy and cost-efficient for our customers to offer the full benefits of these leading technologies to consumers around the world.”

Learn more about Eric’s views on the latest consumer technologies in this video: For Your Innovation (FYI) on IoT

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