Changes to Wi-Fi Certified Easy Connect and Wi-Fi Certified EasyMesh are the latest developments from the Wi-Fi Alliance intended to make it easier to set up and manage Wi-Fi networks while still supporting strong security and ensuring consistent home coverage.
New features available for Wi-Fi Easy Connect now enable zero touch, secure provisioning of devices onto home networks.
Wi-Fi EasyMesh
Additions to Wi-Fi EasyMesh increase Wi-Fi network capacity, support more simultaneous services, and deliver end-to-end service prioritization.
New advancements now available for each program are meant to deliver benefits to users and service providers, while home Wi-Fi networks supporting both Wi-Fi Easy Connect and Wi-Fi EasyMesh establish smarter networks that are interoperable, secure, easy to set up, flexible, and extend high quality Wi-Fi throughout the home.
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“Today’s homes are built on Wi-Fi, and Wi-Fi Certified continually progresses to deliver more advanced Wi-Fi networks that meet the needs of increasingly diverse devices and services,” said Kevin Robinson, senior vice president of marketing, Wi-Fi Alliance. “By making it easier to set up and manage Wi-Fi networks, while still supporting strong security and ensuring consistent home coverage, Wi-Fi is helping to advance the connected home experience.”
Wi-Fi Easy Connect Features
Wi-Fi Easy Connect simplifies the process of adding Wi-Fi devices with limited or no display interface – such as smart doorbells, lightbulbs, or smoke detectors – to both home and enterprise-grade Wi-Fi networks, while supporting advanced WPA3 security.
New features available for Wi-Fi Easy Connect enable simple and flexible network authentication and on-boarding and introduce two new onboarding and configuration methods: zero touch cloud-based technology or Near Field Communication (NFC) tag. Onboarding by scanning the quick response (QR) code is still available.
The easy process allows devices to gain secure network access using the latest security protocols, and devices will remain configured when there is a change to network settings, including a change in SSID. Based on public-key cryptography, Wi-Fi Easy Connect provides the ability to strongly authenticate and manage individual devices on the network and enforce network security policies on an individual device basis.
Wi-Fi EasyMesh networks employ multiple access points working together to form a unified mesh network that provides smart, high-performance Wi-Fi coverage throughout the home. With support for Wi-Fi 6, Wi-Fi EasyMesh extends the latest generation of Wi-Fi throughout the home and delivers greater capacity, reduced latency, and advanced features to support more simultaneous services and applications.
Wi-Fi EasyMesh supports configuration of traffic prioritization policies for improved experiences in low latency applications – such as ensuring real-time, interactive video display is not impacted by less time-sensitive applications. Wi-Fi EasyMesh provides enhanced diagnostics and metrics with full support for Wi-Fi Data Elements, enabling service providers to more proactively identify and resolve Wi-Fi network issues. Wi-Fi EasyMesh can also leverage Wi-Fi Easy Connect for user-friendly onboarding of additional access points to further extend home network coverage where it is needed.
“This release of Wi-Fi EasyMesh and Wi-Fi Easy Connect focuses on securing the Connected Home experience, making it easy for end-users to connect their devices and self-install APs to improve their Wi-Fi coverage,” stated Darshak Thakore, principal architect at CableLabs. “CableLabs was happy to contribute to the development of these programs because they allow our members to proactively manage their networks using Wi-Fi Data Elements and provide a resilient in-home connectivity experience.”
