Repurposing Phones Is a Good Call

Data centers usually conjure up mental images of racks of cutting-edge computing equipment somewhere out there in the cloud that are all but impossible for an individual to own for personal use. But a research group led by engineers at the University of Tartu has reimagined what a data center might look like in the future. They have taken what is quite literally often treated as trash, and turned it into a compute cluster with sufficient resources to tackle all sorts of real-world problems. Not only could this approach save us a lot of cash, but it is also environmentally friendly.

Technology changes so fast these days that we frequently find ourselves tossing electronic devices in the trash that were state-of-the-art just two or three years ago to get the latest model. This is especially true for phones, where innovation is happening at a blistering pace. But as the researchers pointed out, older phones do not lose all their value the moment an updated model hits the market. In fact, they still have a whole lot of life left in them.

This realization led the team to build a cluster of older smartphones in a way that makes them accessible for general-purpose computing tasks. They demonstrated the possibilities with a set of four Google Nexus phones that are approximately ten years old. The phones were all fitted into a 3D-printed rack after their batteries — which otherwise might soon leak — were replaced. Next, the aging operating systems with unpatched security vulnerabilities were replaced with a fresh installation of postmarketOS. Finally, the phones were configured to operate in a master-worker arrangement so that their resources could be pooled.

The cost for the entire setup was less than $10, and in many cases it might be even less since these phones are often tossed in the trash. But just because we do not generally value them highly does not mean they are not valuable. The energy-efficient processors in these phones can still do some serious number crunching.

To demonstrate the utility of the cluster, the researchers paired it with a high-resolution camera and placed it in a waterproof case in the Mediterranean Sea. While there, it spent hours running an image recognition algorithm that identified all of the types of fish that passed by. It was suggested that phone clusters might also be useful for hosting websites and other data processing tasks.

If you are like most people, you probably have a drawer full of old phones at home right now. Why not turn them into a mini compute cluster for your next IoT or robotics project? It won’t cost you a thing, and keeping these phones out of the landfill will prevent toxic chemicals from leaching into the environment. With billions of outdated smartphones in the wild, there has never been a better time for a plan to repurpose them.