Five Ways To Use Your Old Phone Or Tablet

Don't let that old smartphone gather dust in a drawer or kill the environment in a landfill. In just a few steps, you can again re-purpose it as useful. Let's check what we recommend.

Turn your old phone into a network camera
Turn your old phone into a traffic recorder
Turn your old phone into a desk calendar
Turn your old phone into a digital picture frame
Turn your old phone into a multimedia center

1. Turn your old phone into a network camera

The old smartphone will be great as a permanently active camera from which you can view the image on another device. The IP Webcam application is ideal for this purpose.

It can stream the image locally within one Wi-Fi network (useful if you want to be able to look at a child or pet in another room) or through the cloud, which gives access to the image from anywhere in the world.
Application configuration is trivial because all the necessary information is displayed on the screen. The phone camera works even when the display is blank and the image can be viewed on any device equipped with a web browser.

2. Turn your old phone into a traffic recorder

A worn-out smartphone can easily take over the role of a car camera. Given the presence of a touch screen, Android, and communication modules, it can perform even better than devices created only for this purpose. Mainly due to the convenience of managing recorded material.

To record what is happening on the road, the camera default app is all you need. However, there are special apps that have more useful functions (e.g. overlaying the date and time on the recorded image). Popular programs of this type are AutoGuard and CamOnRoad.

3. Turn your old phone into a desk calendar

A calendar is a standard feature of every phone, computer, or electronic watch, and yet many people like to have a physical equivalent on their wall or desk that you don't need to pull out of your pocket or run. Such a calendar that is always ready for use - only a better one, because it displays events saved on another device - can be an old smartphone or tablet.

4. Turn your old phone into a digital picture frame

Actually - because of the screen size - a tablet will work better as a photo display than a smartphone. The digital frame is nothing more than a tablet stripped of other functions.

The Android device connected to Wi-Fi has the advantage over many specialized solutions that photos can be sent wirelessly via Bluetooth. Thanks to the Google Photos application, photos can be synchronized with the cloud automatically. The mentioned app has a slide show mode, so it will be perfect.

5. Turn your old phone into a multimedia center

One of the best things you can do with an old phone is to make it a home multimedia center. After connecting the camera to the speakers (minijack cable or using Chromecast Audio) the smartphone turns into a music player. In the case of a TV (HDMI or Chromecast cable), the mobile device becomes a movie player with access to dozens of applications such as Netflix or YouTube.