Yubico Forum

I found the LED of one of my YubiKey gets dimmer than past, and than others.

Because this dimmer one is the most frequently used
and almost always connected with PC,
I wonder this LED came near to the end of life.

So, my questions are
[*] How long is the expected life of LED of YubiKey?
[*] Connected with PC all the time is not the expected usage?

Thanks is advance.

Just out of curiosity...

How long have you had the key? And you say that it is left plugged in all the time. Would this mean that it is 24/7/365? Considering a year is 8760 hours (Non leap year), it is going through extended use. With that said though, they last roughly 50,000 hours on average (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LED_lamp).

As with any solid state electronic device, I would consider a continual application of electrons running across the circuitry could very well degrade the circuitry over time but not sure how long that would be.

If you are using the Yubikey as a security device (for logins, passwords etc), then security logic would certainly dictate using the key as needed, but not to leave it plugged in. It would be the same as leaving your keys in your deadbolt or door when you leave home.

I've been using these keys for 11 months. And yes, "left plugged in all the time" means almost 24/7/365.
So, according to this Wikipedia's article, 5 years or so will be expected until this key dies.




That's right. No matter how long the expected life would be, it's better not to leave it plugged in. I've configured the OS to be locked down when Yubikey is plugged off, but need to reconsider this somehow.

Thanks for your advice.

As mentioned, the lifetime of a LED is well north of 50k hours, i.e >> 5 years of constant on. We drive the LED at a far lower current than max so the practical lifetime should be even longer.

Do you experience that the LED has gone dimmer over time ?

Best regards,

JakobE
Hardware- and firmware guy @ Yubico

I see.



Yes, the LED has gone dimmer than when I used this YubiKey for the first time.


BTW, the YubiKey with dimmer LED has gone unresponsive today.
Even if I plug this one into PC, PC won't recognize it.

just wonder, does yubico offer replacements for such failures? if they do over what time?