6 Creative Uses for Old Cell Phones

The average smartphone aficionado has a collection of yesterday’s hottest phones, somewhere at home, acting as paperweights and junk in the linen trunk. It doesn’t have to be that way, though. Your once-treasured G1 may not score points with the techies at the office anymore, but it offers just as many practical applications (depending on your use of the definition) as the many incarnations of Androids which descended from it.

Whether you want to find online deals for SIM only cell phones or use your old cell phones in a creative way, consider going on an in-house scavenger hunt for your old phones while you mull over the following possibilities:

Use Your Old Smartphone as a Walkie-Talkie

For the super lazy individual, a defunct smartphone can still be used in a Wi-Fi equipped household for inter-family (or inter-friend) communications. A king among creative uses for old cell phones, it will enable you to:

• Summon help when someone forgets to put the last roll in the bathroom where it belongs.
• Get an instant second or third opinion when you need sympathetic family members to support a debate position with another family member (avoid using the walkies to play this card too often).
• Rant from the comfort of the kitchen when you find orange juice containers with a teaspoon of product pooled at their bottoms. Educate the offender(s) on their errant choices, and get on with your day.

The possibilities aren’t endless, but you can get a lot done with an in-house walkie-talkie fashioned from a video chat or walkie app like Voxer.

Get Off Fido’s Back

If Fido has slept on the job one time too many, he’s trying to tell you something. Relieve him of the canine stereotyping, and download a home security app. Position your defunct phone where it’ll have the best view of your main entrance. The right app will replace Fido’s missing guard dog gene.

Depending on the app you use, your phone can be made to snap pictures of unwanted visitors, or it can merge forces with a larger home security system. Decide which route is best for you, and get cracking. You’ll need a stable internet connection at home for this solution.

Note: You’ll also want to order one of those mammoth extended-batteries from eBay if you’re not checking in every eight hours or so, and you chose to rent a crib in the wrong neighborhood.

Get Your E-read On

If you’re a rebellious wordeater who’s not interested in being locked down to one eBook format, you don’t have to suffer being chained to a publishing giant you’re half-committed to. Download their apps, and read your .mobis or .epubs at will. All of the major e-book peddlers have one. Choose one, several, or download them all.

If your device allows microSD cards holding double-digit gigabytes of data, your book library can easily hold more in an old cell phone than the e-readers currently on the market.

Wake up With Style

We all have our triggers. Maybe the monotonous drone of the Zenith (gifted to you courtesy of Mom in the winter of 1989) is yours. Toss it. Upload a sound file that motivates you to get up (in a non-murderous mood).

Maybe you need a morning run-down of why hitting the snooze button is bad for your career? Perhaps you won’t get up on time without hearing a recording of someone yelling “Fire!”

No one’s judging. Do whatever works for you. Load the sound file of choice into your phone, and choose the days of the week you want it to shake you from the clutches your sleep haze.

Take Little Susie’s Birthday Party Memories With You Everywhere

Are you sitting on 538 pictures of little Skip and baby Susie that the world needs to see? Upload those bad boys into your smart relic. Bam. Share them with your single serving friend on long plane rides.

Maybe you really do have the funniest pets on the planet. Reserve your phone for on-demand video capture. Get that $10,000.00 video recorded. Times are hard.

Always Have Your Personal Soundtrack Handy

We all have one. Personal soundtracks preserve sanity. Your smart relic can probably hold as many songs as you’re likely to need when you’re approaching an epic moment which calls for a solid 80s rock anthem. Alternatively, it will add perspective when you’re making lemonade with the tart fruits life has handed you.

If you’re also a dabbler in beat-production, or you spin records for the nightclub on Fridays, connect your equipment to your audible treasure trove. Your phone can act as an extra drive, so you don’t have to worry about storage space for the music files your projects require.

In today’s app-friendly environment, your old phones can go on to enjoy a nice middle-age servicing several obsessions, necessities, and quirks. These are just the tip of the iceberg where creative uses for old cell phones are concerned. A little brainstorming will unearth more applications for your newer phone’s digital elders.