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Repurposing Old Usable Cell Phones?
zentogo wonders: "As I stroll through the local recycle shops in my little Japanese City, I see boxes of used KEITAI-- Japanese Cell Phones. Most of them only a two or three years old, with more technology and features than any affordable phone in the USA, and they actually work! See, Japanese people cycle to new technology, especially phones, very quickly, and it is almost impossible for them not to. Take my own personal example: after one year with the telecom KDDI, I was given a free phone. It had more features than my previous one, and was much lighter, so when I was offered the deal I changed on the spot! So I wonder, what can be done with all these old phones? Can they be recycled for parts or even software? Can they be adapted to another type of technology? It would seem to be a big waste of decent hardware if something interesting couldn't be done with them."
They could all be used as alarmclocks!
I dub thee... Sir Phobos, Knight of Mars, Beater of Ass.
Sometimes you can get them unlocked at a kiosk in the mall, but otherwise take time to your local waste transfer station, and they will dispose of it for you in a way that the lead/mercury/other heavy metals dosnt leak into the environment. Its like spray paint cans, you dont put them in household garbage.
At least in the US, ANY working cel phone that can get signal can be used to call 911. They are collected by a lot of battered womens shelters and similar places, then distributed to people who otherwise couldn't afford a cel phone to call authorities in an emergency.
But don't stop there, any elderly or non-mobile person (think wheel-chair) should have a cel in their pocket, all the time. As long as it's charged, they never need worry about not being able to get to a normal phone, which might be impossible in an emergency.
All my old phones have been donated and put to good use.
- shazow
http://www.phones4charity.org/h ones.htm
http://www.actionaidrecycling.org.uk/
http://www.oxfam.org.uk/what_you_can_do/recycle/p
http://www.recyclingappeal.com/
It's my understanding that old cell phones are in high demand in places like Iraq, for, um, "alternative" uses. I suppose you don't *have* to use them to detonate bombs, the remote control aspect is intriguing to me.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
Seriously, a lot of phones in Japan have the capability to work in the US with Cingular and T-Mobile (not so much Spring, Nextel, or Verizon).
Seriously - get these phones unlocked, and eBay them to Americans.
I just spent $500 on a brand new Sony Ericsson S710a that isn't even available in this part of the country yet. It's got all sorts of cool features, including a 1.3 MP camera (pretty damned nice, for a phone). But I still can't help but to feel like an ass for spending the money knowing that, for instance, Samsung has a phone of nearly identical size out in South Korea with a 3MP camera and significantly more memory.
Second-hand phones in the Asian market are still better than cutting edge in the US. Given that most high-end phones can work with the majority of service providers in the world, I'm amazed there isn't a sort of cottage industry around, selling second-hand phones to the US market for discount prices.
Believe me - take a look at sites like Howard Forums - there are a lot of cell phone/gadget enthusiasts out there that would be plenty happy to not have to buy the overpriced, under-performing phones marketed in the US.
Can they be adapted to another type of technology?
:-/
Probably not: they're not going to be wanted in Japan, and they're not going to be compatible anywhere else. Which just begs the same old question: Why do we insist on always making so many incompatible standards to do the same thing???
If all countries used GSM [for example], it would make re-use of all those old phones so much easier. Plus I wouldn't need to buy a special phone that supports multiple technologies just so I can take it overseas.
[note - before you all flame me for suggesting GSM, it was just an example. I don't really care which technology we use; just stop with the stupidity of each continent having its own set of standards]
(Spudley Strikes Again!)
Listen up kid,
http://www.beowulf.org/
I was at a mini "tech expo" on campus the other day and talked to some people from Cell for Cash. You go to their site, sign up, and they send you out a prepaid box that you ship the phone back in.
They say that the more recent phones are reconditioned and resold overseas. If a phone's too old to be of use, their partner (or someone?) recycles it and extracts precious metals, whatever those may be. The guy said it probably wouldn't be much money for my old, bulky Panasonic (if I can find it), but it's better than having it end up in a landfill I suppose.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
See http://oh3tr.ele.tut.fi/english/modifications.html . They need to be reprogrammed and need some hardware hacks but they work. I have an RD58 moppe on my desk which I use to make contacts through local 70cm repeaters. I'm not sure if that is possible for those proprietary phones.
Some Ericsson and Nokia phones (and others too I'm sure) can be programmed by cable. Get a cheap refillable SIM card (such as Comviq or DJuice if you live in Sweden).
Hook up a laptop with Linux to the phone. If you have burglar alarms, fire alarm, flooding alarms on your summer house/boat whatever, you can hook them up to your computer. It is fairly trivial to write a script that, if one of the alarms go off, the phone SMSes you, the closest neighbour, your significant other.
"This is Lars's summer house. At 19.55 2003-03-14 the burglar alarm went off."
Drawbacks - the system can be a bit fragile. You must find a place for the laptop and all cables. SMSes aren't guaranteed to arrive on time, or indeed at all. You have to check that the systems boots up correctly after a power outage. And you can get a complete intruder system that is smaller and more reliable for not much money. Still, it is pretty cool in a geeky way.
Being bitter is drinking poison and hoping someone else will die