Wi-Fi 5, Wi-Fi 6, Wi-Fi 6E, and Wi-Fi 7 are generational names from the Wi-Fi Alliance. They are not the same thing as “dual-band” or “tri-band,” and a mesh kit can be sold under any of these names.
The names and the older IEEE letters
In 2018 the Wi-Fi Alliance introduced simpler generation numbers. The press page that announced Wi-Fi 6 maps the names this way:
| Alliance name | IEEE name on that page |
|---|---|
| Wi-Fi 6 | 802.11ax |
| Wi-Fi 5 | 802.11ac |
| Wi-Fi 4 | 802.11n |
Those three pairs are the mappings that page prints. This site does not add an IEEE letter for Wi-Fi 7 here, because that 2018 page stops at Wi-Fi 6 and the other Wi-Fi Alliance page used below brands Wi-Fi 7 without printing an IEEE letter in the material this brief relied on.
What the Alliance says each generation does
The Wi-Fi Alliance’s MAC/PHY page is the source for the band notes below. It does not, in the facts used here, give a miles-per-hour style speed you should expect in a hallway.
Wi-Fi 5
Wi-Fi 5 is the CERTIFIED ac generation. The Alliance says it was introduced in 2014, and that most Wi-Fi 5 products are dual-band, operating in both the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands.
Wi-Fi 6
The Alliance says Wi-Fi 6 was introduced in 2018, aimed at higher capacity and better behavior when many devices are on the network. The same MAC/PHY page says Wi-Fi 6 also introduced Wi-Fi in the 6 GHz band in addition to 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz.
Wi-Fi 6E
Wi-Fi 6E is a name, not a new row in the 2018 letter table. The Wi-Fi Alliance’s announcement says Wi-Fi 6E is the industry name for devices that offer Wi-Fi 6 features and capabilities extended into the 6 GHz band. Read that next to the previous paragraph: the Alliance both describes Wi-Fi 6 as the generation that brought 6 GHz into Wi-Fi, and uses “6E” so shoppers can see that a particular device actually extends Wi-Fi 6 into that band.
Wi-Fi 7
The Alliance says Wi-Fi 7 was introduced in 2024 and enhances performance across the 2.4 GHz, 5 GHz, and 6 GHz bands. Features that page lists include 320 MHz channels in the 6 GHz band, multi-link operation, and 4K QAM. This page names those features and stops. It does not turn them into a throughput number.
How this sits next to a mesh kit
A mesh system is a way of using several access points. Wi-Fi 6 or Wi-Fi 7 is the generation those access points speak. You can have a Wi-Fi 6 mesh kit or a Wi-Fi 7 mesh kit. The generation does not, by itself, tell you whether backhaul has its own radio. That is the bands page. Your phone or laptop also has to support the generation and the band before it can use them. An older phone on a new kit still speaks the older language it knows.