Give old Android phones or tablets a new life via remote control
Do you have old phones or tablets knocking around your house? At this point I think most of us have at least one.
If you are one of those organised people who e-cycle or trade in your devices, well I envy you!
These phones and tablets might not be useful as phones, but they are still viable computers with nice screens and cameras for the most part. Could they be handy for other things? Yes!
Remember, Android is essentially the Linux operating system with some added steps. While out of the box it can't be directly used that way, there are a lot of apps and configurations that can change how it works.
One that may or may not be available to you is https://termux.dev/en/ (you should be able to get it from Github or https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.termux/)
Something that probably most Android devices can use right away though is Team Viewer Host app, allowing you to remote control your device over the web from your main computer!
Using this, I downloaded the Termux APK and installed it all from the comfort of my Macbook:
Now, after setting my SSH key (copy your public key to ~/.ssh/authorized_keys) and installing OpenSSH, I can SSH into my old Android phone and do Linux things!
What's it useful for?
I initially looked into options for controlling the phone I am using as a screen in my teleprompter (which I am predicting I will end up not using because it is very awkward reading off a screen while trying to act natural).
Now I am thinking instead I might get back into building Android apps and Python scripts for circumstances where a battery powered device with high resolution colour screens are handy!
It would actually be cool if you could use some of those old phones as security cameras. Leverage the really good built in cameras that some of them have. Even if it was just a temporary situation. It's not like you would want to mount an old phone to your wall or something.
You definitely can do that, I have used old phones as a webcam which is basically the same thing except with security camera you would want to also back up the stream
Ah yeah, good point!