Old Smartphone - fun stuff

[yotsuya]

Ok, so the navigation buttons on my Samsung Galaxy SII have given up the ghost. I got a new phone, but now I have the old one with a nice screen gathering dust. Anyone here have any ideas or links on how I could repurpose the screen for something else?

[Louis Tully]

.

[yotsuya]

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.smart.swkey.nonroot&hl=en

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.smart.swkey&hl=en

Button Savior might help. I have it on a bypassed Nook Tab and it's nice.

Yeah, I already downloaded that to take my crap off the old phone. I like my new phone - I just want to do something cool with the old one.

[pbj]

Throw it in a drawer

[yotsuya]

Throw it in a drawer

It's in one, next to my still-working Blackberry Bold with a non-working screen.

Ideally, I'd like to repurposed the screen and digitizer.

[pbj]

Put some random nudies on it and leave it somewhere a 13 year old boy will find it.  It's the modern day forest porn stash.

[ChadTower]

They make decent substitute TV remotes for a lot of streaming clients.  You can also still use them as cameras etc.


Forest porn stash... ha.  Random stack of magazines in an abandoned car FTW!

[jdbailey1206]

What exactly are you looking to do with it?  So you want to go the route of a 1:12 scale cab like Le Chuck and LT?  Or were you thinking of something completely different?

[yotsuya]

What exactly are you looking to do with it?  So you want to go the route of a 1:12 scale cab like Le Chuck and LT?  Or were you thinking of something completely different?

No, no mini cabs. My fat fingers would never enjoy that. I'm thinking more of a interface or panel of some sort. Not even MAME-related, but something useful.

[pbj]

I've got a Kindle Fire laying around and can't figure out a damned thing to do with it.  I tried doing the whole powered hub, OTG cable, and external keyboard with an eye towards a mini arcade cabinet and nothing worked very well.

Suppose we could plug bluetooth adapters into the headphone ports and use them to drive a pandora jukebox or something similar.  But I can already do that with every other device I own...

 

[jdbailey1206]

Maybe a controller for your home thermostat.  Nest controllers theyre called I believe.

[yotsuya]

I've got a Kindle Fire laying around and can't figure out a damned thing to do with it.  I tried doing the whole powered hub, OTG cable, and external keyboard with an eye towards a mini arcade cabinet and nothing worked very well.

Suppose we could plug bluetooth adapters into the headphone ports and use them to drive a pandora jukebox or something similar.  But I can already do that with every other device I own...

 

Maybe a controller for your home thermostat.  Nest controllers theyre called I believe.

Those aren't bad ideas. That's what I'm thinking.

[pbj]

Maybe a controller for your home thermostat.  Nest controllers theyre called I believe.

Oh man, if someone makes a thermostat app that acts like it's obeying your wife but does nothing, they'll make millions.  It'll be the modern day fake thermostat in the secretary section.

 

[BadMouth]

It'll be the modern day fake thermostat in the secretary section.

Where I work, every female employee but one has an electric heater under her desk.
Sometimes they'll trip a breaker when all the heaters are on high.

The one that doesn't have a heater has hot flashes and leaves her window open year round.

[Mitkraft]

I use my old Droid as a touch screen car music player.  I've got a mount to put it just under radio level and can remove the droid and put my active phone there if I want. Put a 32gig Micro SD card in and now I have all my MP3's in the car.  I use Llama to pause the player and put it to sleep when I turn off the car and them to wake it up and resume play when I turn on the car (senses when power is on/of due to the cig lighter being ignition dependent).

I did this because my factory radio doesn't have any MP3 or USB capabilities and its cheaper than changing it out since I had nearly all the hardware laying around.

[pbj]

Where I work, every female employee but one has an electric heater under her desk.
Sometimes they'll trip a breaker when all the heaters are on high.

The one that doesn't have a heater has hot flashes and leaves her window open year round.

