We recommend enabling MU-MIMO unless you experience connection issues with it turned on. Depending on the age of your router or access point and the installed firmware version, MU-MIMO might or might not be enabled by default. While MU-MIMO provides a situational performance benefit to many devices, it can in rare cases cause connection instability for older devices. MU-MIMO only takes effect when two or more client devices that support MU-MIMO are connected.

If you want to use MU-MIMO in your home or business wireless network, both your client device and your router or access point must support the 802.11ac Wave 2 standard at a minimum.

SU-MIMO also allows multiple simultaneous transmissions, but only to one client device at a time. MU-MIMO’s predecessor, single-user multiple-input multiple-output (SU-MIMO), was introduced in the WiFi 4 (802.11n) generation. MU-MIMO can also help to reduce network congestion and improve download speeds. Because the broadcast device never interrupts its connection to the client to communicate with other clients, MU-MIMO can minimize jittery video, freezes, and buffering. MU-MIMO can reduce latency and improve performance during data-intense activities such as streaming video, video conferencing, or viewing webinars. MU-MIMO operates in the downstream direction (broadcaster to client) and allows a WiFi router or access point to transmit to multiple client devices simultaneously. Multi-user multiple-input multiple-output (MU-MIMO) is a feature introduced midway through the WiFi 5 generation as part of the IEEE 802.11ac Wave 2 standard.

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