Turns out Australia is removing 3G support nationwide and that means I have to upgrade. I’ve had my phone for at least 4 years but it runs well, I wasn’t planning on upgrading for at least another year.
I want to keep using it, but I’m not too tech oriented so my thinking has been, " I can play music with it, some games, videos"…And that’s fine. But perhaps some of you guys have more creative ideas? Curious as to what would you recommend.
When I went on vacation, I left my phone behind and took along an old smartphone with no sim card. I used the smartphone as a camera. It still received a GPS signal and I loaded off-line maps so I could use Google Maps. When I was at the hotel in the evening I checked my email and looked up local information with wifi and played games on it. But work couldn’t call me, which was nice.
So… like a mini iPad mini?
Yep!
The most common thing I’ve seen are projects where it acts like a screen or control panel on the wall. Something that’s a fixture or art project.
You don’t need it for anything like music or games - your new phone will be more convenient and run those things better anyway.
A friend of mine stuck an old tablet on the wall and connected it via Bluetooth to his keg system. It gave him a permanent status readout on his beer temperature and how much was left in each keg. It just had a power cable plugged in all the time so it didn’t need to be charged.
Really good idea, as long as it can stay plugged in.
Oh that’s cool, I like that with the beer. Unfortunately I don’t brew… Or have any other setup that could use a dedicated screen.
I also think I’ll end up playing media more with the new one, but I keeping some of my CD rips and most watched/recurrent videos stored locally on my old phone would be useful for whenever YouTube messes up everything ( as it is doing right now ).
I wonder if this would work while having the battery removed.
The last few phones I had wouldn’t power on if they didn’t have a minimum battery charge, even when plugged in. That’s to ensure a minimal amount of available power to be able to boot the phone. I wonder if the phone would have the same restriction with a missing battery and not just a drained battery…
I assume you’re concerned about the battery eventually blowing up from being on the charger forever?
Not sure how easy this is anymore, but when I was a teen I was flashing my friends phone with cyanogenmod and it died midway through, bricked and wouldn’t charge either.
We opened it up, cut open a charging cable and manually attached them to the battery terminals with the battery removed until it turned back on and we were able to flash stock and back to cyanogenmod lmao
That’s right. I wonder if you could trick certain models with simulating a battery.
Bicycle or hiking computer. With osmand and organic maps you can get your position from GPS without a sim card and use the phone for navigation, trip recording, stats etc.
Load it to the brim with literature pdf’s, put in a faraday box incase an nuclear EMP or those monster solar flare things takes out all electrical components. I’m not a doomsday prepper or anything but did this with an old 256gb phone for shits and giggles. It’s absolutely insane the amount of text documents 256gb holds lol
This is just 64 GB but yeah why not
Id love to find your stash in the fallout universe
I like having offline apps on my old android phone. Such as the Kiwix app with offline wikipedia, Organic maps app with downloaded maps, Readera app with some epub books.
Install F-Droid and IzzyOnDroid repos and you can use it for whatever you find there. I use mine as an alarm clock, note pad, music player and spare camera around the house. Sometimes a browser (wifi) but it’s a bit old. I thought about putting all my recipes in text format and using it as a cookbook as well.
That’s what I use an old phone for. In the kitchen it’s a timer, notepad, and music player. I read the news on it while having coffee.
I could do that all on my main phone of course but if I’m cooking or having coffee my main phone is both off and elsewhere. I don’t like to be disturbed.
Oh, and I use it to test apps before they go on my main phone.
I also do the app testing. Love it for that.
I have Fdroid but never heard of Izzy. Will look into it, thanks!
In case you own a lot of devices with remotes, you might transform it into a universal remote with an USB C IR dongle. Wouldn’t be my first choice as you’d still need to recharge it so often but I read of such projects.
Alternatively, you could give it to children for gaming and watching videos. Children are anyway mostly on WiFi and if you equip it with some emulators and ROMs they’ll have tons of funny games without all of these toxic in-app purchases, ads and casino mechanisms.
You can try to see how far you can skip it on a lake or pond.
While that’s a funny reply, I feel the need to point out this is a horrible idea considering the environmental impact of throwing lithium ion batteries into water.
Oh it’s an absolutely terrible idea. But it is something one can do with an old phone.
Yes well I can also use it as a coaster or as a tv for a dolls house, yes lots of alternatives
I like the doll house idea. Now with realistic house fires!
Donate it. I’m sure there’s someplace that will want it as a wifi-cabable minitablet for kids to access the Internet on.
Set up wifi plus some free music streaming (not saying you should purate it, or use a web browser with ad block), hook it up to a loudspeaker and tada, modern jukebox!
i have bad luck with phones so i go through them faster than most so i always the the $100 androids.
in the past i’ve used them as ip cameras as part of a homemade security monitoring systems using motion; car dash cams; car backup cameras; homemade lojack; car stereo screens; parallel parking sensor aides; secondary alarm clocks; intermediate android auto proxies; backup alarm clocks; and secondary phones for applications/control that my employers have mandated; system interface screen; bathroom readers; usb drives; wifi extenders; and remote controls.
I’ve had my phone for at least 4 years but it runs well,
What’s the exact phone model? I’d be really surprised such a phone wouldn’t support LTE, 5G was about to come out 4 years ago. Even the OG pixel should support LTE. Unless your issue is lack of VoLTE support, which sometimes can be remediated with root or custom roms. Although I find the Internet portion to be more useful anyway, as you can just route the calls over regular VoIP and use Signal or Matrix or Discord or whatever.
Unless it’s a Samsung, then you’re kind of SoL into the fix by modding department, you’re stuck with what regular Android apps can do.
Motorola g8. Lack of VoLTE indeed. I wouldn’t want to rely on my internet connection, Australia is famous for its subpar internet and I’ve been in many places where coverage is very patchy.
Recycle.
I think OP has better idea wit reusing it first before recycling. No point in recycling a functioning phone when you may have a use for it still.
get a controller frame like a GameSir and do some emulated gaming.
Turn it into a cold crypto wallet by downloading a wallet app then pitting it in airplane mode indefinitely.
