Every year a new line of phones is released. Also, your current phone is gradually slowing down. Because of this, you have to change your current phone to a new phone, either unwillingly or not. If you delay in doing this transaction, it will be difficult to even sell the old phone.
Usually, the best solution for an old phone is to sell it for as much as possible, but if you have an older phone that isn’t going to make a significant profit, these things can get you more value than selling it.
Use as a remote control
The superpower of the remote is to play hide-and-seek, just like headphone wires can tangle themselves. If the remote control at your house has such a great ability, if you have to fight with the remote control with your brothers while watching TV, you can solve all this with the old phone.
The best thing about older phones is that they have a 3.5mm jack. IR devices that can be attached to this can be bought from the online market. Cheaper ones show performance issues so you should compare carefully and buy a more effective one. They are now even compatible with USB Type-C. Then, using a universal remote app, you can even control TV, air conditioners, projectors, etc.
If you have a Smart TV at home, this purchase is not necessary, and if you have IoT devices such as Smart Lights installed at home, you can keep the old phone for controlling them.
A display for the car
It costs a lot of money to add a belt to the dashboard of vehicles, and some vehicles do not have facilities for it. In such cases, you can buy a device that can keep the phone on the dashboard of the vehicle, and use the phone to use google maps, etc.
Instead of the phone you normally use, when you have a dedicated device like this, you can avoid interrupting the use of google maps due to incoming phone calls, and it can be used as a Bluetooth player or a TV placed on the back of the front seats (for watching movies, etc.) for other passengers. Can also be used as
Make a Google Home device
Google Home devices are priced at $99 (Rs. 18,000 approx) and Home mini at $49 (Rs. 9000 approx). Although expensive, they don’t even have a screen. Even Nest Hub devices cost as high as $129 (Rs. 23,500) so it is not financially viable. But did you think that your Android phone can do everything that a Google Home device can do?
One obstacle to this is the Android version. You must confirm whether your phone supports the “Ok Google” voice command. First visit the Play Store and check if the Google app supports the installation. If installed, open it, go to More > Settings > Voice and enable Access with voice match via Voice match under Okay Google.
Now you can experience many facilities including listening to music, and news, checking the weather of the day, and controlling Smart IoT devices through voice commands without spending any money.
Use as a CCTV
Although it costs a lot of money to install a CCTV system in a house, you can use an old phone as one camera at no cost. The old ones are not suitable for dark scenes due to low MP and f value but can be used successfully for daytime.
For this, you need to find an app that can be installed on it. Alfred, AtHome Camera, BabyCam, Dormi, and WiFi Baby Monitor are some such free apps. The older the phone, the more difficult it is to install these, so use keywords like “baby monitor”, and “security cam” to find the most suitable one. Install and set it as a Camera when setting Settings.
Set it as a Viewer after installing it on the new phone you are currently using. Now, when someone comes to the house, you can get a notification using the motion sensor, talk to them, sound the alarm, and if you have a child, you can take care of them.
A wireless touchpad for PC
In the case of watching movies, keeping the computer far away and watching very easily, when you want to temporarily stop it (play/pause) or control the sound, you have to constantly get up and go near the computer. But, since you have an old android phone, those problems will not occur anymore.
When an app like Remote Mouse, or WiFi Mouse is installed and the related server software (specified in the description of the Play store) is installed on the computer, the touch screen of the Android phone can be used as a computer trackpad. If you have a stylus, you can use it as a drawing pad with WiFi Drawing Tablet or VirtualTablet.
