Morse Micro Makes Wi-Fi HaLow a Close Reality at CES 2025

A couple of years ago, I enthusiastically published an explainer post on Wi-Fi Halow. (Make sure you have read that post before continuing!)

Since then, I’ve been looking for hardware to gain real-world experience with the standard. Many of you have also sent me questions about when you can use it in your sprawling property.

We all know how the effort has gone so far. Here’s some good news: We’re getting close.

Today at CES 2025, Morse Micro showcased and demoed a complete set of Wi-Fi Halow, including a broadcaster and a couple of USB-based receivers. Most importantly, they showed a real Wi-Fi Halow connection by streaming live footage of a camera placed really far away on a screen.

So, what’s the hold-up on the availability of Wi-Fi Halow? Let’s find out!

Morse Micro: Wi-Fi HaLow is ready

If you had never heard of Morse Micro by yesterday, that’d make two of us. It’s a Sidney-based Australian company that focuses on Wi-Fi Halow chips based on the IEEE 802.11ah specification.

At CES 2025, the company showed off its second-generation MM8108 System-on-Chip (SOC) in the form of a complete Halow router called HallowLink 1. (Don’t ask me about their first generation since Australia is quite far, as you know it!).

Believe it or not, the Halowlink 1 is a dual-band router. In addition to Halow, it features traditional 2.4GHz Wi-Fi, making it useful even when you don’t have any Halow clients (which you likely don’t).

Per the company, here are the highlights of the Halow routers (it’s a bit technical, mind you!) :

• 256-QAM (MCS9) operation: Improved spectrum efficiency, minimizing interference in high-density environments and enabling throughputs of up to 43.33Mbps
• USB, SDIO, and SPI host integration: Improving ease of integration and enabling USB AP and STA dongle operation on new and existing network infrastructure
• Integrated PA with unmatched transmit efficiency: High transmit output power of 26dBm with only 325mA current drawn from a 3.3V voltage source.
• Low power operation: Optimized for battery-operated applications with significantly extended sleep times and ultra-low power consumption in sleep modes
• Class-leading Rx and Tx performance: Longest reach and fastest Wi-Fi HaLow chip in the market, enabling countless applications, including AI-enabled IoT devices and streaming multiple Ultra High Definition (HD) 4K cameras in real-time over an extensive range
• Enhanced security: Supports next-generation WPA3 with Simultaneous Authentication of Equals (SAE) and GCMP encryption for robust link-layer protection
• Scalable design: Compact 5 x 5 mm BGA package minimizes printed circuit board (PCB) size and cost

The gist is that the router can deliver a very long range with a total bandwidth of up to 43.3Mbps for Halow devices. While that’s a modest number, it’s enough for most IoT devices, including security cameras, which generally only need a few Mbps to deliver live footage.

Michael De Nil, Morse Micro’s CEO, and co-founder, told me that the HallowLink 1 could also work as an access point or a media bridge (client), like many traditional routers. In other words, if you get two of them, you’ll get a Halow connection by using one as the broadcaster and the other as a client.

But using two routers is awkward. As mentioned, Morse Micro also showed off a Halow receiver chip, the MM8108-RD09 USB dongle currently in the reference design.

Per Morse Micro, this chip will be made available to customers as a fully compliant Wi-Fi HaLow adapter. It can be used to build commercial USB dongles or to simplify the integration of the MM8108 silicon in end products.

Similarly, here are this chip’s highlights:

• A USB dongle incorporating the latest generation MM8108 Morse Micro chipset
• An SMA antenna selected for optimal performance
• A robust design that can be incorporated as-is into customers’ product designs
• Full compliance with the IEEE 802.11ah specifications
• Ready for Wi-Fi HaLow certification by the Wi-Fi Alliance

According to De Nil, the MM8108-RD09 USB dongle will be bundled with Raspberry Pi 4B, including power supply and antenna, and made available as part of a complete Wi-Fi HaLow evaluation kit (model MM8108-EKH19) for vendors interested in testing and integrating the MM8108 within their platforms.

Unfortunately, this chip currently only has a software driver for Linux and Android. Its software driver for Windows is being developed. (So, for now, the only way to experience a Halow connection is indeed to get two HallowLink 1 units, one as a broadcaster and the other as a media bridge.)

And that brings us to the main reason why the future of Wi-Fi Halow is still uncertain.

Why Wi-Fi Halow is not yet a reality (though close)

For a new technology to be adopted, there must be a need for it. That’s the reason why traditional Wi-Fi was first available as a single band (2.4GHz), then dual-band (2.4GHz + 5GHz), and then tri-band (2.4GHz + 5GHz + 6GHz).

The idea is that a new standard must somehow continue to support or improve the performance of existing clients if it is to be adopted. Unlike the previous three, Wi-Fi Halow has no existing clients, and its innate low bandwidth has little appeal on the surface.

That fact is likely the reason why, when asked why Wi-Fi Halow has been adopted slowly compared to Wi-Fi 7, De Nil said, “It’s somewhat of a chicken-and-egg kind of thing. So, it’s slow. But we’ll make it happen!”

Availability and hope

On this front, per Morse Micro, the MM8108 SoC, the MM8108-RD09 chip, and the MM8108-EKH19 kit (a combination of the two) are available for sampling and evaluation.

Hopefully, hardware vendors will take it seriously and make Wi-Fi Halow a reality. Check back in a couple of months to see how all this will pan out. This time around, I’m feeling optimistic.