Here’s an update that no one expected but many will appreciate—rumors suggest that HDMI 2.2 could debut at CES 2025. What is HDMI 2.2? This would be the new HDMI standard with the capacity to support a higher bandwidth and improved quality of content. Many tech experts are not likely to be impressed with its offerings, what with their preference for DisplayPort tech, but the changes are coming nonetheless.
According to the HDMI Forum, HDMI 2.2 is coming soon on January 6, a day before the official start of the Consumer Electronics Show scheduled between January 7 and 11, 2025, in Las Vegas. There aren’t too many details available regarding HDMI 2.2 and its capabilities, but we’re only a handful of weeks away from learning more.
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HDMI 2.2 To Launch at CES 2025—A New Era of Connectivity Awaits
According to the forum’s communications, the new HDMI specification “will support a wide range of higher resolutions and refresh rates.” This doesn’t give us too much to go on in understanding what the new standard will be capable of, but it is expected to be a significant step forward for our technology.
The HDMI 2.1 standard was introduced all the way back in 2017, so it has been a long time since we saw structural changes to the support system. The most recent HDMI 2.1b update in 2023 brought support for 48Gbps bandwidth and resolution of up to 10K. The update also gave us dynamic HDR support and capabilities of up to 120Hz refresh rate at 4K.
Tom’s Hardware drew our attention to the fact that the announcement date for the HDMI 2.2 release at CES 2025 coincides with possible GPU announcements from Nvidia and AMD. Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 50-series and AMD’s Radeon RX 8000 series GPUs are expected to also see announcements on the same day, so the new HDMI 2.2 specifications may be compatible with the new chips. HDMI 2.2’s promise of higher bandwidth, resolution, and refresh rates would then keep in line with the latest DisplayPort 2.1 technologies but most consumers are uncertain if it will make an upgrade significant enough to make a difference.
HDMI 2.2 Is Coming Soon but What Does It Mean for Consumers?
The HDMI 2.2 details, when released, will give us a good idea of where technology is headed next, but it won’t necessarily mean that consumers will have to upgrade all their gadgets to meet the latest standard at once. Even if they wanted to, this would be hard to do as the technology would have to catch up with the upgraded standard first before users could move to adopt it.
Only after the HDMI 2.2 specifications are released at CES 2025 will other tech makers gain an opportunity to upgrade and adopt the new standard. The current standard is not going anywhere, but we will see more gradual updates to the gaming and viewing experience across devices over the next few years.
Despite the limited impact of the upgrade in the immediate future, we’re interested in exploring HDMI 2.2’s capabilities and understanding what its improved resolution support and refresh rate is going to do for us next. CES 2024 gave us a glimpse of many amazing products and innovations, and next year’s convention is expected to be just as exciting.