I give them to friends.
Ask HN: How do you make good use of old iPhones?
31–40 of 61 posts
Re: Ask HN: How do you make good use of old iPhones?
#32We've had an iPhone 3gs (30-pin) plugged into a speaker playing music in our son's room for years. He plays the violin, so listening to the piece he's working on and previous pieces is useful and calming for him.
Re: Ask HN: How do you make good use of old iPhones?
#33I have several phones doing sterling duty as paperweights and look forward to suggestions. One disappointment of our market system has been the failure to produce new apps designed to run on older hardware.
Can you give examples of apps which you would pay money to run on an old phone? I might be looking for a project.
Re: Ask HN: How do you make good use of old iPhones?
#34This might be quite UK centric and is a very dry answer but old smartphones should be donated to asylum seekers. I remember reading an article a year or so ago about how asylum live on the welfare afforded to them and their phone bills (a necessary expense) were a huge chunk of it, basically all of them paying well more than I do on my PAYG for similar service. What I see must be the issue is that, without a phone of…
I don't understand this. If their problem is that they HAVE TO use Giffgaff, I can't sympathise with that - I use it myself and love the service Giffgaff provides.
So this doesn't make sense to me - it doesn't feel they're forced into a corner at all. I'd rather sell the phone and donate money to asylum-seeker supporting charities.
Re: Ask HN: How do you make good use of old iPhones?
#35Old smartphones are good as security cameras: they have a nice camera and wi-fi of course, but also could be much better than traditional security cams as they also can have 3G/4G networking and a battery, in case power/internet is cut for example. They could also record or play sounds, like an alarm. I have an iPhone 4 and iPhone 5 doing that. However, it's not easy to find an app for such a use, I'm planning to ope…
Consider storing devices with lipo batteries in a lipo bag. And always keep a powder extinguisher ready.
might also be worth mentioning that devices with lipo batteries which live in a drawer will survive the longest if stored at 40% charge.
Re: Ask HN: How do you make good use of old iPhones?
#36Old smartphones are good as security cameras: they have a nice camera and wi-fi of course, but also could be much better than traditional security cams as they also can have 3G/4G networking and a battery, in case power/internet is cut for example. They could also record or play sounds, like an alarm. I have an iPhone 4 and iPhone 5 doing that. However, it's not easy to find an app for such a use, I'm planning to ope…
What's the best software to turn an old iPhone (or Android phone?) into a security camera?
The concept does seem good, they certainly have more capable hardware and cost less than a lot of network attached cameras.
Re: Ask HN: How do you make good use of old iPhones?
#37I use my old phones as wireless IP security cameras with visual and audio triggers to capture the video, I also use them as backup 2FA devices.
What apps do you use for security?
Re: Ask HN: How do you make good use of old iPhones?
#38Old smartphones are good as security cameras: they have a nice camera and wi-fi of course, but also could be much better than traditional security cams as they also can have 3G/4G networking and a battery, in case power/internet is cut for example. They could also record or play sounds, like an alarm. I have an iPhone 4 and iPhone 5 doing that. However, it's not easy to find an app for such a use, I'm planning to ope…
What's the best software to turn an old iPhone (or Android phone?) into a security camera? The concept does seem good, they certainly have more capable hardware and cost less than a lot of network attached cameras.
Not an answer, but this seems like it would be a fun, and fairly painless side-project. I've never tried writing something for streaming video over a network so it seems like it would be a good learning experience.
Re: Ask HN: How do you make good use of old iPhones?
#39I use my old iPhone as an international travel phone. I keep the Messages, Mail apps, but add things like WhatsApp, VPN, Skype, Google Translator, Measurement Converters, GoEuro for use when I travel overseas. Bonus points if you have to turn it on when you get back to the US and it doens't have many apps on it.
Re: Ask HN: How do you make good use of old iPhones?
#40I thought about using mine as a Fire TV remote because the one that comes with it is so bad, but the battery life just isn't good enough (and I don't want to have to always plug it in after use - I keep my remotes in a tray inside my coffee table).