Take it from an
network engineer who's worked with Ethernet since the late 1980's and WiFi since 2001. WiFi is wonderful. It works great.
Would I trust it on a
cruising sailboat for
transmission of radar imagery from the radome to my
chartplotter during a storm? No. friggin'. way.
WiFi uses what the industry calls unlicensed spectrum.
Commercial AM and FM
radio broadcasts worldwide require the broadcasters to
license the spectrum (frequency range) they broadcast on - otherwise another broadcaster in the vicinity may use the same frequency and interfere with their broadcast. The same principal applies to
marine VHF and MF/HF
SSB, aeronautical HF/VHF/UHF,
satellite, television, etc.
With unlicensed spectrum, anyone can manufacture and operate devices in that range. Granted, WiFi spectrum, like
VHF, is limited to line-of-sight (and in WiFi's case, very low transmit power). Consumer microwave ovens operate in the same range (2.5GHz) and can very well interfere. Even with the higher frequency WiFi bands used by IEEE 802.11a/g/n/ac (5GHz), you can't use the full spectrum because (here in the US, at least), doppler
weather radar overlaps some of the channels used.
Don't get me wrong - I love WiFi. I use it at home - but I also ran Category 6 UTP cabling to every room when I built my house last year, and run all the devices I can over it rather than WiFi. I architect and build secure WiFi networks for my clients at
work.
On my
boat, I use the built-in WiFi on my
Raymarine e125
chartplotter - but only with the RayRemote app on my android phones and tablets. I use hardwired NMEA2000, 0183,
SeaTalk and 100Mb ethernet for interconnecting all our
navigation equipment. It works without
interference.
I know that the WiFi capability of Raymarine's new radar array is neat, as is the TackTik line of
equipment they acquired a few years ago. But if at all possible, I hardwire everything. It's much more robust in the end.
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