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WiGig

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WiGig (short for Wireless Gigabit) is a family of short-range wireless networking technologies that operate in the unlicensed 60 GHz millimeter-wave band and carry data at multiple gigabits per second. The name was created by the Wireless Gigabit Alliance, an industry group launched in May 2009, and the technology was standardized by the IEEE as the 802.11ad amendment to Wi-Fi in 2012.[1][2] Its successor, IEEE 802.11ay, was approved in 2021.[3] The Wi-Fi Alliance, which absorbed the Wireless Gigabit Alliance in 2013, launched a certification program for 802.11ad products under the name Wi-Fi CERTIFIED WiGig in 2016.[4][5]

In virtual reality, WiGig was used as the link in the HTC Vive Wireless Adapter, which HTC released in September 2018 for the HTC Vive and HTC Vive Pro. The adapter used Intel's WiGig hardware together with a video codec from DisplayLink to replace the cable between a gaming PC and a tethered headset.[6] The 60 GHz band offers wide channels but short range, and concrete walls and other obstacles easily block the signal.[7] Later wireless PC VR systems such as Air Link and a proposed adapter built on Wi-Fi 6E used conventional Wi-Fi bands instead.[8][9]

Reviewed 27 September 2026. Checked the lead, standards dates and throughput figures against IEEE, Wi-Fi Alliance and the Nitsche 2014 and Ghasempour 2017 papers, and every VR product, price, date and quote against its cited source. About review dates.

How it works

WiGig moves Wi-Fi from the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands into the 60 GHz band, where a large amount of spectrum is available for unlicensed use in many countries. IEEE 802.11ad defines a single channel bandwidth of 2.16 GHz, which Nitsche and colleagues, writing in IEEE Communications Magazine in 2014, describe as 50 times wider than the channels in 802.11n and roughly 14 times wider than those in 802.11ac.[7]

The standard has three physical layers. A Control PHY (MCS 0, 27.5 Mbps) is used for beacons, discovery and beamforming training before a high-rate link exists. A single-carrier PHY, including a low-power variant, reaches up to 4.62 Gbps and suits battery-powered devices. An optional OFDM PHY using 64-QAM reaches the highest 802.11ad rate of 6.75 Gbps.[7] The WiGig Alliance's original 2009 specification promised up to 7 Gbps,[1] and the Wi-Fi Alliance quotes speeds of up to 8 Gbps for certified devices.[5]

Propagation at 60 GHz differs sharply from lower Wi-Fi bands. At a typical 802.11ad range of 10 meters, the Friis transmission equation predicts 22 dB of additional attenuation compared with 5 GHz. Oxygen absorption peaks near 60 GHz but plays only a minor role over such short distances. The signal behaves in a quasi-optical way: reception is dominated by the line-of-sight path and first-order reflections, metal surfaces reflect well, and concrete causes large losses and easily blocks the link.[7] To make up for these losses, 802.11ad devices use directional antennas. Phased antenna arrays form a set of "sectors", and the two ends of a link run a beamforming training procedure (an initial sector matching followed by a refinement stage) to pick the best transmit and receive directions.[7] The Wi-Fi Alliance describes certified WiGig devices as using beamforming to reach multi-gigabit speeds with low latency at distances of up to ten meters.[5]

IEEE 802.11ay

The IEEE 802.11 Task Group ay was formed in 2015 to build a faster successor to 802.11ad for applications including augmented reality and virtual reality, which Ghasempour and colleagues wrote exceeded "what 802.11ad can offer".[10] 802.11ay adds channel bonding and aggregation (combined channels of 4.32, 6.48 and 8.64 GHz), and multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) operation with up to eight spatial streams per station, while staying backward compatible with 802.11ad devices.[10] The IEEE Standards Board approved IEEE 802.11ay-2021 on 25 March 2021 and published it on 28 July 2021. Its scope requires at least one mode able to reach a maximum throughput of at least 20 Gbps, measured at the MAC data service access point.[3]

