Konubinix' opinionated web of thoughts

Afterlife for My Phones

Fleeting

For fixed devices that provide computation power and are connected using wifi or bluetooth, raspberry pi are a better choice. For exterior things that need a long battery life, dedicated chips are a better choice.

A phone is a good candidate when:

  • you can plug it (or you need it unplugged for only a few hours) and you need one of the
    • camera,
    • accelerometer,
    • GNSS,
    • sound,
    • microphone,
    • NFC,
  • and it is not in your pocket (otherwise, you can use your current phone),

ideas:

  • photo gallery, if you can plug another screen,
  • security camera
  • presence detection
  • animal buddy (like bird buddy)
  • retro gaming box
    • chromecasting makes it too slow
    • the wiimote does not pair well
    • joy con pair well only from android 11
  • story box (like yoto)
  • house remote control (chromecast, domotic)
  • parrot remote control
  • alarmclock
  • pomodoro timer
  • baby phone
  • gnss tracker
  • drawer light

k004

I just threw it away. android 4 and now way to update it. It even does not connect to most https sites anymore because it only has ssl v2.

whyred

Now that it is unlocked, I may do something with it.

zte blade s6 (p839f30)

android 5.0.2, so no adb over wifi, making it non timely for quick trials and errors.

no way to unlock the oem, so no way to root it or install a custom rom. To bad…

Used as a baby monitor and remote control for parrot sumo, while the later lags and is not very comfortable.

hp printing controller

taken from apk mirror -> com.hp.android.printservice_21.7.0.17-2587_minAPI21(arm64-v8a,armeabi-v7a,x86,x86_64)(nodpi)_apkmirror.com.apk

ip camera

unable to make run any ip camera app. They all fail with “Fail to connect to camera service”

Yet, VDO.Ninja works quite well

klipac

android 4

  • photo gallery

wiko cinq peax

android 4.1.2 and no way to unlock the bootloader to install something newer

Cannot use uiautomator2, because it needs at least android 5

became a pomodoro timer

I cannot run google play, nor install fdroid or install any application, like brave. Android SDK 16 seems too old now. There is no html5 sound neither.

Also, there are no custom roms for it.

i9300

last known well working android lineage os 14 with android 7.1.2

This image does not deal well with webrtc. Even VDO.Ninja does not gets access to its camera.

gnss tracker

the chip only receive gps signal, not even glonass. It had a hard time keeping a precise location.

retro gaming console

installing lemuroid, but

  • the stock rom use android 4, while lemuroid needs at least android 6
  • with lineage os (and the version 7), mhl appears not to work, because it does not use samsung’s firmware

babyphone

using baby monitor

timer for little kids (3 years old)

Using https://f-droid.org/fr/packages/com.best.deskclock/ and putting different alarm musics from time to time

com.best.deskclock.apk

teeth brushing timer, using the default browser.

music player

Using vlc

org.videolan.vlc.apk

TODO microphone

Using https://github.com/gdzx/audiosource

fr.dzx.audiosource.apk

controller for proscenic vacuum cleaner

using Proscenic_3.0.0_apkcombo.com.apk It is a bit slow, but works ok

NOT_DONE a webrtc camera

In all the browsers I tested, chromium, chrome and fennec, the navigator did not expose the media stuff.

bullhead

retro gaming

cannot plug hdmi, so that’s a no go

trying gnss tracker