Seems weird there is no 802.n variant to do this very popular thing

That's precisely what Wi-Fi Aware (NaN) is and it is heavily based on AWDL. It's even built into recent versions of iOS and Android.

I've never heard of Wi-Fi Aware, thanks for sharing. Are there any devices/chips that support it today?

iOS 26 supports it. I tried looking in to it and I couldn’t find anything using it yet though.

Wait did they actually name it NaN or is that a joke?

NAN, not NaN. NaN is parent's editorialization or muscle memory.

Oh; I thought maybe it just didn’t have an 802 type name so it might have just been a little joke.

Anyway, good to know we can use our NAN signal to send signal NaNs!

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