History

Date Event
May 2009 Wireless Gigabit Alliance launched to develop a unified 60 GHz specification[1]
December 2009 WiGig Alliance completes its 60 GHz specification, promising up to 7 Gbps[1]
19 October 2012 IEEE Standards Board approves IEEE 802.11ad-2012 (published 28 December 2012)[2]
3 January 2013 Wi-Fi Alliance and WiGig Alliance announce plans to consolidate[11]
5 March 2013 Unification of the two organizations finalized[4]
24 October 2016 Wi-Fi Alliance launches the Wi-Fi CERTIFIED WiGig program[5]
January-June 2017 HTC says at CES that Intel is developing a WiGig wireless solution for the Vive; the prototype is shown to press at E3[12]
September 2017 Intel announces the end of its existing WiGig products and reportedly continues WiGig development for VR headsets[13]
24 September 2018 HTC Vive Wireless Adapter goes on sale[6]
16 October 2018 Qualcomm announces its first 802.11ay-based 60 GHz chipsets[14]
25 March 2021 IEEE Standards Board approves IEEE 802.11ay-2021[3]

The Wireless Gigabit Alliance was backed by companies including Intel, Broadcom and Atheros. Its specification extended the 802.11 MAC layer so that 60 GHz devices stayed compatible with existing Wi-Fi, and its chairman, Ali Sadri, described it as "the industry's first unified 60 GHz specification".[1] The IEEE's 802.11ad amendment followed in 2012.[2]

The Wi-Fi Alliance and the WiGig Alliance signed a memorandum of understanding at the start of 2013 to merge their work, after about two years of collaboration.[11] The Wi-Fi Alliance finalized the unification on 5 March 2013, taking over WiGig technology development and certification, including features for wireless displays, peripheral connectivity and I/O cable replacement.[4] When certification began in October 2016, the first certified products were the Dell Latitude E7450/70, Intel Tri-Band Wireless, Peraso's 60 GHz USB adapter reference design, Qualcomm's 802.11ad client and router solution based on the QCA9500 chipset, and a Socionext reference adapter. The Wi-Fi Alliance listed wireless docking, augmented reality and virtual reality, multimedia streaming and gaming among the target uses.[5]

In September 2017 Intel told partners to place final orders for its existing WiGig products by 29 September, with last shipments by 29 December 2017. Liliputing reported that the company was continuing to develop WiGig solutions for VR headsets.[13]

Applications in VR and AR

HTC Vive Wireless Adapter

At its CES press conference in January 2017, HTC said that Intel was working on its own wireless solution for the Vive based on WiGig. A May 2017 update said the system would be demonstrated to press at E3 2017, and the companies claimed "pristine video quality with <7ms latency in any environment, supporting multiple users sharing the same space".[12] In an Engadget hands-on published during E3, Devindra Hardawar found the prototype "a bit large and cumbersome" on the Vive's head strap but reported smooth play in Space Pirate Trainer.[15]

The production adapter was shown at CES 2018. Road to VR's Ben Lang found the link robust in about 20 minutes of play, needing deliberate blocking of the antennas before it failed, but said he could tell the wireless and tethered headsets apart "with 100% accuracy" in a blind test because of added latency.[16] HTC released the adapter on 24 September 2018 at US$299, with a US$60 compatibility pack for the Vive Pro. HTC said it used "Intel's WiGig specification" in the 60 GHz band with DisplayLink's XR codec, had a range of 6 meters and a 150-degree field of view from the sensor, and ran from an HTC QC 3.0 PowerBank.[6] The PC side needs a desktop with a free PCIe slot, so the system cannot be used with laptops, and Road to VR advised mounting the transmitter high with a direct line of sight to the headset because 60 GHz signals do not penetrate walls or other objects well.[17]

The same adapter later supported the HTC Vive Cosmos series and the HTC Vive Pro 2. HTC's product page lists support for up to 3264 x 1632 resolution at 90 Hz on the Vive Pro 2, up to three adapters in a single room-scale space depending on region, and known compatibility issues with AMD AM4 and TR4 motherboards.[18] When the Vive Pro 2 was announced in May 2021, UploadVR reported that the adapter initially ran it at 1224 x 1224 per eye and 90 Hz, well below the headset's wired 2448 x 2448 per eye at 120 Hz, with a firmware update to 1632 x 1632 per eye planned. HTC attributed the gap to the bandwidth of the 60 GHz link.[19]

