Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. unveiled the Qualcomm® Immersive Home Platforms, a successor to the company’s groundbreaking mesh networking platforms. Designed to deploy Gigabit-speed wireless performance to every room in the home in form factors as small as the palm of the hand, these devices are cost-effective enough to target low consumer price points. This engineering feat is achieved through a novel modular architecture approach, significant advancements in network packet processing technology and an integration of next-generation Wi-Fi 6 and 6E.
In the face of skyrocketing home data demand, Immersive Home Platforms offer four distinct product tiers. These tiers grant unprecedented design flexibility to manufacturers and broadband carriers motivated to embrace Wi-Fi 6 and 6E mesh architectures comprehensively across their entire product portfolio. As home network performance has become mission critical, Qualcomm Technologies is meeting the challenge to provide corner-to-corner Gigabit wireless performance, in an effort to ensure every meeting is productive, every classroom is engaged and every device is connected.
“We have launched the Qualcomm Immersive Home platforms, a fresh approach to home networking leveraging high powered Wi-Fi 6 and 6E, a fresh architectural design customized for home deployments and advanced features designed to deliver Gigabit performance to every corner of the home,” said Nick Kucharewski, vice president and general manager, Wireless Infrastructure & Networking, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. “Today, as offices, classrooms, movie theatres and everything in between move into the home, high performance Wi-Fi has transitioned from luxury to mission critical utility.”
“Before COVID-19, the proliferation of Wi-Fi-enabled products in the home and increasingly HD, 4k, and soon 8k video meant an increasing focus on more capable Wi-Fi access points by consumers and service providers,” said Phil Solis, research director at IDC. “During the COVID-19 pandemic, network needs became even more pronounced with many Wi-Fi networks stressed by the shift to more work, education, and entertainment from home. Wi-Fi 6 and Wi-Fi 6E mesh network solutions such as the Qualcomm Immersive Home Platforms are critical to enabling Wi-Fi access point vendors to be provide the range, data rates, and capacity now required in many homes.”
“Wi-Fi’s popularity has created increasingly diverse and densely populated Wi-Fi environments, including home networks which must now support many demanding applications simultaneously,” said Kevin Robinson, senior vice president of Marketing, Wi-Fi Alliance. “The capabilities of Wi-Fi 6E, such as gigabit speeds, low latency, and high capacity, will benefit users where they now need it most and allow Wi-Fi devices to operate efficiently in the most dynamic home connectivity settings.”
“While everyone now understands the incredible importance of Wi-Fi networks in work-from-home and learn-from-home environments, not everyone knows about the benefits that modern Wi-Fi mesh networks can provide,” said Bob O’Donnell, president and chief analyst, TECHnalysis Research, LLC. “In addition, not every household has the same requirements. The beauty of a modular platform is that it lets OEMs and consumers tackle everything from forward-looking massive bandwidth applications using 6 GHz Wi-Fi 6E to tiny mesh extenders that can inconspicuously bring stronger traditional Wi-Fi signals to every room in a home.”
Qualcomm Immersive Home 310 Series
Representing the Qualcomm® Tri-Band Wi-Fi 6 platforms within the portfolio, the 310 Series offerings are designed to simultaneously leverage all three bands of spectrum to support IoT-class devices (2.4 GHz), today’s legacy media devices (5 GHz), and enable congestion-relieving migration of node-to-node backhaul traffic from 5 GHz to the 6 GHz band, while ensuring the network is prepared to support devices supporting emerging 6 GHz applications (VR/XR, live video sharing/streaming, real-time gaming).
• Qualcomm Immersive Home 318 Platform:
o Advanced eight-stream Tri-Band in a 2 x 2 (2.4 GHz) + 2 x 2 (5G Hz) + 4 x 4 (6 GHz) configuration, for a total of 7.8 Gbps total available PHY rate
o Multi-gigabit wireless throughput for high performance clients
o Support for 160 MHz channels in 5/6 GHz bands
o 4 x 4 Wi-Fi 6E configuration in the 6 GHz band delivers enhanced performance, range, and/or client count
• Qualcomm Immersive Home 316 Platform:
o Advanced six-stream Tri-Band in a 2 x 2 (2.4 GHz) + 2 x 2 (5 GHz) + 2 x 2 (6 GHz) configuration, for a total of 5.4 Gbps total available PHY rate
o Multi-gigabit wireless throughput for high performance clients
o Support for 160 MHz channels in 5/6 GHz bands
Qualcomm Immersive Home 210 Series
Representing the Dual-Band Wi-Fi 6 platforms within the portfolio, these offerings are designed to offer immediate and significant performance and cost benefits to existing mesh providers.
• Qualcomm Immersive Home 216 Platform:
o Innovative 6-stream Wi-Fi 6 in a 2 x 2 (2.4 GHz) + 4 x 4 (5 GHz) configuration, for a total of 5.4 Gbps total available PHY rate
o Multi-gigabit wireless throughput for high performance clients
o Support for 160 MHz channels in 5GHz bands
o 4 x 4 Wi-Fi 6 configuration in the 5 GHz band delivers enhanced performance, range and/or client count
• Qualcomm Immersive Home 214 Platform:
o Innovative four-stream Wi-Fi 6 in a 2 x 2 (2.4 GHz) + 2 x 2 (5 GHz) configuration, for a total of 3.0 Gbps total available PHY rate
o Multi-gigabit wireless throughput for high performance clients
o Support for 160 MHz channels in 5GHz bands
In both dual and tri-band series, Qualcomm Immersive Home Platforms bring significant differentiation derived from decades of R&D and proven infrastructure engineering expertise across multiple proprietary connectivity portfolios, including:
• High performance integration and optimization: Qualcomm Immersive Home Platforms can deliver Gigabit wireless in a form factor highly optimized for size, scale and performance. For instance, when compared to Qualcomm® IPQ4xxx family (found in the majority of Wi-Fi 5-generation mesh systems), Qualcomm Immersive Home Platforms can deliver 2.5X throughput per watt, a system-level optimization that keeps industrial designs small, heat profiles cool and overall device costs low.
• Broad Wi-Fi technology support: Qualcomm Immersive Home Platforms are built to deliver seamless roaming, band/node client steering and advanced security safeguards across Wi-Fi 4, 5, 6, 6E and support many of the industry’s leading mesh software protocols including Qualcomm® Wi-Fi SON, the OpenSync™ open-source software, eero’s TrueMesh and the Wi-Fi Alliance’s Wi-Fi CERTIFIED EasyMesh™ standard.
• Powerful smart home integration capabilities: Qualcomm Immersive Home Platforms feature advanced Qualcomm® Multi-User Traffic Management technologies to balance and support all the Wi-Fi connected devices in a modern smart home, while high performance Bluetooth integration enables seamless onboarding and integration of advanced applications leveraging either connectivity technology.
• Ultra-low latency enabled: Qualcomm Immersive Home Platforms can support, in certain configurations with 6 GHz operation, a new class of emerging latency-sensitive applications like mobile gaming and XR through latency reduction up to 8x in congested environments and wireless VR-class latency of <3 ms.