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Ask HN: What are some interesting projects to reuse your old devices?

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Re: Ask HN: What are some interesting projects to reuse your old devices?

#211

Post by wpietri »

keldaris wrote: post #74
MrGilbert wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I bought a x230 last year as my non-gaming computer, and I really like it. I bought it for 117€, it was pretty beaten up. The display is the cheap TN panel, has a light spot in the center, and the keyboard doesn't match my locale. However, it has the top-level i5. (i5-3380M, I think). I also bought a docking station at a bargain. This year, I bought a new IPS display, a matching keyboard and a new screen bezel for it…

I use a couple of X220s as my work laptops, as I find the keyboard far superior to the X230 and all later models (it's the last classic ThinkPad keyboard prior to the chiclet designs). The hardware is still mostly sufficient for my needs (just don't run Electron apps...) and the case and the keyboard are much better than anything I could buy new these days. Apart from the displays, it feels like laptops have mostly r…

Hah! I am writing this from an X220 for exactly the same reason. I bought a Thinkpad 25 when those came out, just so I could get the keyboard, but I agree with you: they're just not made as well as the older Thinkpads, which are tanks.

Re: Ask HN: What are some interesting projects to reuse your old devices?

#212

Post by Havoc »

DarkCrusader2 wrote: post #6

https://postmarketos.org/ They are attempting to build a os for smartphones based on Alpine linux with the stated goal of supporting a 10 year life cycle. They have a limited list of devices they support but I have heard good things about them.

Even just the shell. I could see a shell & keyboard making it to 10 years

Re: Ask HN: What are some interesting projects to reuse your old devices?

#213

Post by 51Cards »

This isn't a very creative "repurpose" like many of the others however... I have purchased a few Surface Pro tablets off eBay with badly broken (read completely shattered) screens and bent frames. Seems that once Surface Pros have bad screen and chassis damage their price plummets even though the internals are often fine. One of these is my workbench computer in my shop. The tablet hangs on the wall with a thift store monitor and wireless KB plugged in. Excellent performing computer on the cheap. Another runs as a Plex media server and I just remote desktop into it.

Re: Ask HN: What are some interesting projects to reuse your old devices?

#214

Post by nonamenoslogan »

swiley wrote: post #5

I don’t know why everyone acts like old laptops aren’t usable, my 2011 MacBook Pro has no HD (the cable died again and I’m not replacing it this time) and it runs from ram just fine (with Linux of course, not OSX) If you’re not silly you really don’t need much computing power, even then newer laptops aren’t big improvements so if your old one still works I don’t see why you would replace it.

I agree, my 2010 MacBook Air is still going strong despite having abjectly pathetic specs. It still holds a 3ish hour charge on the original cells too. I used it this summer as a camera capture device taking one image every 5 minutes of my garden and stitching the whole summer together in to a 3 minute video at the end. Only bits I used were some code to capture (automator), a 40' powered Belkin USB cable, a Logitech 720P Webcam, and some PVC electrical boxes and fittings to water-proof the whole thing.

On another note, my 2003ish iBook G4 is still in functional condition and it gets a good deal of use recently as a game-device playing SimTower. I prefer its keyboard over most others in my house (MacBook Air aside) and as such I tend to do most of my writing on it using Pages.

Re: Ask HN: What are some interesting projects to reuse your old devices?

#215

Post by hawski »

pks016 wrote: post #205
hawski wrote: post #149

I used my old Moto G1 as a baby camera/monitor. Ingredients: - RTSP Camera Server on Moto G - Address reservation for Moto G on DHCP server - VLC and Shortcut to URL [1] Worked like a charm. Much better than other solutions I considered trustworthy. [0] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.miv.rtspca... [1] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=jp.miotti.Shor...

Can you provide some more details? I have a Moto G2 laying around. This sounds interesting.

It should work with any Android phone. You install RTSP Camera Server on the phone on the baby side. Configure it regarding the microphone use, video quality etc. I think that by default it also records and you may want to disable that, because it may fill up all the storage. To be sure disable battery optimization for it. I recommend enabling time-stamping, so you can see something even if it's quiet and dark, because with full screen VLC it may be confusing if it's still working.