Other 60 GHz approaches

Not every 60 GHz VR link was WiGig. TPCAST, another wireless kit for the Vive, used the WirelessHD standard, which also works in the 60 GHz band and, from version 1.1, supports data rates of up to 28 Gbps. Road to VR contrasted it with WiGig, a general-purpose networking standard that could in principle share hardware with consumer routers.[12]

Chipmaker Nitero introduced the NT4600 in 2014, marketing it as the first end-to-end IEEE 802.11ad solution designed for mobile devices.[20] AMD acquired Nitero's wireless VR intellectual property and staff in April 2017. Road to VR described Nitero's product as a phased-array beamforming millimeter-wave chip for 60 GHz and reported that Valve had invested in the company.[21]

In October 2018 Qualcomm announced the QCA64x8 and QCA64x1 families, 60 GHz chipsets based on 802.11ay that it said delivered "10+ gigabit-per-second (Gbps) network speeds and wire-equivalent latency", and named virtual and augmented reality among the target uses.[14] UploadVR noted at the time that the Vive Wireless Adapter's WiGig link has to compress the video, which can show as blockiness in fast motion, and that 802.11ay's higher bandwidth could in theory carry a headset's signal without compression.[22]

Shift to conventional Wi-Fi

Later wireless PC VR used the ordinary Wi-Fi bands. Oculus introduced Air Link on 13 April 2021 as an experimental feature that streams PC VR content to the Oculus Quest 2 over a Wi-Fi network, recommending a 5 GHz network on an AC or AX router connected to the PC by Ethernet.[8] In July 2022 MIXED reported that the Nofio Wireless for Valve Index adapter would use Wi-Fi 6E "instead of WiGig".[9]

Research

Academic work on untethered VR has examined millimeter-wave links in general, not only commercial WiGig hardware. In a paper at the USENIX NSDI 2017 conference, Omid Abari, Dinesh Bharadia, Austin Duffield and Dina Katabi of MIT argued that the multi-gigabit rate of a VR headset link "precludes its replacement by WiFi" and turned to mmWave radios. They identified two problems: signals are blocked by simple obstacles such as the player's raised hand, and narrow beams lose alignment when the headset moves. Their system, MoVR, uses a programmable mmWave mirror together with the headset's tracking data to keep the link up, and was tested with an HTC headset.[23]

