Thanks for the explanation! Makes sense. Unreasonable? To me, no. Makes complete sense given the age. BUT it doesn't support, IMO, "Apple is the opposite of planned obsolescence". Yes, tech nerds can do tech nerd things to make it work...that's not a "plan".

I apologize if that came off harsh. I feel like your comment had a different angle/context than where I took it. Apologies if so.

Microsoft hate is easy to come by on HN (I get it), so I don't like seeing a Apple's coincidental victories magnified in one of the few areas Microsoft does well as a feature.

Things stopping to function perfectly because operating environment has changed drastically over a significant period of time is pretty much the polar opposite of planned obsolescence.

Even devices that don't suffer from planned obsolescence can and do become obsolete.

That’s not planned obsolescence. Your home network migrated to a new key exchange protocol that didn’t exist in 2011. That’s on you our your router manufacturer.

Downgrading network to 2.4G is probably all they needed.

I assume that's what

- Fall back to old IOT SSID with ancient protocols

meant 2.4G and not WPA3.

Probably this- my IOT network forces 2.4GHz, whereas my WPA2 and WPA3 networks both use 2.4 and 5GHz on the same SSID.

If a device only supports 2.4Ghz, wouldn't it only see the 2.4 option? Just having a network available that the device's radios can't even see shouldn't break anything. (I'm personally leaning towards WPA3 being the problem)

I can't remember now -- I have a WPA3 network, and I also have a WPA2 network, and an IOT network. I agree it would be reasonable for WPA3 to not work, but I'm pretty sure I was trying WPA2. Regardless, it's something I ran into.