Juice Up the Disused iPhone (or iPad)

Easy, inexpensive hacks for a smarter home

Your phone is more than a phone — an entertainment center, fitness monitor, social connector, news provider, camera, scanner, digital wallet, and lots else. When you upgrade to a new device — typically every two years— the old one can still perform many of these functions equally well as the new phone.

If you have an old iPhone or iPad — or equivalent Android or Windows devices — lurking in your junk drawer, here’s a few hacks to give them a new life. I’m suggesting different uses for small-screen phones and large-screen tablets, but most ideas will work with any device.

Zombie devices in your iGraveyard? Give them a new life.

Up-cycling Ideas for Disused Old iPhone

1.Use it as a music system Pair old phone with a smart TV or a Bluetooth speaker for unlimited music-on-demand (Recommendations, $30–160). The old phone may not have much storage capacity, but there’s tons of music on YouTube, Spotify and Pandora — so lack of disk space is no constraint.

Pairing them is easy. Get a music app, create playlists, and stream away.

2. Stream photos to TV: Save your all-time favorite photographs in the old phone. Even better, scan and view old family photos. (Pic Scanner Gold is a wonderful app for scanning and captioning them. It auto-enhances fading old photos, and can turn them into quirky slideshows (Download here). You won’t believe how good those photos will look on a large screen TV.

Scanned old pictures are perfect for a nostalgic evening, or to add zing to a family reunion.

3. Install as a security camera: Watch the front door or monitor the baby from another room, your office, or halfway around the world. You’ll need a mount or a tripod. Presence and Alfred are both free apps, requiring in-app purchases for ongoing use. Both allow remote monitoring or video recording.

4. Make into a car dash cam: Why buy a dash cam when the old phone can do the job? Buy a mount that doubles as a phone charger — video recording drains battery, and your old phone’s old battery probably isn’t up to the task. Nexar and Autoboy are two of the many options.

Safety and accountability on the road — old iPhone as a dash cam.

5. It’s an alarm clock: Place the phone in a dock on the bedside table, and tune it to your favorite internet radio station. Much nicer than waking up to a jarring alarm. Clock radio apps let you choose from hundreds of stations, or get Radio Garden, a superb app for catching any radio station worldwide.

Now it’s a clock. Flick to a calendar app, and check your day’s schedule as well.

Up-cycling Ideas for Disused Old iPad

6. A digital picture frame: A Wi-Fi photo frame is a cool addition to your work desk or study table, but can cost $50–200. Why not re-purpose the old iPad into one? Read how to turn it into an awesome picture frame.

iPad has a high quality screen, and looks good in either landscape or portrait mode.

7. Kitchen sidekick: Same old, same old for dinner? Don’t! How about Goa fish curry or Moroccan couscous? Install the old iPad in your kitchen, and instantly expand your repertoire with handy access to recipe websites and videos. Your kitchen iPad can also serve as timer or even unit convertor. “Hey, Siri, how much is 800 gm in pounds?”

Mount it on the kitchen wall, and it’s a kitchen TV — or a baby monitor.

8. An E-book reader: The reading experience on iPad is a little different from that on e-ink devices, but you’ll enjoy it once you get used to it. Turn down the brightness and use a stand — old iPads are a bit heavy. Your iPad should already have iBooks app; download Kindle app, too.

iPad is better than monochrome e-ink readers for recipe, travel and illustrated books.

9. A music stand: Play the piano or another instrument? Scan or download sheet music (See forScore app). Turn off the automatic sleep function in Settings. You may want an AirTurn Bluetooth foot pedal for turning pages.

iPad can store your entire music library, and you don’t even need a stand light!

10. Turn it into a security monitor: Once you have set up your old iPhone as a security camera — as in #3 above — use the old iPad to monitor it.

Apps recommended in this article

Spotify, Pic Scanner Gold, Alfred, Radio Garden, Nexar and forScore altogether cost under $20

A few more ideas

Let’s make it a baker’s dozen, with a few more ideas:

• Play the guitar or ukulele? Get a tuner app such as Fender Tune, to turn your old iPhone or iPad into a guitar or ukulele tuner-cum-metronome.
• Use iPhone as a universal remote control for all your smart devices.
• Turn your old iPhone into a wireless mouse for your computer.

Also read: Give Your Best Photos A Second Life (10 Easy Hacks)