Did they randomly decide they smelled "something burning" on a daily basis?  15 years of full time employment and I'm still hearing that one continuously.

[yotsuya]

I found a link on Lifehacker with some interesting results.

http://lifehacker.com/5892896/what-can-i-do-with-an-old-smartphone-besides-sell-it

The best suggestions are in the comments. One is to turn the phone into a security webcam. Maybe I'll make a webcam for Casa de Yotsuya's Gameroom.

[pbj]

http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/cash-rewarding-mobile-apps/

Figure out a way to turn it into a passive revenue generator.

[yotsuya]

http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/cash-rewarding-mobile-apps/

Figure out a way to turn it into a passive revenue generator.

Can I use it to mine Bitcoins? Is that still a thing?

[Yenome]

you could get one of the bluetooth controllers that hold the screen and turn it into a portable console emulator. i been wanting one. got 3 old smart phones at home doing nothing. or you could turn it into a minecraft server woot.

[Yenome]

http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/cash-rewarding-mobile-apps/

Figure out a way to turn it into a passive revenue generator.

Can I use it to mine Bitcoins? Is that still a thing?

name coins or litecoins maybe but bitcoins are too intensive to be mined by anything short of some dedicated GFX card.

[yotsuya]

http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/cash-rewarding-mobile-apps/

Figure out a way to turn it into a passive revenue generator.

Can I use it to mine Bitcoins? Is that still a thing?

name coins or litecoins maybe but bitcoins are too intensive to be mined by anything short of some dedicated GFX card.

I was just kidding about the bitcoins, but that's good to know.

you could get one of the bluetooth controllers that hold the screen and turn it into a portable console emulator. i been wanting one. got 3 old smart phones at home doing nothing. or you could turn it into a minecraft server woot.

Hmmm, that might be a viable option. I'd build a case for it. I probably need to root this thing.

[BadMouth]

Where I work, every female employee but one has an electric heater under her desk.
Sometimes they'll trip a breaker when all the heaters are on high.

The one that doesn't have a heater has hot flashes and leaves her window open year round.

Did they randomly decide they smelled "something burning" on a daily basis?  15 years of full time employment and I'm still hearing that one continuously.

If they did smell something burning, they wouldn't dare say anything for fear of having their precious heaters take away.

[yotsuya]

Where I work, every female employee but one has an electric heater under her desk.
Sometimes they'll trip a breaker when all the heaters are on high.

The one that doesn't have a heater has hot flashes and leaves her window open year round.

Did they randomly decide they smelled "something burning" on a daily basis?  15 years of full time employment and I'm still hearing that one continuously.

If they did smell something burning, they wouldn't dare say anything for fear of having their precious heaters take away.

One of the SPED aides here at work melted the whole lower front faceplate of her PC with one of those things.

[pbj]

Yes, those damned space heaters.  I've worked in some buildings with really uneven air conditioning so what can you do, but I swear some of it is they just can't take cool air blowing on them whatsoever.  Others would continuously ---smurfette--- about how their coworkers are going to burn the building down.

I finally had had enough of it at one point, had the secretary order everyone a thermometer that could remember the highest and lowest temperatures it had encountered.  That was actually quite the eye opener and we dragged in our AC contractor and wanted to know why EVERYONE'S office was peaking over 80 on a regular basis.  Prior to a thermometer stationed in each office he kept pawning it off as "overly sensitive women" and "some rooms are just a little warmer than others."  Last excuse I heard was, "I installed an AC unit for the number of people in the building, not the square footage." When that underpowered sucker blew, it hit 106 in my office.

[thomas_surles]

Why don't you get one of those moga gamepads for it and put some emulators and rooms on it.

[yotsuya]

Why don't you get one of those moga gamepads for it and put some emulators and rooms on it.

I don't think I could make a room big enough for anyone to use on it.

[jmike]

How about something like this.

http://m.instructables.com/id/10-Smartphone-to-digital-microscope-conversion/