20 Ways To Extend The Life Of Tech Devices

Both businesses and consumers have compelling reasons to prolong the lives of their tech devices. Regularly replacing computers and mobile devices is not only expensive, but it can also have serious environmental consequences, especially in communities that lack electronic recycling services.

Fortunately, there are proven ways to extend the life of digital devices, and some are actually quite simple. Below, 20 members of Forbes Technology Council share their expert advice to help both companies and consumers ensure their tech devices have long, productive lives.

1. Embrace Digital Minimalism

The easiest way to really extend the life of your essential devices is to keep them physically well-maintained. Don’t overcharge the batteries, and embrace a sense of digital minimalism: Make a habit of removing the applications and data you no longer need. This improves performance and has the added advantage of improving your cybersecurity at the same time. – Laura Bell Main, SafeStack

2. Consider Digital Health Monitoring

Digital health monitoring is the future of tech longevity. By utilizing embedded sensors and diagnostic tools, devices can proactively notify users about wear and potential failures. Just as vehicles have indicators that light up when maintenance is due, tech devices should inform users about optimal operating conditions, potential component failures and software health. This proactive approach maximizes a device’s lifespan. – Ilan Rakhmanov, ChainGPT

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3. Use The Latest Operating System

Operating system and application updates are essential. Ensure that the device’s operating system—such as Windows, MacOS, iOS or Android—as well as all the installed apps (such as Microsoft Office) are regularly updated to the latest versions. Operating system and application updates often include security patches, bug fixes and performance improvements that can extend a device’s lifespan. – Jay Bhatty, NatGasHub.com

4. Keep Them Clean And Cool

One often-overlooked way to extend the lifespan of tech devices is proper maintenance, which includes regular cleaning and ensuring they don’t overheat. Dust and debris can accumulate over time, leading to hardware issues. – Rey Fernando Fuentes Verboonen, Curio Capital AG

5. Don’t Overlook Your Data Center

In businesses, I think the most overlooked area is the data center. Extending the lives of servers, storage or network hardware has a much higher impact on costs and an organization’s carbon footprint than client hardware such as computers, phones or tablets. Improving the hardware life cycle interval of servers from five to seven or eight years will save the equivalent cost of a full hardware life cycle for all servers within 15 years. – Yusuf Sar, Hardwarewartung 24 GmbH

6. Keep Firmware And Software Updated

Regular firmware and software updates can prolong device life. They optimize performance, enhance battery efficiency and fix vulnerabilities. By keeping devices updated, users can ensure peak efficiency, extending a device’s lifespan and performance. – Madani Boukalba, T-RIZE Group Corporation

7. Replace The SSD

Putting new solid-state drives in older systems will have the largest impact on longevity and performance improvement. It also helps to mitigate the data loss potential of older hardware. – Daniel Schwartz, Design I.T. Solutions LLC

8. Choose Sturdy Devices

For laptops and phones, physical wear and tear are the major factors that shorten device life. Avoid overly elegant, slim, fragile products. When it comes to servers, buy good brands, no more than one or two models behind the latest and greatest. For desktops, do frequent disk cleanups and keep ventilation holes clear—a lack of disk space and power supply failures due to overheating are common factors that shorten device life. – Tsvi Lev, NEC Corporation

9. Leverage Decentralized Computing

Decentralized computing distributes computational tasks across a network. This can extend a device’s lifespan by reducing wear and tear on individual hardware. This approach not only enhances performance, but also minimizes heat and mechanical stress, which are critical factors in determining a device’s longevity. Older, less powerful devices can have extended functional life by tapping into collective network power. – Joey Burzynski, MarketKarma

10. Set Up Virtual Maintenance And Teach Best Practices

For business devices, periodic maintenance and employee training are both essential. It’s important for the IT team to conduct virtual maintenance—and, in some cases, physical maintenance—on company devices. Additionally, users often aren’t aware of best practices for using tech devices. Teaching best practices usually helps them to make better decisions and keep their devices functional for longer. – Edgar Escobar, Grupo ALTO

11. Proactively Manage Battery Life

Proactive battery management is an important strategy. Batteries degrade over time, affecting overall device performance. To mitigate this, avoid extreme temperature conditions, use the original charger and aim to maintain your battery charge level between 20% and 80%. This simple practice can significantly enhance device longevity and reduce the need for costly replacements. – Vamsi Gosu, TechForce Services

12. Personalize The UX

Personalizing the device usage experience can be one effective way to prolong the life of tech devices. Yes, maintenance and security matter, but when an appropriate level of personalization is allowed or even encouraged, users will refrain from quick changes, because they will consider the cost and effort involved in personalizing a new device. – Raj Polanki, Wacker Chemical Corporation

13. Upgrade Components Instead Of Replacing Devices

Most companies replace devices based on a calendar. This is an archaic way of managing refreshes, especially considering the raw cost hit to the IT budget and the sustainability and overall waste impact. By far, the most optimal way to extend device life is to understand what is impacting your users and upgrade just that component—instead of just replacing the whole device because the calendar says so. – Elise Carmichael, Lakeside Software

14. Minimize Offline Storage

Is your computer slow? Before you buy a new one, check your storage. Limited space can cause glitches and delays. One solution is offload storage. Think like a computer: You want to cache your memory. Only keep what you need to have offline or to access quickly on your disk. Then, move everything else to the cloud. Additionally, you will find cloud storage infrastructure to be more reliable and secure than your onboard disk space. – Nicholas Domnisch, EES Health

15. Ensure Resources Work On All Team Members’ Devices

One way businesses can help prolong the life of devices is by ensuring that the resources and benefits employers provide can be accessed and used effectively on a variety of devices, not just the most up-to-date ones. This isn’t just more sustainable, it’s more inclusive—when someone is seeking out support, getting a message that their phone can’t support an app or activity is an added stress. – Oliver Harrison, Koa Health

16. Suit The Device To The Purpose

Pushing yourself, or your organization, to honestly assess a device’s purpose can greatly extend its life. At home, an older phone or tablet may be perfect to use as an e-reader. In the office, a laptop could be perfect to use for email and document editing during travel when it no longer has the horsepower to run high-CPU-usage programs every day. – Dave Rosen, Wimo Games, Inc.

17. Wipe And Update

Wipe the device, and restore only essential data from a backup. Then, do an update. It’s amazing how a factory reset can eliminate cruft and help a device manage heat, extend battery life and become more focused. Sure, you might have to spend time doing a proper backup and eliminate a few extraneous applications. But a clean start does wonders. – James Stanger, CompTIA

18. Try ‘Digital Rotation’

An offbeat way to extend a tech device’s life is “digital rotation.” Periodically use rarely accessed apps, switch settings or change themes. For phones, utilize every button or rotate the device frequently. This quirky routine ensures all components stay active, uncovers minor issues before escalation and keeps the device lively. Think of it as tech aerobics! – Andrew Blackman, EZ Cloud

19. Use Quality Surge Protectors

Ensure your device is accessing good, clean power. Don’t just use any old surge protector; make sure it’s one that can survive a surge and keep working (that is, that it doesn’t sacrifice itself). It should do some filtering, too. And don’t forget battery backups! – Seth Wasserman, Menin Hospitality

20. Consider Donating Older Devices

Donate your electronic devices and write them off! There are many initiatives, including United Way’s Techquity program, that collect computers, wipe the data and prepare them for reuse in low-income communities whose members do not have access to the tech they need for schools or small businesses. This prolongs the life of the device (albeit with a different owner). – Kerrie Hoffman, Hoffman Digital