- Qualcomm Immersive Home Platforms offer four new solutions for Wi-Fi 6 mesh routers.
- The 210 series is a cheaper dual-band option.
- The 310 series offers Wi-Fi 6E support for less congestion on the network.
Between the rapid proliferation of connected home peripherals, increased data usage via streaming services, and higher internet speeds, a single router just isn't right for most users.
Mesh routers have filled the void by promising to increase coverage and bandwidth for a larger number of devices. However, as more users access smart speakers or smart displays, existing Wi-Fi 5-based solutions can no longer prevent this entirely.
Wi-Fi 6 and Wi-Fi 6E, on the other hand, offer a number of enhancements to reduce network congestion and allow more concurrent users in addition to higher bandwidth. The Qualcomm Immersive Home Platform is the company's modular solution for the next generation of mesh routers.
What is the Qualcomm Immersive Home Platform?
As the next generation of Qualcomm's mesh networking solution, the Immersive Home platform consists of four different platforms on two levels to cover a wide price range.
The Qualcomm Immersive Home 210 series is a dual band solution that enhances Qualcomm's existing IPQ4 family of Wi-Fi 5-based options. The main focus here is to increase the number of devices that can connect to the router at the same time while improving throughput (the speed between the connected device and router) and range. Qualcomm claims that the updated platform delivers up to 2.5 times the throughput per watt compared to previous generation solutions, which helps keep the size small and also reduce costs.
Meanwhile, the Immersive Home 310 series is a far more significant overhaul. The tri-band Wi-Fi 6 solution uses a dedicated backhaul channel over Wi-Fi 6E instead of connecting over the existing 5GHz channel to ensure the speed or congestion of the old 2.4 - and 5 GHz channels does not decrease.
What is the difference between the four platforms?
Both the Immersive Home 214 and Immersive Home 216 are similar platforms in that they are based on a dual-band solution. The main difference between them is the support for additional spatial streams on the 216.
A spatial stream is a transmission technique that allows multiple data signals from each individual antenna. These two additional streams on the 216 allow a theoretical increase in speed from 3.0 Gbit / s to 5.4 Gbit / s. In practice, you can expect support for more devices and faster local data transfers or even 4K streaming to more screens simultaneously.
The differences become much more drastic when you switch from the 210 to the 310 platform. The Qualcomm Immersive Home 310 series brings Wi-Fi 6E into the mix. The latest expansion of the Wi-Fi 6 standard opens up access to the 6 GHz spectrum. In addition, data is transmitted between separate nodes or access points using the 6 GHz spectrum, which is not only significantly faster, but also leaves the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz channels open without overloading the network
The additional radio band opens up a bandwidth of 1,200 MHz, which is crucial for reducing congestion and enables use cases such as 8 KB streaming with real speeds of more than 1 Gbit / s and lower latency.
Again, the main difference between the Immersive Home 316 and 318 is in the spatial band support. While the 316 supports six bands, the 318 increases these to eight, which allows more simultaneous data streams and thus increases the theoretical data transfer speed to 7.8 Gbit / s.
What does this mean for buyers?
While the Immersive Home Platform is not Qualcomm's first entry into Wi-Fi 6-based solutions, the wider range of options across all price segments is likely to lead to increased competition in the chipset space.
The segment already has options from Broadcom and Marvell. However, additional options and cheaper options should encourage a wider range of affordable mesh routers that support the latest standard.
