Hi,
Which things can I do with an old android phone ? Like a Xiaomi mi a3.
Take the battery out of it. Put on lineage OS. Use it as a microserver, mine some crypto like monero. Because it’s CPU-based. You could use it as a remote for other devices. You could use it as a webcam for your house. It can do everything it used to do.
Old lithium batteries become a fire hazard, so I would recommend removing it if you can. Or at least replacing it with the new battery. Good practice at least even if you break it
Leaving an airplane mode, don’t use the cellular modem, you’re not getting any hardware driver updates. So it’s security risk. Don’t do anything too sensitive with it. But just for you around home network it’s fine
Can you run phones without batteries off of AC?
I use an IP webcam app and run my old S10+ as a CCTV camera inside my garage, viewable in Home Assistant.
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Music player, bedside alarm clock/weather info, time lapse camera
I use an old Nexus 5 I have as a offline GPS device for cycling.
Next time you upgrade your phone you should try to do a trade in, it bumps some money off of the price and solves the issue of having an old phone laying around. Pretty sure they recycle the parts after that, so win-win.
Most will take the trade in phones, refurbish them, and resale them on a used market platform like backmarket. Anything not worth reselling I think is recycled.
