Samsung has been awarded the ‘Best Wi-Fi Innovation Award’ by the Wireless Broadband Alliance for the Galaxy S10’s Wi-Fi capabilities. The Galaxy S10 is the first smartphone ever to win this award, and the two innovations in question are the S10’s support for Wi-Fi 6 networks and its Intelligent Wi-Fi features. Some of the latter are available on every Galaxy flagship, not just the Galaxy S10 devices, while Wi-Fi 6 support is present on the Galaxy Note 10 and Galaxy Fold as well.As Samsung explains, Intelligent Wi-Fi uses “machine learning to ensure that users’ Wi-Fi connections are both smart and safe.” Found in the Advanced menu of the Wi-Fi settings panel on a Galaxy S10 and other Galaxy devices, Intelligent Wi-Fi can detect suspicious activity over a network and warn the user, turn Wi-Fi on automatically when the user is in a location where Wi-Fi is used frequently (like your home or office), and switch to mobile data when the connection to a Wi-Fi network isn’t strong enough. Samsung even says that Intelligent Wi-Fi allows the Galaxy S10 to more quickly detect weaker Wi-Fi signals inside elevators.While Wi-Fi 6 is now supported on multiple Galaxy flagships, the Galaxy S10 was the first smartphone in the industry to come certified for the newest Wi-Fi standard. Wi-Fi 6, or 802.11ax as it’s technically called, offers up to 20 percent faster data transfer than Wi-Fi 5 (or 802.11ac, which is what all the 5GHz Wi-Fi networks are based on), especially when multiple devices are connected to a router. It does this while eating less battery power, although it will be a long time before Wi-Fi 6-enabled routers become affordable for the average consumer. Still, having support for it when you spend $1000 on a flagship smartphone makes sense, even if the technology won’t be usable in the immediate future.
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