Qualcomm announced its new ‘Immersive Home Platforms’ line of mesh networking products that the company says will bring gigabit speeds to people’s home Wi-Fi networks.
Qualcomm describes Immersive Home Platforms as a successor to its mesh networking platforms, but with a focus on smaller sizes and lower costs. In a press release, the company says these new Immersive Home Platforms as being “small as the palm of the hand.”
Further, Qualcomm says they’re cost-effective and can target low price points. Immersive Home Platforms use a “novel modular architecture approach,” advanced network packet processing technology and integrate Wi-Fi 6 and 6E to achieve high speeds in a smaller form factor.
On top of that, Qualcomm says it offers four tiers of Immersive Home Platforms, granting manufacturers flexibility in their design and product offerings. The focus on pricing and network capabilities are especially important given the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Making more accessible, affordable internet devices that offer higher levels of performance could help people outfit their homes with advanced Wi-Fi for better remote work, remote learning and other online tasks.
In short, these new platforms could soon power new Wi-Fi solutions that provide better connectivity, improved mesh coverage and faster speeds while keeping node sizes small. Those interested can read the nitty-gritty details below.
Immersive Home Platform capabilities
Qualcomm has two sets of Immersive Home Platforms, each with two products. First, there’s the Immersive Home 310 Series, which offer tri-band Wi-Fi 6. These devices can offer 2.4GHz and 5GHz Wi-Fi bands for users to connect to as well as a 5GHz-6GHz for node-to-node backhaul traffic.
You can view the advanced details of each 310 series device below:
- Qualcomm Immersive Home 318 Platform: 8-stream tri-band in a 2×2 (2.4GHz) + 2×2 (5GHz) + 4×4 (6GHz) configuration for a total of 7.8Gbps physical layer (PHY) rate. PHY rates measure the maximum speed that data can move across a wireless link between a wireless client and wireless router. The 318 Platform also supports 160MHz channels in the 5 and 6GHz bands, and a 4×4 Wi-Fi 6E configuration in the 6GHz band.
- Qualcomm Immersive Home 316 Platform: 6-stream tri-band in a 2×2 (2.4GHz) + 2×2 (5GHz) + 2×2 (6GHz) configurations for a total of 5.4Gbps PHY rate. Also supports 160MHz channels in the 5 and 6GHz bands.
Additionally, Qualcomm has the Immersive Home 210 Series, which offer dual-band Wi-Fi 6 products. Unlike the tri-band products, the dual-band options don’t have the advanced 5GHz-6GHz backhaul option, but still offer excellent performance. Both the 210 Series options provide support for 160MHz channels in the 5GHz band.
- Qualcomm Immersive Home 216 Platform: 6-stream Wi-Fi 6 in a 2×2 (2.4GHz) + 4×4 (5GHz) configuration with a total of 5.4Gbps total available PHY rate.
- Qualcomm Immersive Home 214 Platform: 4-stream Wi-Fi 6 in a 2×2 (2.4GHz) + 2×2 (5GHz) configurations with a total of 3.0Gbps total available PHY rate.
