[acdha]

WiFi isn’t that simple: every generation makes substantial improvements in things like how they handle contention with multiple clients or interference. Since most of us have more than one device active these days, that is noticeable — especially if you have devices which also talk to each other rather than exclusively over the internet.

When I replaced my 2016 OnHub + Google WiFi mesh with an Eero WiFi 6 system, I saw across the board improvements in latency and bandwidth from almost every client (faster ones more than doubled). We also lost the sporadic hangs for iOS devices which Google never fixed for totally innocent reasons.

[ineedasername]

I think that what is simple for me is that I don't make those judgements based purely on age. If I'm not having noticeable problems with a 6-7 year old router then I'm not going to write off forced obsolescence as "well it was time to upgrade anyway". I already get the full 200Mbs speed that I pay for and 15-20ms ping & low jitter. Upgrading isn't going to do a lot for me.

Everyone is able to make their own determination on that sort of thing, when they should upgrade. Or at least they used to be able to do that for this product class. Google is now baking in expiration dates that aren't even published at the time of purchase.

[acdha]

I’m not defending Google but almost everyone I know who replaced a 6+ year old router then spends a month saying they should have done that sooner because the differences were noticeable. Given how heavily most people use WiFi now, spending something like $0.50 per day for your entire family seems like far from the most pressing area to economize.

The other thing to consider is how the rest of the market compares: a lot of people have routers which still work but are no longer secure, so this entire field seems right for a legal requirement of, say, a decade support period and/or mandatory recycling.

[ineedasername]

far from the most pressing area to economize

$0.50/day seems like a small thing until you're strapped for cash but all of a sudden have to pay $500 all at once to replace your Google mesh network hardware.

That aside, as much as this particular example frustrates me, it's not my primary concern: It's the overall trend of forced obsolescence taking yet another step forward and increasing issue of e-waste.

Mandatory recycling is also problematic. It could mean that products that might have ample community support (e.g., via OpenWRT) would still be illegal, and in general would take away a user's right to support & maintain their purchases. It is also something that would be ripe for regulatory capture.

Separate from those issues is the consumer's ability to make an informed choice: A product with a potential expiration date should be required to market it as such. Google does this with Pixel phones; hopefully after this they will begin doing it with their other products as well, and I think that in general it should be required: MS does this with Windows, plenty of other vendors do it, there's no reason it can't be a universal requirement as part of consumer protection laws.

[acdha]

> $0.50/day seems like a small thing until you're strapped for cash but all of a sudden have to pay $500 all at once to replace your Google mesh network hardware.

You're using a definition of “all of a sudden” meaning “at some point within the next year or so”? Think about how much the average person will spend on their ISP bill in that same timeframe — again, I don't think this is great but it doesn't seem that dramatically different from, say, what happens when you have to replace your router in a hurry because Linksys orphaned it and your ISP is going to yank access due to an unpatched vulnerability.

> Mandatory recycling is also problematic. It could mean that products that might have ample community support (e.g., via OpenWRT) would still be illegal, and in general would take away a user's right to support & maintain their purchases.

I think you misunderstood the concept: requiring the manufacturer or reseller to recycle products which would otherwise end up in a landfill when people don't want them any more wouldn't in any way force the owner to turn over a device they want to keep. More importantly, building incentive structures around this would do something about the 99.995% of devices which were never going to get community firmware support.

Similarly, I doubt simply advertising expiration dates would have changed this: Google never said they were offering lifetime support for OnHub and very few people would expect them to offer support massively longer than the rest of the field when things like the WiFi standards improve more frequently than that. If they'd said “7 years of support”, I doubt it would have changed many decisions.

[ineedasername]

>You're using a definition of “all of a sudden”

That is a fair point, assuming a person knows about the EOL. The article for this is "Support for OnHub routers ending in 2022". If that is the same email subject Google uses for email outreach (assuming they go that far) then it's something that many users would simply ignore, especially since the majority are nowhere near as security conscious as people here in the HN community. So I think there is potential for a sizeable % of owner to have "sudden" expenses.

your ISP is going to yank access due to an unpatched vulnerability.

If it's hardware I get through my ISP then they replace it. If it's not hardware from my ISP, how would they even know? I'm not sure that an uplink from the cable model to WiFi router will give them that info. And even if it did, they'd have no idea if I had simply slapped OpenWRT on the router negating the EOL issues.

I think you misunderstood the concept:

I'm talking about the people who would still want the device. Maybe a small portion, admittedly. My bigger concert is the moral hazard presented by giving OEM's an incentive to have ever shorter & shorter support windows. Just look at the CPU req's for Windows 11: Many millions of pre-8th gen Intel chips have the horsepower to run Windows 11. Just imagine how awful it would be if every system with an older chip had to be tossed in the trash.

Google never said they were offering lifetime support for OnHub and very few people would expect them to offer

That's a reasonable point. But in the vast majority of cases "support has ended" does not mean "your device is now (nearly) useless.".

For things like ongoing patches & similar maintenance, I understand that it can't reasonably go on forever. I do believe that vendors should have to publish their support horizons though. I'm not sure why you don't think this would help: It would tell users upfront, given that more & more of Google's products rely on their cloud support, when it will become a brick. I'm sure that folks who bought an OnHub 3 months ago would have appreciated knowing it would barely last a year.

With the Pixel this provides customers with a very useful piece of information when making a purchase decision. I know I take it into consideration: I just had to upgrade (dropped my phone-- no more crappy minimal cases for me now) and their support horizon was a factor in determining whether I went for a 5a or paid a little extra for a 6. (I chose the 6... better spec's, but I liked the style more too. :) )

So, I think expiration dates-- especially if more prominently displayed than with Pixel phones: think big bold Letters on initial config & an email where the use has to actively confirm receipt... some people will ignore and just click through, but they had their chance so long as Google doesn't bury it in a wall of text.

Still, your point about security vulnerabilities is well-taken. If there was to be any mandatory recycling, it would need be a very generous timeframe. It would be somewhat unique for consumer products, but safety limits on usable lifetime for equipment exist in various industries. I would want regulations to approach the topic with extreme caution though to at least minimize vendor influence.

[causi]

Did you notice those improvements or did you just do benchmarks to see if they improved? Not everyone's needs are the same of course, but I have no complaints about my seven year old Nighthawk R7000. Latency-sensitive devices like game consoles are ethernet, phones and laptops are 5GHz, and everything else is 2.4GHz.

[prmoustache]

I think this is a case of first world country arrogance of putting perfectly working things in the landfill just for the heck of it.

[acdha]

I found it noticeable for anything latency sensitive - conferencing, Terraform/SSH, etc. (losing Google’s iOS hangs was extremely noticeable, of course, but that’s for a different reason)

The key thing to remember is that there’s considerable variability across different peoples’ experience. If you live in a widely spaced suburban house, you probably don’t need to worry about interference the way an apartment dweller does or even someone in a city where the neighbor’s property starts a lot closer. The layout and materials used in your house similarly have a big impact on whether your devices are operating on 5GHz close to a base station or 2.4GHz further away.

Since you have your latency sensitive devices on Ethernet, you probably are fine with an old AP. Cables are definitely better but not everyone has permission or a suitable way to run them (my house built in the 1930s did not include spare conduit).