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.

rooted

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.

I tried installing my kivy poc (see some note if using with kivy) but the applications were not smooth. Also, I could not run services.

Fortunately, the new version appears to work quite well.

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

klipad kl_6888

android 7.1.2

https://whatismyphone.net/vendors/klipad/kl6888

no adb over wifi…

  • photo gallery

tried rooting with kingroot-5-3-7, iRoot_com.mgyun.shua.su.apk, z4root.1.3.0.apk, Framaroot_v2.1.00.5.00.1_apkpure.com.apk, one-click-root-checker, magisk-manager-28-0.apk, SuperSU_2.82_APKPure.apk

wiko cink peax

  • android 4.1.2,
  • no way to unlock the bootloader to install something newer
  • is rooted
  • no adb on wifi, cannot install https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.galexander.sshd/, but can install https://apkpure.com/sshdroid/berserker.android.apps.sshdroid/downloading (/ipfs/bafybeigwd4nxu7xwd34la5ce3jzu43ezbie7fp7p3cw3q22zaqjukucul4?filename=SSHDroid_2.1.2_APKPure.apk) ssh -o HostKeyAlgorithms=+ssh-rsa -o KexAlgorithms=+diffie-hellman-group14-sha1 root@192.168.1.36 does not deal with authorized_keys, but works with “sshpass -p admin ssh cinkpeax”
  • Cannot use uiautomator2, because it needs at least android 5
  • can run some a pomodoro timer
  • cannot run google play, nor install fdroid
  • cannot install a recent web browser, only some old build of chromium

    • sound wise, this version cannot play mp3 an only can play sound if using an explicit gesture otherwise it fails with “Uncaught (in promise) DOMException: play() can only be initiated by a user gesture.”.

      Therefore, it cannot run the interval timer.

    • but I can connect using chrome://inspect/#devices from my desktop.

  • there are no custom roms for it.
  • with

https://konubinix.eu/ipfs/bafybeie7qp763lo2f575rnj6atggx35ealqxb4zxwqo43k3v2p6fozxwgu?filename=poc.apk,

can run custom kivy (1.10.0) applications (in python2), I tried running https://github.com/kivy/kivy/tree/1.10.1/examples/audio and it was smooth. Also see my experiment at making it communicate with some arduino board. It works well with the camera example as well. And no luck with running a service.

  • could not find any application to run python3 in it,
    • tried installing pydroid supposedly working for that version of android from

https://www.apkmirror.com/apk/iiec/pydroid-3-ide-for-python-3/pydroid-3-ide-for-python-3-4-01-release/pydroid-3-ide-for-python-3-4-01_arm-android-apk-download/

and got Failure [INSTALL_FAILED_OLDER_SDK]

some note if using with kivy

For example, it could easily be used to create a timelapse by capturing images at regular interval by slightly adjusting the camera example. Put this code in /sdcard/poc/main.py, start the application and get back later to retrieve the data (or upload them).

To do so, follow the instructions in here to install python2 locally, install requests, copy the site-packages in /sdcard/poc/d and add in the main.py sys.path.append("/sdcard/poc/d"). Then you should be able to import request. (Doing it, I get this content

https://konubinix.eu/ipfs/bafybeifpahqnfoq5hz5gl724hagrpxtap46rvmxw5n7b7jeshx6vcjmac4?filename=site-packages.tar.xz).

For pure python stuff like requests, you should be able to add dependencies easily.

Yet, because the ssl module is very old (and not easily upgradable because not pure python), you won’t be able to discuss https. For most use cases involving that phone, that should be ok though.

The application was initialy meant to be able to start /sdcard/poc/main.py:run() for the main application and /sdcard/poc/service/main.py:run() for the service, provided you wrote somethings like

from android import AndroidService
service = AndroidService('my pong service', 'running')
service.start('service started')

Yet, in this phone, this segfaults.

forced it to become silent

clk android -d cinkpeax adb shell su -c find /system -name '*.ogg'

/system/media/audio/notifications/Amenity.ogg
/system/media/audio/notifications/Brilliant.ogg
/system/media/audio/notifications/Brisk.ogg
/system/media/audio/notifications/Chirm.ogg
/system/media/audio/notifications/FunBall.ogg
/system/media/audio/notifications/Heaven.ogg
/system/media/audio/notifications/InterstellarSpace.ogg
/system/media/audio/notifications/Meditation.ogg
/system/media/audio/notifications/Nimble.ogg
/system/media/audio/notifications/Tinkerbell.ogg
/system/media/audio/ringtones/Andromeda.ogg
/system/media/audio/ringtones/BellPhone.ogg
/system/media/audio/ringtones/Caress.ogg
/system/media/audio/ringtones/ChimeyPhone.ogg
/system/media/audio/ringtones/Dazzle.ogg
/system/media/audio/ringtones/Dell.ogg
/system/media/audio/ringtones/FunAndGame.ogg
/system/media/audio/ringtones/Hop.ogg
/system/media/audio/ringtones/Horizon.ogg
/system/media/audio/ringtones/Lyra.ogg
/system/media/audio/ringtones/Nebula.ogg
/system/media/audio/ringtones/Showtime.ogg
/system/media/audio/ringtones/SilentWaters.ogg
/system/media/audio/ringtones/StarlitSky.ogg
/system/media/audio/ringtones/wonderland.ogg
/system/media/audio/ui/Dock.ogg
/system/media/audio/ui/Effect_Tick.ogg
/system/media/audio/ui/KeypressDelete.ogg
/system/media/audio/ui/KeypressReturn.ogg
/system/media/audio/ui/KeypressSpacebar.ogg
/system/media/audio/ui/KeypressStandard.ogg
/system/media/audio/ui/Lock.ogg
/system/media/audio/ui/LowBattery.ogg
/system/media/audio/ui/Undock.ogg
/system/media/audio/ui/Unlock.ogg
/system/media/audio/ui/VideoRecord.ogg
/system/media/audio/ui/camera_click.ogg
/system/media/audio/ui/camera_shutter.ogg

mkdir -p /tmp/cinkpeax
cd /tmp/cinkpeax
clk android -d cinkpeax adb pull /system/media/audio

/system/media/audio/: 38 files pulled, 0 skipped. 1.8 MB/s (4710451 bytes in 2.478s)

clk android -d cinkpeax adb su -c mount -o remount,rw /system
clk android -d cinkpeax adb su -c find /system/media/audio -name '*.ogg' -delete

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.

DONE 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

Notes linking here