Thoughts on repurposing old phones and tablets

Hey everyone, happy holidays! I’ve been thinking about what to do with those old phones and tablets that just can’t keep up with modern apps. Honestly, it’s super frustrating to deal with slow devices. So here’s my idea: First off, what if we could strip away the Android or iOS operating systems and turn these gadgets into mining rigs without an OS? Like, we could run a program on something simple like DOS. Secondly, these old devices don’t use much power, so they could be paired with solar panels. You can find decent solar panels for around $150 that give you about 200w at 10-20V. Sure, if you have bigger Tesla panels, that’s awesome, but let’s not get too carried away with that right now. I’m not sure how effective this would be, but it might lead to some passive income. Plus, I really dislike the idea of just tossing out old devices, especially when they still work. Recycling isn’t exactly a priority for most people these days. Wouldn’t it be cool to see these things actually running? I’d love to hear your thoughts!

You miss something here on the forum under this sticky thread "BITCOIN MINING INTRO & RULES OF THIS SUBFORUM - READ BEFORE POSTING" This is what you miss: Meaning you can't mine with your phone or tablet even if you develop software to mine. If I were you, if you want to make money, sell these units to others. I am sure there are still people looking for phones that can only be used for calls or texts.

Solar power isnt free (you have to invest money for solar panels), and your setup wont be efficient.  Even if you are on free energy, 0 minus 0 is still 0. You wont make a dime.

@BitMaxz Don't worry bro I'm not missing absolutely nothing. You are the one who missing the point. I'm just sharing thoughts about something and want to see the thoughts of people. @Stalker22 Solar power is absolutely free, the device to collect the power is not free. There have a reason I write down a dollar sign with price... I knew will be worst for profit but more important how bad could be.

What else did I miss? I don't know how you read the quoted part I posted above and the first and second parts of your question above. Isn't that related? Or you might be just promoting a solar panel? Is that what you are pointing to?

Um - DOS is an operating system... Also DOS is tightly tied to x86 CPU's. Considering the devices you mentioned are using ARM CPU's, well...

Some advice the bitaxe gamma uses 20 watts does about 1th. costs around 230 USD when built with the good or better heatsinks. if you have a solar panel that is 200 watts.  you will end up with about 1kwatt of power in a day. so after a few calculations I would say that you could run 1 bitaxe gamma maybe just maybe 2 24/7/365 so 2 x 6 cents a th is 12 cents a day about 36 maybe 40 a year. so 230+230=460  the solar setup will be maybe 800. so lay out $1260 and earn $40 the batteries will die in under 5 years. it it loses money.

Very bad. Have you ever compare Bitcoin mining hashrate between CPU, GPU and ASIC? In short, ASIC usually is thousand times faster or more efficient than CPU. Refurbish and then selling those old devices would be more profitable.

It is better to sell your old equipment or give it to someone who needs it. Mining heats up any equipment, so mining equipment has a cooling system. Any mining on a mobile phone or tablet will lead to fires, battery explosions and other unpleasant moments, because this equipment is not suitable for mining.

By that logic, every form of energy is free, even fossil fuels. What you pay for is the process/devices to extract it and convert it into a usable form. So, next time you fill up your gas tank, just tell the attendant you are taking advantage of the free energy of the sun, courtesy of millions of years of photosynthesis.

Dollar sign aside, I don't think it shows your belief that solar power is free. It can be a semantics problem too. Anyway, in my place solar power does get cheaper (including the devices, batteries, or whatever it is required to run one), but nobody would use it for mining. Even if they got it for free I think profitability will be much better if they use it for other purposes, like running a node.

Like everyone else said that you can run bitcoin mining or other mining using old phones or tablet. But there is catch nowadays there are project that can run their program on android and basically and act as mini node so ofcourse this altcoin project and they need permission to access your network and some storage and they will pay you for that. Depin is actually on fire right now just try do google search

"can" or "cannot"? OP talk about old device though, so i have doubt those are fast or powerful enough to run node of those altcoin. And AFAIK, some of those altcoin expect you to own or temporarily freeze some amount of coin/token before you're eligible to earn the reward.

I hate to say it, but even though the enthusiasm is good, the reality is different. I always to use older devices to do something better not allowing them to go to the trash but in some cases you just have to accept that they are trash now. Using them to mine is out of the question, with today's market is ASICs running the show out there. You could use the solar panels to generate electricity in your homes, but using that to mine would work if you buy ASICs and leave those devices aside.