Planned longevity is the opposite of planned obsolescence: the way of designing systems, especially hardware, so that it supports lifespan maximization.

Planned longevity is something that should ideally take place in the industry that produces the hardware. Sometimes, the shortcomings of the industry can be compensated by changing the ?firmware of the system or switching to a third-party software platform.

Chips should be designed open and flexible, so that they can be reappropriated even for purposes they were never intended for. Complex chips should have enough redundancy and bypass mechanisms to keep them working even after some of their internals wear out. (In a multicore CPU, for instance, many partially functioning cores could combine into one fully functioning one.)

Concepts that support planned longevity: