One antenna used to do

Older routers shipped with a single antenna handling one wireless data stream. Faster internet and a pile of connected devices per household pushed that count up to as many as eight.

“Today, there are routers with as many as eight antennas.”

Antennas are lanes

One antenna is a single-lane road. Fine for a small town and for the days when email was the main use, hopeless once city traffic shows up.

MIMO is the actual trick

Multiple-input, multiple-output is what makes extra antennas worth anything. Bolt on more antennas without it and you cause more problems than you solve.

“simply bolting on extra antennas without MIMO causes more problems than it solves”

More antennas, more paths

Spatial multiplexing turns antennas into parallel data lanes, but only if the router has the internal hardware to split them into separate paths. Antenna count alone doesn't do it.

Beamforming aims the signal

The router works out where your device is and focuses signal there. Think of people tossing pebbles into a pond in timed sequence so the ripples pile into one stronger wave at a chosen spot.

“One lone antenna has no other signals to coordinate with.”

Bounces and busy houses

Wi-Fi ricochets off walls, furniture, metal and people, so spaced-apart antennas mean at least one gets a clean path. MU-MIMO then talks to several devices at once instead of cycling through them.

Eight is overkill at home

Two to four antennas suit most homes, and a mesh network beats antenna count for coverage. No router bypasses the speed cap on your plan.

“a new eight-legged, spider-looking router won't magically bypass that”