See also

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 Chris Davies (2009-12-10). "WiGig 60GHz specification completed: 7Gbps WiFi promised". SlashGear. https://www.slashgear.com/wigig-60ghz-specification-completed-7gbps-wifi-promised-1065698/. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 "IEEE 802.11ad-2012 - Amendment 3: Enhancements for Very High Throughput in the 60 GHz Band". IEEE Standards Association. IEEE. https://standards.ieee.org/standard/802_11ad-2012.html. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 "IEEE 802.11ay-2021 - Amendment 2: Enhanced Throughput for Operation in License-exempt Bands above 45 GHz". IEEE Standards Association. IEEE. https://standards.ieee.org/ieee/802.11ay/6142/. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 "Wi-Fi Alliance and Wireless Gigabit Alliance finalize unification". Wi-Fi Alliance. 2013-03-05. https://www.wi-fi.org/news-events/newsroom/wi-fi-alliance-and-wireless-gigabit-alliance-finalize-unification. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 "Wi-Fi CERTIFIED WiGig brings multi-gigabit performance to Wi-Fi devices". Wi-Fi Alliance. 2016-10-24. https://www.wi-fi.org/news-events/newsroom/wi-fi-certified-wigig-brings-multi-gigabit-performance-to-wi-fi-devices. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 "HTC VIVE cuts the cable with debut of VIVE Wireless Adapter". VIVE Newsroom. HTC. 2018-08-21. https://www.vive.com/us/newsroom/2018-08-21/. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4 Thomas Nitsche, Carlos Cordeiro, Adriana B. Flores, Edward W. Knightly, Eldad Perahia, Joerg C. Widmer (2014-12). "IEEE 802.11ad: directional 60 GHz communication for multi-gigabit-per-second Wi-Fi". IEEE Communications Magazine, vol. 52, no. 12, pp. 132-141. https://doi.org/10.1109/MCOM.2014.6979964. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 "Introducing Oculus Air Link, a Wireless Way to Play PC VR Games on Oculus Quest 2". Meta Quest Blog. Meta. 2021-04-13. https://www.meta.com/blog/introducing-oculus-air-link-a-wireless-way-to-play-pc-vr-games-on-oculus-quest-2-plus-infinite-office-updates-support-for-120-hz-on-quest-2-and-more/. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 Tomislav Bezmalinovic (2022-07-11). "Valve Index: New wireless adapter uses Wi-Fi 6E for low-latency PC VR streaming". MIXED. https://mixed-news.com/en/valve-index-new-wireless-adapter-uses-wi-fi-6e-for-low-latency-pc-vr-streaming/. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 Yasaman Ghasempour, Claudio R. C. M. da Silva, Carlos Cordeiro, Edward W. Knightly (2017). "IEEE 802.11ay: Next-Generation 60 GHz Communication for 100 Gb/s Wi-Fi". IEEE Communications Magazine, vol. 55, no. 12, pp. 186-192. https://doi.org/10.1109/MCOM.2017.1700393. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 Terrence O'Brien (2013-01-03). "WiFi and WiGig Alliances become one, work to promote 60GHz wireless". Engadget. https://www.engadget.com/2013-01-03-wifi-and-wigig-alliances-become-one.html. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 12.2 Paul James (2017-05-30). "HTC and Intel to Show New WiGig Wireless VR Solution at E3 2017". Road to VR. https://www.roadtovr.com/htc-intel-partner-new-wigig-wireless-vr-solution/. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 Brad Linder (2017-09-08). "Intel discontinues WiGig hardware for laptops". Liliputing. https://liliputing.com/intel-discontinues-wigig-hardware-laptops/. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
  14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 "Qualcomm Dramatically Extends Wi-Fi Experiences to the 5G Era with 60GHz 802.11ay Solutions". PR Newswire. Qualcomm. 2018-10-16. https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/qualcomm-dramatically-extends-wi-fi-experiences-to-the-5g-era-with-60ghz-802-11ay-solutions-300731566.html. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
  15. ↑ Devindra Hardawar (2017-06-14). "Intel's wireless HTC Vive add-on is where VR is headed". Engadget. https://www.engadget.com/2017/06/14/intel-wireless-vr-htc-vive/. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
  16. ↑ Ben Lang (2018-01-12). "Hands-on: Vive Wireless Adapter Debuts With Robust Connection but Latency Too". Road to VR. https://www.roadtovr.com/ces-2018-vive-wireless-adapter-hands-on-robust-connection-latency-too/. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
  17. ↑ Ben Lang. "Vive Wireless Adapter Priced at $300, Launches September 24th". Road to VR. https://www.roadtovr.com/htc-vive-wireless-adapter-release-date-price/. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
  18. ↑ "VIVE Wireless Adapter". VIVE. HTC. https://www.vive.com/us/accessory/wireless-adapter-full-pack/. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
  19. ↑ David Heaney (2021-05-12). "HTC's Wireless Adapter Doesn't Support Vive Pro 2's Full Resolution Or 120Hz". UploadVR. https://www.uploadvr.com/vive-pro-2-wireless-limitations/. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
  20. ↑ "Nitero Introduces NT4600 - The First End-to-End IEEE 802.11ad Solution Built from the Ground up for Mobile Applications". Design And Reuse. Nitero. 2014-07-16. https://www.design-reuse.com/news/35012/nitero-ieee-802-11ad.html. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
  21. ↑ Ben Lang (2017-04-10). "AMD Acquires Valve-invested Wireless VR Company Nitero". Road to VR. https://www.roadtovr.com/amd-acquires-valve-invested-wireless-vr-company-nitero/. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
  22. ↑ David Heaney (2018-11-02). "Qualcomm's New Chips Should Enable Better Wireless VR". UploadVR. https://www.uploadvr.com/qualcomms-60ghz-80211ay/. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
  23. ↑ Omid Abari, Dinesh Bharadia, Austin Duffield, Dina Katabi (2017-03). "Enabling High-Quality Untethered Virtual Reality". 14th USENIX Symposium on Networked Systems Design and Implementation (NSDI 17). USENIX. https://www.usenix.org/conference/nsdi17/technical-sessions/presentation/abari. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
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