cross-posted from: https://aussie.zone/post/19637893
Wifi networks and home automation systems are expected to last 50+ years.
I was reading up on the life expectancy of different building materials when I came across this gem.
Screenshot is of page 122 https://www.portseattle.org/sites/default/files/2025-02/SEA-SIPP Technical Report Appendix C Life Expectancy of Building Materials.pdf
I guess the ethernet cables could last that long, but they rate house wiring to a lower lifetime. Ethernet cables are not “wireless”, however.
The only other wireless systems I can think of are garage door openers, but they are definitely not expected to last 50 years.
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Companies go out of business all the time and others decide to sunset systems in use so customers are required to upgrade despite it is still working. So yeah, be realistic about expectations for any external service you decide to invest in.
Edit; and some things like smoke detectors do in fact have a life span after which they are degrading. Ten years is normal for a smoke detector.
This was written by AI, badly.
I’ve yet to have a router make it past five years or so, so I call malarkey
Edit: this is why I love lemmy. What started as an offhand comment has ended up with me getting great advice from awesome people. It really made my evening a great one, no bullshit.
This is anecdotal, only to say that the Linksys WRT-54G IMHO is/was a beast in the SOHO world. Back in 2013, I worked for the county replacing older equipment and it was time to upgrade the router in the fairgrounds lobby at the start of summer. Up we went to the rafters where it was and it was quite dusty in there, tons of pigeon feathers and miserably hot in the attic as most are. We pulled the router from service and replaced it with the new one already configured. The wrt54G was COVERED in dust, Pigeon droppings and feathers stuck to it. It ran forever that way I suspect. From what I was told, is was installed about 7 or 8 years prior, maybe longer.
To this day, I think Linksys must have partnered with Nokia’s wizards for how sturdy that router was/is. You can still find them in our second hand stores and most people push DD-WRT on them. But since they are 10/100, they’re not as popular anymore.
Those things were in production from 2002-2013. Imagine the changes the internet and tech in general went through. That really speaks to the quality of that animal.
Very funny, I stille have an old TPlink running now for 6 or 7 years, my parents had an old linksys that only did 2.4GHz running for 13 years or something. Before i replaced it for them.
I honestly don’t know how a router breaks. It can become outdated or obsolete such that it can’t interface correctly anymore or it can have a hardware failure that kills it by surges or physical damage, or it can be completely unsecure because it hasn’t been updated in a decade but routing is “fairly simple” and just getting data throughput isn’t rocket science software-wise.
Buy small business level/enterprise grade stuff and it will last you decades. I haven’t needed to touch my router in a decade, it just works. Well I think it’s been a decade. Hard to keep track. Notably, enterprise stuff will have the AP (access point) split out from the router since they’re actually two separate things. Only consumer stuff has them combined.
I got some free ruckus stuff about a decade ago and only upgraded because I wanted faster APs.
I got a microtik router at least 5 years ago and it has 0 issues.
I just got fiber and my local ISP gave me a microtik router with openWRT installed on it. I’m quite happy with it
Much appreciated!
You have to get industrial hardware built to last. I picked up an all-metal network appliance back in 2015 and it’s still kicking. Handles gigabit just fine as well. Here’s a random example of the type of thing I got (the exact one I got went out of sale years ago): https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07FKMJGD6/
You also end up having to split out your Wi-Fi to a dedicated access point this way for another ~$80, but you end up with a rock-solid setup that you can upgrade the software on year over year. I’ve ran at least 3 different OSs at this point since I’ve owned it and it’s handled them all perfectly. I’ve only had to upgrade my Wi-Fi AP once in that time.
I’ve actually salvaged data from a hard drive out of a system that was literally shot with a shotgun.
I can confidently say that the system did not have WiFi or Ethernet capabilities.
Hey, thank you very much. I’m looking to dump the damn tplink I got when the hurricane screwed up things here and the previous one got fried. Being able to update like that is a damn attractive thing.
If you’re new to it, my personal recommendation is OPNsense for the router OS and UniFi for the AP. You can run the controller software from OPNsense directly through a plugin making management pretty simple.
Thank you again.
I really appreciate it
I’m still using the old 2014 apple airport extreme as a router/NAS.
I was running Apple WiFi routers for a good 20 years. Maybe 1/4 died in that time, but many ran 20+ years before I abandoned them for newer standards. Some are still going as whole house audio streamers.
Router should, so long as you don’t have some consumer garbage. But just the wireless radios alone on wireless is laughable. Shit changes every 5 years tops.
Welllll, it has been all consumer stuff. Currently a tplink that was what I could get here the quickest after the netgear I used to have died during the hurricane last year.
My network stack has been running for many years now.
netgear cm1000 cable modem - since 2018 pfsense running on an old 1u supermicro server as router - since 2020 brocade icx switch - since 2016 hp procurve poe switch - since 2022 synology rt2600ac - since 2018, was router 2018-2020 and is AP since pfsense took over routing synology mr2200ac - secondary AP since 2020 cyberpower 1500va ups to run them - mentioning because power conditioning is maybe a factor in longevity Plus zwave and HA shit
Some of the stuff is way older too. The switches were bought from computer recyclers for real cheap and had definitely been in service for some time. The brocade is probably 10-15 years old at this point and the hp is probably 8 or so years old. The server running pfsense is from like 2009, maybe older.
house is running gigabit internet, 10g intranet, poe cameras, iot devices, etc with no issues. Probably over 100 devices on the network.
Apparently, I just ended up with bad gear. It has been pretty much all consumer stuff though, at least since about 2008. Before that, my best friend was handling the network, and I had no idea at all what was going on, he just kept it working, but he was working as a network tech during that time.
Some of my stuff is consumer level (the netgear modem, which tbf I’m genuinely surprised has lasted this long). some is in that weird “prosumer” space like the synology stuff; they are a bit pricier but have, in my experience, more resilient hardware. They also had much better support but in recent years they’ve kind of scaled back on this, bummer
My best advice is to not overlook the potential of e waste. The best and most resilient networking gear I have also happened to be the cheapest. The brocade switch? $45, 48 gigabit ports and 8 10 gigabit sfp+ ports. The hp POE switch? 24 gigabit poe ports and 2 port 10g sfp+. The server for pfsense was $50. These were good deals from local sellers, ebay prices are higher, sometimes quite a lot (especially with shipping). They also use much more power than just a consumer router which is worth mentioning. I’m transitioning to solar so I’m less concerned about it
Agree. I have updated my Ubiquity router twice in the last month. I’ve updated HA … a STUPID number of times in that span. Whoever wrote that is a dunce.
Ethernet cables are not “wireless”, however.
How did you find out?
It says wire-less not wire-non. Duh
Interestingly, the book series Old Man’s War addresses this.
Expectations don’t always match reality.
Pretty sure they aren’t talking about HA, but things like doorbells and the like. Could be wrong. This reads like it’s out of a 90’s book.
The processors inside every single device we have in our homes today will no longer be manufactured in 10 years.
In 20 years, few will know how to build the firmware for them or how to fix them.
As time goes on, those numbers could drop to 5 and 10 years.
The processor used in Commodore 64 and Apple I etc. is still in production today even if it’s 50+ years old.
Outliers aren’t rule-makers. They have die-hard fan appreciation and a sort of legendary status.
Unless there is some new revolutionary tech, things like the ESP32 have no driving factor to become obsolete.
If you are relying on BT/WiFi/LoRa then there is a possibility of RF frequency regulations changing.But it is already an overpowered device for the majority of its applications and it’s cheap
