[Z1515M8147]

Article is not correct: not every device on the planet will roll over.

Many GPS chipsets, such as many uBlox devices, program an offset such as the date of device firmware compilation. This means that the rollover will in fact occur decades out from when users are expecting. The way to discover the real rollover date for ublox devices is to interrogate them with the ublox software to find the relevant message and add 20 years on top. For old ublox devices this field can actually be modified by the user to effectively reset the countdown. For other brands it could be a lot more difficult, though manufacturers docs should cover it.

https://portal.u-blox.com/s/question/0D52p00008HKDTlCAP/gps-...

[ambrop7]

A properly programmed device should have no issue. A device only needs to know the date to within 10 years so that it can interpret the week number correctly. So if the device runs its own clock that it synchronizes to GPS, it should keep working indefinitely as long as that clock is running. Even if it doesn't run a clock while powered off, it could store the clock to non-volatile memory occasionally, and it would keep working correctly as long as it isn't powered off for more than 10 years.

[sfoskett]

Find me these “properly programmed devices”! This is the core of the issue: bad assumptions and poor QA let bugs like this have an outsized impact. It’s our fault, folks.