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.
the post is about wireless networks, not online services
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.
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.
Much appreciated!
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.
Seriously. I replaced my wireless with a mesh during COVID. I spent way too much to get WiFi6 when it was new, now 5 years later …
Wifi7 is available, it is only gigabit Ethernet, and most importantly some promised features were never delivered and it never really got stable. I’m ready to replace it
I may update Ethernet to 2.5g first
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.
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
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?
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.