Rachel Kroll
About a year ago, I wrote about trying to make WPA3 (wireless security) work on a Raspberry Pi 4, among other things. It didn't work then and it still doesn't work now.
In the past couple of weeks, they released the Pi 5, and it's been making the rounds through the usual people, but somehow, nobody's talking about whether it'll do WPA3 or not. So, I'll break the silence and save everyone a lot of work: it still has the same CYW43455 wifi+bluetooth chip as the Pi 4, so it has the same limitations: no WPA3 support, at least, not right now. Maybe some day, someone will do something about the driver situation, but given that nothing has changed in almost a year since my last post, I'm not going to hold my breath.
This Broadcom / Infineon / Cypress wifi situation has other ramifications beyond just the Raspberry Pi ecosystem. Let's say you are like me and you bought one of the "early 2015" Macbook Pros in 2017 since the then-current ones had the terrible new keyboard and still hadn't figured out the whole USB-C thing yet. You didn't get Ventura (13) and are stuck on Monterey (12), never mind Sonoma (14).
So, maybe you thought "I know, I'll install Linux on this thing since it still has some life left in it". Once you do that, you will discover that you are in the same crappy wifi situation. You won't be able to join a WPA3 network in Linux, either. The hardware is clearly able to support it since it worked as a macOS install, but it's just not going to happen on Linux. It's the same sort of software problem.
None of this is news, but the updates about this mess seem to not get enough visibility. Note: "seriously unmaintained and years behind on features and firmware integration". Wonderful.
This puts the Raspberry Pi squarely in the same bucket as "random Internet of Shit devices" when it comes to wifi compatibility. You are going to have to keep a terrible auxiliary wireless network around for a very long time in order to support them as-is.
Going forward, you can just ignore the built-in hardware and buy a dumb little USB wifi adapter which is actually supported by regular kernels. Then you just plug it in, configure things, and go on with your life. (Or, you know, pull actual cabling to it, and live life with the stability of hardwired Ethernet.)
It's kind of amazing that this situation persists, given how the Pi is supposedly intended for entry-level people who need a low-cost platform to learn about stuff. What happens when they encounter a WPA3-only network? They do exist, and they will only become more numerous over time.
November 7, 2023: This post has an update.