For years, 5G and IoT existed in an awkward gap. Full 5G New Radio (NR) was too expensive and power-hungry for a smart meter or an industrial sensor. And the older low-power options – NB-IoT and LTE-M – couldn’t deliver enough speed for wearables, video surveillance, or factory diagnostics.
5G Reduced Capability, or RedCap, fills that space. And in 2025 and 2026, it’s gone from standard on paper to real products on real networks.
What RedCap and eRedCap Actually Do
RedCap was introduced in 3GPP Release 17 under the working name “NR-Light.” The idea is straightforward: strip away 5G features that most IoT devices don’t need – carrier aggregation, dual connectivity, multiple antennas – and keep what matters. The result is a device category that can hit up to 226 Mbps downlink on a 20 MHz channel, while using significantly less power and silicon than a standard 5G modem.
That’s more than enough for smartwatches, security cameras, industrial sensors, health monitors, and fleet trackers. It’s also far more than what NB-IoT or LTE-M can provide.
Enhanced RedCap (eRedCap), introduced in Release 18, pushes further. It caps throughput at around 10 Mbps, reduces optional bandwidth to 5 MHz, and targets even lower power consumption – think smart meters, basic sensors, and devices that wake up a few times a day. eRedCap is positioned to eventually replace LTE Cat-1 and Cat-1bis, giving operators a path to retire legacy infrastructure without leaving low-tier IoT behind.
Where Things Stand in the Market
The numbers are starting to tell a story. As of August 2025, GSA identified 34 operators across 24 countries investing in RedCap, with commercial launches already live from China Mobile, China Telecom, China Unicom, Dito in the Philippines, STC in Kuwait, and T-Mobile US.
In July 2025, AT&T announced nationwide RedCap coverage across its 5G standalone footprint, reaching over 200 million people. The carrier certified the Franklin Wireless RG350 – a RedCap-powered mobile hotspot built on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X35 modem – as its first commercial RedCap product. AT&T is also working with module providers like Semtech, Telit Cinterion, and Rhino Mobility to certify additional hardware.
In the Middle East, e& UAE activated the region’s first RedCap device – a smartwatch on its 5G SA network – and launched a certification program for additional RedCap devices.
On the chipset side, Qualcomm, MediaTek, ASR, and Sequans are all shipping or demonstrating RedCap-ready platforms. Module makers, including Fibocom, Quectel, and Telit Cinterion, have introduced RedCap-enabled products. Sequans showcased its third-generation eRedCap semiconductor at MWC 2026, designed to give existing LTE Cat-1bis customers a clean upgrade path to 5G.
Omdia forecasts nearly a billion RedCap and eRedCap connections by 2030 – roughly 20% of all cellular IoT links.
The Apple Watch Effect
The moment that arguably matters most for RedCap’s commercial credibility arrived in fall 2025, when Apple launched the Watch Series 11 and Watch Ultra 3 with 5G RedCap connectivity, powered by MediaTek chips. It was Apple’s first 5G smartwatch – and it validated what the 3GPP standard was designed for in the first place.
T-Mobile confirmed that the Apple Watch connects to 5G RedCap or LTE, depending on network availability. For millions of consumers, this is their first encounter with RedCap – even if they’ll never know the name. Global smartwatch shipments grew 8% year-on-year in Q2 2025, with Apple Watch shipments rising nearly 29%.
The consumer story is compelling, but the industrial side is where RedCap might matter even more in the long term.
Hyundai Motor and Samsung completed the industry’s first end-to-end RedCap trial over a private 5G network in early 2025. The test took place at Hyundai’s Ulsan Plant – the world’s largest single automobile factory, producing 6,000 vehicles per day. Samsung’s RedCap-powered private 5G replaced Wi-Fi for vehicle inspection systems, delivering faster and more reliable real-time data transmission.
Hyundai plans to expand RedCap private 5G to its new EV-dedicated plant in Ulsan, which is set to open in the first half of 2026. Across the factory floor, sensors, cameras, tablets, automated guided vehicles, and wireless inspection tools all benefit from RedCap’s balance of lower power consumption and reliable connectivity.
This pattern – private 5G with RedCap for mid-tier industrial devices – is expected to become a template for manufacturing, logistics hubs, and campus environments.
The Friction Points
RedCap isn’t without challenges. It requires a functioning 5G standalone core, and while GSA reports 154 operators investing in SA, coverage remains uneven globally. Roaming support is in an early stage, and certification processes are still maturing, adding complexity for manufacturers accustomed to LTE workflows.
Module costs haven’t reached parity with LTE alternatives yet, though they’re trending down as volumes grow. And AT&T’s decision to decommission its NB-IoT network – presenting RedCap and LTE-M as replacements – signals that migration pressure is real, even if the timing feels aggressive for some IoT OEMs.
What Comes Next
With eRedCap modules expected to ship commercially in 2026 and Ericsson forecasting that broadband and critical IoT connections will double to 4.3 billion by 2030, the runway is long. RedCap isn’t the fastest version of 5G, and it’s not trying to be. It’s the version that makes 5G practical for billions of devices stuck between overpowered broadband and underpowered LPWAN. Whether it’s a smartwatch on your wrist or a diagnostic scanner on an assembly line, reduced capability turns out to be exactly the capability that was missing.
