Google’s Next Generation Nest Wifi Routers Will Likely Support the Broader Wi-fi 6E Standard

Google’s hardware devices are often a hit and miss, but where the company almost always manages to shine, it is in the consumer router space. Mesh-wifi networks are often very complicated to set up, and most of the standalone solutions are often very expensive, with inconsistent performance. Then comes Google’s Nest Wifi series, which managed to set a benchmark for mesh routers with an affordable price tag, solid performance and its set up and forget ease of use. 

The first generation Nest Wifi system launched in 2016, with a follow-up second gen launching in 2019. This means, we will likely see a new Nest Wifi device sometime this year. These Next Gen Nest Wifi devices were rumored to support the new Wifi 6 standard.

But recently a new Google device was listed on the FCC website, with support for the Wifi 6E standard. The FCC listing was filed with the following model number: “G6ZUC“, and as 9to5Google confirmed from its sources, it is indeed the model number for the next generation of Nest Wifi devices.

Both the Wi-fi 6 and 6E standard are almost similar, and the extra E in the latter stands for Extended. Meaning Wi-fi 6E is a broader implementation of 802.11ax, with an increased frequency band ranging from 5.925 GHz to 7.125 GHz, delivering up to 1,200 MHz of additional spectrum. This allows for 7 additional 160 MHz channels, doubling bandwidth and throughput.

Most premium mesh routers launching this year already have support for the Wi-fi 6E standard, so it is not surprising Google opted for the same. Although its real limitation lies in device support itself, where many devices lack simply lack the hardware to connect to the 6GHz band, and support is often limited to recent high end devices. As for a launch date, Google will most likely reveal the new router sometime at the end of the year, like we have seen for the earlier generations.