@DouginDallas Well, you can upgrade a part of your network, or add a WiFi 7 router/Deco to your network.  The catch is if you then mesh them together the WiFi 7 Deco will be limited to whatever standard your current system supports.  I would suggest switching your current Deco router to Access Point Mode and just replace it with your new WiFi 7 Deco, moving the old Deco somewhere else...

  @DouginDallas 

WiFi 7 is nice, BUT....

You've got to have the H/W (Router/Deco/Modem) faster ISP service to 'make it work'.

A ssuming you do have/will get ISP 1Gbps Service, you still need devices to handle it. That means 802.11 BE speed devices... 

Besides the Router supplying, if you have devices capable of using the 6Ghz SSID you might not see any speed improvement over 802.11AC devices capability.

Some newer PC's do come with built-in BE wireless devices. 

So devices although not capabile of connecting to the 6Ghz SSID can connect to the MLO (Multi-Link-Option) which uses both the 5 and 2.4Ghz SSID's for faster network speed.

Some devices, like Most IoT devices still only connect to the 2.4Ghz SSID and will not benefit with WiFi 7.

So check you present speeds, specifically if you have WiFi 5 or 6 wireless. WiFi 7's Theoretical max. Speed would be 940Mbps or slightly less with an ISP 1Gbps service. If you now have Wifi 6 you might top out around 850+/-Mbps.

Measure the GAIN vs. the cost of h/w replacement.

Internet Speed is a personal choice, and to be honest, I do have 1Gbps ISP and Wifi-7 capability in 2 PC's. Overall use feeling from using WiF 6, is well, not always noticeable. Web pages might load faster, but not significantly. Sending emails, only the long ones with many documents or pictures are faster, but even if it took some time, never bothered.

One place I appreaciate it, MS UPDATES which are LARGE come down faster as are those for MS Flight Simulator (100's of GB's).

Over all, I was happy when I had 600Gbps ISP service....

I look at it as 'time saved', although I do appreciate the speed.

  @DouginDallas For most purposes, wifi 7 is simply not needed.  Out of my 50 devices, only 3 have wifi 7.  Unless you are having bottlenecks on certain devices, I doubt you would even notice the difference.

Anyone that has been into tech for any length of time, knows the feeling of buying something only to find it "not top of the line" a month later.  My advice is buy what you can at the time you need it and not worry about it.  Whatever you buy today is outdated a year from now anyhow....

BradLouKy wrote

 

Anyone that has been into tech for any length of time, knows the feeling of buying something only to find it "not top of the line" a month later.  My advice is buy what you can at the time you need it and not worry about it.  Whatever you buy today is outdated a year from now anyhow....

  @BradLouKy 

While I agree with you, there is the other side of the coin, 'Buy for the Future".

In this case, buying WiFi 7 would be wise IF you were planning to replace OTHER devices as well. Forget about IoT devices, those probably will always be on the 2.4Ghz SSID.

While it might mean spending now, it might not be wasted either. Also, WiFi 8 is at least  a year away, and for WiFi 7, it took almost 1 year before 'fully' capable h/w to become available, before that 'preview' or partial driver features. Matter of fact, full usage of WiFi 7 adapaters could not happen in Windows until the 24H2 release, months later. Even then, vendors  like INTEL for my BE200 M.2 card had ot create new F/W for it, and that took time.

More inportant though, could an ISP speed boost be required to get an advantage from WiFi 8? 

Of all my 20+ LAN devices, only ones that matter to me are the 2 PC's... and even then, so what if it takes longer to get my email into Thunderbird, or some of my long email replies with attachments take 10 seconds longer?

Since I was upgraded by my ISP from 600Mbps down to 1Gbps down I've not noticed signigicant change in how I use the Internet or actual speed in doing things.

Still, nothing wrong with having the latest and greatest, especially IF you have the ISP speed that you can use and can not now. 802.11 AC speed doesn't cout it with 1Gbps down.

I think the OP is asking if he has to replace his entire system to upgrade to WiFi 7, and the answer is simply no, an incremental upgrade is available if you are careful to plan it around the Deco mesh limitations...