The two clocks
Hardware wear is a duration. Batteries lose capacity over charge cycles and thermals degrade with age, so heavier use shortens it. It runs from the month the device was released, because a refurbished unit still has a battery of its original age.
The security cutoff is a fixed date. Once the maker stops shipping patches, the device becomes a growing risk even though it still works. Nothing you do moves this date: not a repair, not a battery, not buying it second-hand.
The estimate is the earlier of the two. Both are always shown, because knowing your hardware would have lasted three more years is what tells you the cutoff is the thing to plan around.
Where the support dates come from
Every device carries a confidence level, and they are not interchangeable:
| Level | Devices | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| Published date | 18 | The manufacturer publishes this exact end-of-support date. |
| Announced policy | 29 | Derived from the manufacturer’s announced support commitment for this device line. |
| Estimated | 45 | Estimated from this maker’s observed track record. No official date is published in advance. |
The honest headline: Apple publishes no future cutoff dates at all. Every Apple device here is an estimate from Apple’s observed track record: roughly six major OS releases, then two to three years of security-only patches. Google publishes exact dates for Pixels, and Samsung publishes its commitment per device line, so those are firmer. Each device page links its own sources.
Where the wear estimates come from
Wear is not one number per category. It is keyed to things that genuinely differ between machines: whether the battery can be replaced, whether the machine can be opened at all, and how hard it runs.
| Class | Light | Moderate | Heavy | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Flagship phone | 7y | 6y | 4y | Premium build and battery; sealed chassis. |
| Mid-range phone | 6y | 5y | 3y | Mid-range build; smaller battery budget. |
| Folding phone | 5y | 4y | 2y | Hinge and folding display are additional wear points no other phone has. |
| Budget phone | 5y | 4y | 3y | Budget chassis and battery; throttles under load. |
| Intel MacBook | 7y | 6y | 4y | Intel-era thermals are far harder on the battery than Apple Silicon. |
| Apple Silicon MacBook | 9y | 8y | 6y | Apple Silicon runs cool and efficient; battery is the practical limit. |
| Chromebook | 7y | 6y | 4y | Light workload extends hardware life well past the AUE date. |
| Premium ultrabook | 8y | 6y | 5y | Soldered RAM and storage; premium build. |
| Budget laptop | 6y | 5y | 3y | Plastic chassis, modest cooling; hinges and batteries fail first. |
| Business laptop | 9y | 7y | 6y | Serviceable chassis with documented parts availability. |
| Modular laptop | 12y | 10y | 8y | Every part is user-replaceable and sold individually, including the mainboard. |
| Gaming laptop | 6y | 5y | 3y | Sustained high thermals and fan wear; battery cycles hard. |
| Premium tablet | 8y | 7y | 5y | Large battery, low sustained load. |
| Budget tablet | 5y | 4y | 3y | Budget cell and chassis; charge cycles dominate. |
What it deliberately does not do
- Predict drops, spills or manufacturing defects.
- Account for how well you personally treat the device.
- Anticipate policy changes. Commitments get extended, and occasionally cut short.
- Count community ROMs or ChromeOS Flex, which can outlive official support.
- Round a device that expires in December down to “already past it”. Estimates are in months for exactly that reason.
Check it yourself
The full dataset is public. devices.json carries every release month, both end dates, the confidence level and the sources. Last verified 2026-09-01.
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Now run it on your own device
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