Are used routers recyclable?

[Ponders]

When we switched ISP a year ago they gave us one of their routers - now we've switched again we've got another new one - so we have those 2 old routers plus a random one.

Is there any point in putting them on freecycle or should we take them to the electrical bit at the recycling place?

Freecycle or Ebay probably better than the recycling depot... A little depends on the make and model as to how easy they'd be to use by someone else.

For example, my sister passed on her old wireless router (she was sent a new one when she switched to Plus.Net) and I tested it and have now passed it on to some place as a wireless access point (allowing coverage in a different building on wi-fi, with a cable to the 'main' router that has the phone line plugged in).

It was quite easy to login and set the router to act dumb (allowing wireless devices to get info from the 'main' router, but if I was unable to login via the web browser, then it would have been more difficult to make use of the unit.

Thank you

It's whether they can actually be used independently of a specific ISP I was wondering about...the much older one, from aol, is Netgear & has no branding.

The 1-yr-old one is Technicolor from O2 & is identical in appearance to the new one from Plusnet, but the BT engineer said there would be internal differences???

There's a chance the 'firmware' (software on a chip) has been modified from the original Technicolor {previously Thomson} version.

It's a bit of 'buyer beware' if you were to put them on Ebay, but there are many web sites with HowTo pages about getting things 'unlocked' or resetting them so there may well be ways to re-use these.

I'm using a router from Plus.Net myself, but it's from 2010 so not as up-to-date as some are. Think when my sister switched from BE Unlimited to Plus.Net, she had to send her old router back to them (O2 and BE were sold to Sky, but she left them a while ago when the discount deal she had expired... she was paying 7.50/month to BE).

I wouldn't put them on eBay anyway as they didn't cost me anything (apart from what seems a standard delivery charge).

If someone took them on freecycle that would be great so I will try that

Thanks again

Do they retain any of your information (e.g. log-in for your secured network)?
We have 2 routers sitting here that we no longer need...

The O2 one probably has the old network code/password on the bottom, but as that network no longer exists now we are with a different provider it's no use to anybody - I don't think

??????

(I have a lot of trouble getting my head round this stuff, can you tell? )