Then on your client device you need VLC. You can manually enter rtsp://PHONES_IP:PORT every time, or make a shortcut and place it on your homescreen. It was certainly easier for my wife. To make a shortcut use the Shortcut to URL app. It's quite easy to use.

For it to work you need to make sure that phone's IP address will not change under you. Your router should give the ability to assign an IP to a mac address. If you have your own home DNS server you probably did not have to read all that.

All apps are free and without ads and seem to be a labor of love.

Re: Ask HN: What are some interesting projects to reuse your old devices?

#216

Post by xemoka »

MattSayar wrote: post #160
reeddavid wrote: post #30

Not a company, but sharing a personal project: I got a free broken 55" TV and turned it into a big daylight panel. I got a great explanation of why this works well (fresnel lens) from the DIY Perks channel on YouTube: Turning Smashed TVs into Realistic Artificial Daylight ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8JrqH2oOTK4 ). The main board had failed so the screen was black and the backlight cycled on and off. After disco…

What's the energy draw on this compared to, say, an LED lightbulb?

From the recommendations I've read, replacing the backlight with your own LED strip is easier than trying to get the backlight of the original TV working properly again (if it's not already); and sometimes even worth replacing if it works as getting just the backlight to turn on can be annoying (not exactly a standard, some take "strange" voltages or are hard to figure out, no specs).

Re: Ask HN: What are some interesting projects to reuse your old devices?

#217

Post by sk5t »

reaperducer wrote: post #184

I had an old laptop with a broken hinge. I ended up flipping the screen all the way around, velcroing it to the keyboard side, loading a bunch of personal pictures into a slide show screen saver and then mounted it on the wall in a picture frame. I have an old iPhone with an app that uses the camera to watch for motion. If something happens, it takes a bunch of still pictures and stitches them together into a herky-j…

Just curious, did your cat-tender consent to remote monitoring as part of the contract for service?

Re: Ask HN: What are some interesting projects to reuse your old devices?

#218

Post by reaperducer »

sk5t wrote: post #217
reaperducer wrote: post #184

I had an old laptop with a broken hinge. I ended up flipping the screen all the way around, velcroing it to the keyboard side, loading a bunch of personal pictures into a slide show screen saver and then mounted it on the wall in a picture frame. I have an old iPhone with an app that uses the camera to watch for motion. If something happens, it takes a bunch of still pictures and stitches them together into a herky-j…

Just curious, did your cat-tender consent to remote monitoring as part of the contract for service?

It's not remote. It's stored on the camera, and I check it when I come home and then erase the videos because it's an original iPhone and has very limited storage.

I didn't tell her that I record that she's arrived. Legally, I don't have to because she's in my house.

Ethically, it never occurred to me to tell her. But if I did I don't think she'd be surprised since so many of my neighbors have live-streaming cameras in their homes. Most of them not even hidden -- they're right there on the kitchen counter or on the piano with a blinking light.

Re: Ask HN: What are some interesting projects to reuse your old devices?

#219

Post by marcinzelent »

kikokikokiko wrote: post #103

I use an old Android smartphone as a replacement wifi antenna for the notebook I use plugged to my 65 inch TV. It's my main workstation, and is a very good machine, but for some reason there's a short circuit on the motherboard and the wifi antenna does not work. This same old phone is also used as a security camera so I can see my pets remotely when I'm traveling. I use the app Alfred to do that, and it works very w…

How do you share the network connection from the Android phone to the laptop?

Re: Ask HN: What are some interesting projects to reuse your old devices?

#220

Post by brewtide »

xemoka wrote: post #216
MattSayar wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the energy draw on this compared to, say, an LED lightbulb?

From the recommendations I've read, replacing the backlight with your own LED strip is easier than trying to get the backlight of the original TV working properly again (if it's not already); and sometimes even worth replacing if it works as getting just the backlight to turn on can be annoying (not exactly a standard, some take "strange" voltages or are hard to figure out, no specs).

Side note: use 'nice' LED strip lights if you go this route. I did a similar project with a small 19" monitor, for the lensz etc, and grabbed cheapo home Depot LED strip -- it worked about as expected: not daylight/bright enough. I'd reel off specs but the LED strip had none on the box. :-)

Next, larger lens waiting at my brother's house will get a better treatment.

As an aside, it's a really neat project to do, my kids thought it was super cool to help with. Large one will go in stairwell.

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