Having been involved with computers for most of my "career" I am very concerned about the introduction of electronics and software into the fixed installation wiring. I would include Car chargers in this.

Having had: computers bricked during updates, suppliers change business models abandoning old equipment, the failure of electronic components etc. Along with the continuing obsolescence  of MCBs, RCDs etc. The electronics are just another failure point with software making it even worse. I don't think anyone has yet managed to develop provably correct software so there will always be problems. 

I dont remember  ever testing an old mechanical RCD that failed, often they have had better response times than some modern RCDs. It would be interesting to see how the failure rate of mechanical RCDs compares with those using electronic bits. 

I am still using a forty+  year old Wylex consumer unit in my house and I can still buy the MCBs for it. I am used to trying to obtain obsolete MCBs/Mina Switch/RCDs etc for different manufacturers and still have a small stock of various now obsolete items for new installations I have done   in the last 15 years. I have little confidence the modern equipment will still be performing or have spares available after  40 years.

The idea of some "electricians" going around updating software in AFDDs or chargers does not fill me with confidence. 

I can imagine the call  at 10:00 PM "My car charger won't work, I have a 200 mile drive in the morning what are you going to do about it!"

I am glad that I have retired :) 

I've just replaced a set of mechanical relays with solid state variants literally because of the mechanical switching fatiguing over time, that's not so much of an issue with a mosfet driven system

I have just bought a new laptop with a solid state "hard drive". I was wandering earlier today whether it should be more or less reliable than a real spinning disc.

I might add that the reason for buying it was that the motherboard of another PC had failed. There was a rather sorry looking row of capacitors.

So I think that absence of moving parts is no guarantee of success.

I have just bought a new laptop with a solid state "hard drive". I was wandering earlier today whether it should be more or less reliable than a real spinning disc.

I might add that the reason for buying it was that the motherboard of another PC had failed. There was a rather sorry looking row of capacitors.

So I think that absence of moving parts is no guarantee of success.