re: Do Wifi routers "wear out" over time?

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Do Wifi routers "wear out" over time?

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Yes.

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The "salesperson" at Best Buy said there simply wear out over time and needs to be replaced. Is this true?

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This is true.

It's mostly an issue with cooling. Routers are little computers, and like most computers they generate heat. But we consumers expect silent devices, so they don't have fans in them to keep them cool. They rely mostly on heatsinks and whatever air happens to flow through the housing. Over time, the heat starts to break down the chips and other components inside the router. Eventually they start to fail.

The reason they usually don't die completely and immediately when something fails is because of error correction. There are ways to check if data is corrupted, and in some cases it can be corrected. This may be why your signal drops randomly or is weak. Eventually, though, more parts will fail and error correction will no longer work.

Four years is actually a pretty decent life for a consumer router in my experience.