Ask Slashdot: Best Use For an Old Smartphone?

zaba writes "The original iPhone was a dream come true for me. Phone, camera, mp3 player and data all in one device. It had more cpu and memory than my first computer! Several generations of smartphones later, my wife and I have some random smartphones (some iPhone, some Android) lying around. Between privacy concerns, bad batteries, etc. these phones are not worthy of donation. So, I ask you, Slashdot readers, have you done anything fun with an old smartphone? Any suggestions/ideas?"

Comments

Re:Use it as a server

[Nerdfest]

This package actually does a few more things as well ( DLNA, DNS, Dynamic DNS, Email, FTP(S), Proxy, SMS Gateway, Time, HTTP(S), (secure) WebDAV), and the performance seems pretty impressive for what it is. Of course, the power consumption is really low as well. I'm pretty damn impressed by the app in general.

Open source!

[Anonymous Coward]

Give it to one of the Open Source mobile distribution developers! For example: Replicant, SHR, Debian:

http://replicant.us/
http://shr-project.org/
https://wiki.debian.org/Mobile

Re:Burn them

[ozmanjusri]

Burn the mother fuckers already, and get on with your life.

Yeah, but those of us who don't have a life can use half-dead Android phones as Arduino controllers.

  Or we could use them with AndroUAV to control our own drones.

http://www.amarino-toolkit.net/

http://developer.android.com/tools/adk/index.html

http://www.instructables.com/id/Androino-Talk-with-an-Arduino-from-your-Android-d/

http://code.google.com/p/androuav/

Still usable, and still worth a bit

[SuperKendall]

If it's in good shape and still works, you can still get a decent price for them.

It's still quite a usable device.

Re:Burn them

[crafty.munchkin]

I'd use them as a device to stream music somewhere in the house. A bathroom stereo system, maybe put one out in the shed, with the added bonus of it having wifi ability to connect to the net if required.

Re:GPS Logger + CarCam

[phonewebcam]

Here ya go!

Re:They don't need a plan

[racermd]

Why isn't this comment modded up more?

Plenty of charities will accept phones for exactly this reason. They can refurbish old phones well enough so they'll keep a charge and be able to dial 911 for emergencies. Even if your phone has a single fatal flaw, they can re-use parts of it to get other, identical models working.

If the phone currently works (even if you have to use the charger to get it to power up), just remember to scrub your data before you send it in. Many smartphones have this ability as a built-in feature so the phone appears to be "factory fresh" from a software and data perspective.