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The guide mentions that the phone doesn't have a wired connection, but couldn't you just plug in an external USB ethernet adapter. Would be curious if anybody has tried this.
In general, I really find that this is an underappreciated use for old phones. There's an advantage over using something like RPI since you have a touchscreen built in, making it much easier to troubleshoot without having to plug in a monitor and a keyboard. Meanwhile, the battery can act as a built in UPS. Given how abundant old phones are, seems like it would be cool to make an Android distro specifically designed for this use case. Especially if you could plug in a USB hub for stuff like external storage. This could be a home server, music player, etc.
Generally speaking I find USB hubs with ports on them work pretty well with android as they're just relying on the Linux kernel drivers for the USB support.
That's what I expected, gonna have to play around with an old phone I've got lying around.
If that's the case then I bet this would work with older phones using microusb
https://www.amazon.com/MakerSpot-Accessories-Charging-Extension-Raspberry/dp/B01JL837X8
Since it claims to be built for a Raspberry Pi. All my older devices are still microusb.
yeah that should work
At a functional level I can't see any reason why it wouldn't work. Though my preffered method for that has always been old desktops over phones as it gives a lot more flexibility overall.
Power wise, and backup battery, wouldn't a phone be better?
If those are important to you yes but the old desktop route generally means you'll get access to more powerful chips plus the ability to add more storage and memory.
I just tried and my hub allows powering the phone while plugging a drive in. I haven't tried a USB network card though. I agree old desktops or laptops work also work pretty well. It just bothers me how. old phones are fully fledged computers in a really nice small package, and there's no easy way to make them useful.