Slashdot Mirror
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?"
For science, of course.
"To those who are overly cautious, everything is impossible. "
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.
Actually, for real. Has anyone considered networking a couple hundred old iPhones or Android phones together to form some sort of beowulf cluster of them?
Phone, camera, mp3 player and data all in one device
Older Symbian s60 devices did the same for a much lower price and IIRC better battery life
It wasnt a dream come true, it was a feature phone dressed up as a 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.
Donate the phone to the elderly http://www.securethecall.org/. Oh wait, this is slashdot. Root the phone and then donate it.
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....
to underpriviled inner city orphans in a homeless shelter.
No one underprivileged would be able to afford the AT&T iPhone plan.
Perhaps, the most fun use of an old smart phone is the mobile phone throwing contest
Didn't they just do that with 500,000 Android phones in China?
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
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/
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
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.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Mount all of them on a belt and wear a bluetooth ear clip on each ear. Also wear Birkinstocks with socks and a t-shirt that says "Municipal Emergency Response Team" with a day-glo orange vest and a hardhat.
Chick Magnet.
I believe this is what you're looking for:
http://slashdot.org/story/12/08/20/0216225/finland-hosts-mobile-phone-throwing-championships
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.
... wait, what?
I'm pretty sure all that counts as more of a life than going to a bar and getting wasted on the weekends. Really. Don't put yourself down just because you do something with your life.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
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.
I am using one of my older 7" tablets as a bedside clock at the moment, always synched and accurate
No Coffee, No Workee
I throw them at the kids on my lawn. But the lil' bastards just keep coming back for more, so I keep the .410 with rock salt loads handy.
The cell phones are rich in rare Chinese vitamins and minerals, and eventually get buried beneath all the beer cans, and other trash. So I am effectively building a rare earth heavy metal mineral mine for my great-great-great-grandchildren.
I am also hoping that some of the kids might port Openwrt to the phones that they pick up.
Sometimes Da Ranch gets visitors from foreign countries, who ask if they can borrow a phone that works with the bands in the area. I just tell them pick one up of their liking off the front lawn.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Here ya go!
Something like the MIT junkyard jumbotron then?
http://jumbotron.media.mit.edu/
Lots of organizations donate old cell phones to the underprivileged. The point is that the telcos are required to accept calls from cellphones dialing 911, regardless of whether they have a plan or not. As long as the old cell phone has a charge and a signal, it provides security to folks who might have (say) a problem with spousal abuse, or...
how does it count more? Its all just doing stuff.
And chatroulette.
I am amused that you say "laptops with much larger screen, keyboard and USB ports are far more cost effective" than using an old Android phone. If he doesn't have said laptop and DOES have said android phone...how exactly is it more cost effective to throw away the phone and buy a laptop?
Got to love the demonisation of the poor. It's much cooler than being racist. SImply change the word "black" for "welfare recipient" in all of your rants and no-one will bat an eyelid.
It's not like we're in the middle of the worst economic crisis for decades, with many people being laid off and needing society to help them get by while they try to be the one person out of the two thousand who applied to actually get the menial, low-paid job that is all that's on offer in the ex-industrial town they had the misfortune to be born in. Heaven forbid anyone would aspire to owning a consumer good which the constant saturation of advertising states is the only way to validate yourself as a person.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Chavs-Demonization-Working-Owen-Jones/dp/184467696X might open your eyes (UK context but applicable to many western countries)