Wi-Fi HaLow USB Adapters Bring 802.11ah to Any PC

Sub-1 GHz Wi-Fi in a USB Stick

Morse Micro has launched USB adapters that add Wi-Fi HaLow to any PC or router, which is a more useful development than the spec sheet alone suggests. The adapters are built around the company's MM8108 chip and are selling on Mouser for $58 in both USB-A and USB-C variants, each with an external SMA antenna.

• Chip: Morse Micro MM8108, a RISC-V based 802.11ah controller
• Band: sub-1 GHz, operating in the 850-950 MHz range
• Throughput: up to 43.3 Mbps using 256-QAM at 8 MHz bandwidth, with up to 26 dBm transmit power
• Modes and security: both Access Point and Station modes, with WPA3
• Price: $58 on Mouser, in USB-A and USB-C versions, with region-specific variants

What Is Wi-Fi HaLow and Why Should a Maker Care?

Wi-Fi HaLow is the marketing name for IEEE 802.11ah, and the short version is that it is Wi-Fi moved down to sub-1 GHz frequencies. That single change buys a lot. Lower frequencies propagate further and penetrate obstacles better, which is why HaLow is generally quoted as reaching up to ten times the range of conventional 2.4 GHz or 5 GHz Wi-Fi.

What makes it more interesting than other long-range options is that it is still Wi-Fi. It carries IP. It does WPA3. Devices get an address and speak normal protocols. Compare that to LoRa, which is superb at extreme range and tiny power budgets but gives you a constrained, low-rate link that needs its own gateway and its own application-layer conventions. HaLow at 43.3 Mbps is slower than modern Wi-Fi but fast enough for camera streams, telemetry at volume, and ordinary network services — across a farm, a construction site, or a cluster of buildings.

Why Does the USB Form Factor Change the Calculus?

Until now, working with HaLow mostly meant buying purpose-built hardware: a dedicated gateway, a development board, a module you had to design a carrier for. We have covered that category before, including the Elecrow ThinkNode G4 HaLow gateway, and it works — but it means the HaLow network is a separate thing you bolt onto your infrastructure.

A USB adapter inverts that. Plug it into a mini PC you already own and that machine becomes a HaLow access point. Plug one into a laptop and it becomes a station. The barrier drops from "design a product around this radio" to "buy a dongle," which is roughly the same shift that made experimenting with software-defined radio mainstream. For a homelab or maker project where the question is whether HaLow solves your range problem at all, $58 is a very reasonable price to find out.

Specs Worth Understanding Before Ordering

Two practical notes. First, the 43.3 Mbps figure is a peak at 8 MHz bandwidth with 256-QAM — the best case, close in, with a clean channel. Sub-1 GHz spectrum allocations are narrow, and real throughput at genuine range will be well below that. Plan for tens of megabits nearby and single-digit megabits far out.

Second, regional variants matter. The sub-1 GHz bands HaLow uses are allocated differently by country, which is why Morse Micro lists Australian variants separately. Order the one that matches where you are, and check your local rules on duty cycle and transmit power before you put a 26 dBm radio on a hilltop.

The MM8108 itself being RISC-V based is a small sign of how thoroughly that architecture has taken over the connectivity controller space — the same trend visible in boards like the ESP32-C5 Pico. It does not change anything about how you use the adapter, but it is a nice detail.

Sources: CNX Software — September 14, 2026; Morse Micro — accessed September 14, 2026.