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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?"
The batteries aren't as hard to replace as some non-techies make you believe. Buy the parts from chinese retailers, do the work yourself and the phone will perform like when it was new. There are a lot of people with worse phones, who would appreciate even an old smartphone.
Plug it in and use VNC to a separate session to make it a mini-head for monitoring things like email, tweets, system sensors, etc. For example, what I did with my tablet.
Can You Say Linux? I Knew That You Could.
For Android phones, use it as a Web/FTP/DNLA/DNS/Email/Proxy server.
With a couple of phones that have user-facing cameras, you could set up a sweet touchscreen video intercom at your frontdoor. If you're worried about them being thieved, you could conceal all but the camera lense and make it a one-way experience only.
For that matter you could use them as wireless CCTV security and potentially check in on them from home, the office, while on holiday.
I use old phones over wifi to control my XBMC media boxes. When I build my new house in a few years, I'll probably incorporate them into home automation since I'll have around 10 lying around. Most phones in airplane mode with wifi will last at least a week, and it lets me have chargers around the house to keep them (or my current phone) plugged in most of the time.
I believe I bought my iPhone 3G for $300 on launch day and I sold it about 3.5 years later to a friend for $125, which was well under the asking prices at that time, most of which were around $150-175 if memory serves. I was shocked to see that it had held its value so well, despite being two generations outdated at that point (and feeling like it too).
The scene might be a bit different these days, now that Apple has started offering older models for lower prices, but considering your phone can be purchased without needing to commit to a contract, that alone makes it more valuable than you may realize.
Plug the phone into a wall outlet and install one of the numerous free Android apps that turns the phone into a wi-fi IP video camera. Mount it on your front porch and see who stops by when you're not home. Integrate the camera into an external Zoneminder server if you want motion detection, alarms, and recording.
Build a cool ass steam punk enclosure for it. Make it a table top phone with a handset using a mic and headphones (hide them inside the ear and mouth piece). Keep the display but root it and get some brass typeset graphics for the number keys, etc.
If it can do Skype or video chat try that too.
Make the enclosure big and brass with lots of adjustable levers for positioning it (3 arms would do).
OR
Make a Jukebox out of it and enclose it in something with cool speakers.
Maybe even both.
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
Ebay it and buy a bottle of wine. Then drink the wine with a friend....
Perhaps, the most fun use of an old smart phone is the mobile phone throwing contest
My old S60 series Nokia - it has offline maps, with driving instructions (and voice guidance) and a working GPS. I got a car-window mount and a recharger for that (cost about â 10) and now it serves as a navigator in my car. I connect it via USB every few months to load in the latest map data, but other than that, it now lives in the glove compartment when not in use.
Something like the MIT junkyard jumbotron then?
http://jumbotron.media.mit.edu/