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If you're in the market for a new wireless router, most of the models you'll find clearly

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support both 2.4 and 5GHz Wi-Fi.

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We talked about the difference between these two things in this video, but there's still

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a burning question. Why are we still using the 2.4GHz band, which is much slower than the more modern 5GHz band?

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To answer, we reached out to our friend Joel Crane, and we'd like to thank him for his

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contributions. So at first glance, 2.4GHz seems inferior.

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It has far less available spectrum than 5GHz, which means less bandwidth and more interference

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from other devices. And the 5GHz band's minimum connection speed is 6Mbps compared to just 1Mbps for 2.4.

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These minimum speeds are often deliberately used for management overhead, such as a smartphone

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acknowledging to the router that it did in fact receive a data packet.

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And devices that talk more slowly consume more time on the channel, further limiting

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throughput. So, what's the deal? Well, first of all, there are still lots of client devices out there that only support

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2.4GHz. Older devices, lower-end gadgets, and Internet of Things, or IoT products, are notorious

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for this. And as with many things in life, cost is a big driver behind this, as we've been making

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2.4GHz devices for a lot longer, and it's less complicated to stick a 2.4GHz radio inside

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cheap electronics. By contrast, 5GHz radios nearly always have a 2.4GHz radio in them as well to ensure

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backward compatibility, meaning that a 5GHz device is more complicated to manufacture.

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So even if the cost is only a few cents more per unit, that can quickly add up to a lot

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of money if a manufacturer is shipping millions of smart doorbells or whatever.

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And on the subject of smart doorbells, there just isn't any reason for many IoT devices

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to use the 5GHz band, as the smart light bulb in your bedroom, for example, doesn't require

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an incredibly fast connection to receive the command to change from red to blue.

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There's even a practical advantage to this by placing low bandwidth devices such as IoT

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products on your home network's 2.4GHz band and everything else on your 5GHz band.

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You can cut down on interference and increase throughput on your 4K streams and other more

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data-hungry operations that way. However, some products that could actually benefit from 5GHz Wi-Fi actually still don't

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have it. You see, it's common for manufacturers of products where connectivity isn't the main

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focus to simply tell their designers, hey, we want Wi-Fi in this thing.

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And the company will proceed to order the cheapest radios that you can find that will

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simply work, which often means devices will end up with 2.4 only support because the manufacturer

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doesn't know any better. You sometimes see this with products like gym equipment, where the brand is more concerned

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about ensuring that the pedals on the elliptical don't collapse rather than about whether

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the built-in screen can deliver a lag-free 1080p video playback.

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But there's another important reason that doesn't have anything to do with manufacturers

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being cheap and lazy. Range.

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Although 5GHz Wi-Fi has many advantages, 2.4 still beats it in terms of range.

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It can go farther and is better at dealing with pesky obstacles such as walls.

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Again, this is important for IoT devices as well as industrial applications, meaning

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that not only is 2.4GHz still popular for Wi-Fi, it's also still used for Bluetooth

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and smart home protocols such as ZigBee. The last thing you want is for your smart coffee maker to forget to start brewing when

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you wake up simply because it's too far from your router.

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A real modern tragedy. So even though 2.4GHz Wi-Fi has become less common in certain situations, places like

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stadiums and conventions are more frequently turning it off due to interference, its combination

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of cost-effectiveness, range, and backwards compatibility means that it will still have

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a home in our gadgets for quite some time.

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My older doesn't always mean it's worse.

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Just ask Finch from American Pie. Wow, I'm old. That's an old new reference.

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So thanks for watching guys. If you liked this video, get subscribed, give it a thumbs up, and be sure to hit us up in

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the comments with your suggestions for videos that we should cover in the future.