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Communications Hardware

Repurposing Old Usable Cell Phones? 87

Posted by Cliff from the destined-for-a-landfill-somewhere dept.
zentogo wonders: "As I stroll through the local recycle shops in my little Japanese City, I see boxes of used KEITAI-- Japanese Cell Phones. Most of them only a two or three years old, with more technology and features than any affordable phone in the USA, and they actually work! See, Japanese people cycle to new technology, especially phones, very quickly, and it is almost impossible for them not to. Take my own personal example: after one year with the telecom KDDI, I was given a free phone. It had more features than my previous one, and was much lighter, so when I was offered the deal I changed on the spot! So I wonder, what can be done with all these old phones? Can they be recycled for parts or even software? Can they be adapted to another type of technology? It would seem to be a big waste of decent hardware if something interesting couldn't be done with them."
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Repurposing Old Usable Cell Phones? More

Repurposing Old Usable Cell Phones?

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  • Use? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Murphy Murph ( 833008 ) <sealab.murphy@gmail.com> on Saturday March 12, 2005 @12:25PM (#11920240) Journal
    They could all be used as alarmclocks!

  • Old phones (Score:3, Informative)

    by OAB_X ( 818333 ) on Saturday March 12, 2005 @12:28PM (#11920257)
    Sometimes you can get them unlocked at a kiosk in the mall, but otherwise take time to your local waste transfer station, and they will dispose of it for you in a way that the lead/mercury/other heavy metals dosnt leak into the environment. Its like spray paint cans, you dont put them in household garbage.

    • Re:Old phones (Score:2, Interesting)

      by sakusha ( 441986 )

      ...take time (sic) to your local waste transfer station, and they will dispose of it for you in a way that the lead/mercury/other heavy metals dosnt leak into the environment.

      Permit me to sermonize on my environmentalism pet peeve.

      These heavy metals have already leaked into the environment, they just happened to be encapsulated into a little plastic cel phone instead of being buried deep in the earth. When you throw them away, there IS no "away," there is only "somewhere else." I compare this to people

      • So just because we already have coal power plants that spew greenhouse gasses, the fact that its already there means that we dont need to make any incentive to try and control them?

      • Re:Old phones (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Yeah, I just pour my old mercury(I'm a high school chem. teacher -- kids always breaking those fragile thermometers) straight into the well on my property, since it's the easiest. I won't pretend that that "proper" heavy metal disposal process my municipality advocates actually does anything. I won't pretend that going through that process actually gets rid of it, nope, I just throw it straight into my drinking water. Maybe, I should start putting it into my intravenous drip. What's the difference where

  • emergency 911 (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Jjeff1 ( 636051 ) on Saturday March 12, 2005 @12:30PM (#11920274)
    At least in the US, ANY working cel phone that can get signal can be used to call 911. They are collected by a lot of battered womens shelters and similar places, then distributed to people who otherwise couldn't afford a cel phone to call authorities in an emergency.

    But don't stop there, any elderly or non-mobile person (think wheel-chair) should have a cel in their pocket, all the time. As long as it's charged, they never need worry about not being able to get to a normal phone, which might be impossible in an emergency.

    All my old phones have been donated and put to good use.
    • I'm told that the 911 operators have a vague idea of your location with a cell phone. Whether this is done through some tiny low-precision GPS, differential GPS, or simple tower telemetry, I don't know, but I would *love* to know if there'd be any way to capture the signal and do something with it.
      • The carrier I work for (TDMA/GSM technology) uses triangulation to determine your approximate location. The 911 operators have the address and the GPS coordiates of the nearest tower and can tell the sector your are calling from.

        There may be one or two carriers that use GPS enabled handsets, I'm not sure. Anybody know?
        • It seems that the CDMA providers in the US (Verizon/Sprint/etc) use GPS* to determine the location of a 911 call, while the GSM carriers (Cingular/T-Mobile/etc) use triangulation. (I have no idea what iDEN carriers (Nextel) use) *From what I understand about CDMA phones with GPS, is that the raw GPS signals are sent from the phone to the tower to allow the tower (or something further down the line) to do the GPS calculations and that data is sent to the 911 operator
      • I don't know about the US but in the UK anybody can track a mobile phone via subscription based service. It seems to work by noting which cell your phone is connected to at any given time.

        Trace A Mobile [traceamobile.co.uk]

        • They're not quite accurate. An anecdote, a friend of mine loses his phone. He goes to his provider's website and uses the online locator tool. The tool says it's in the middle of a forest. So we go into the forest looking for the phone (luckily it was near a small road). Didn't find it. The next day, he says, "Oh, the phone was in my laundry basket". Looking at the website again we notice the text "Accuracy: 100-200 meters." The forest was about 200 meters from his house. :)

  • Send them to the USA! (Score:3, Funny)

    by Shazow ( 263582 ) <andrey,petrov&shazow,net> on Saturday March 12, 2005 @12:40PM (#11920342) Homepage
    Most of them only a two or three years old, with more technology and features than any affordable phone in the USA. ...
    what can be done with all these old phones?
    ... And we wonder why it takes 2-3 years before technology gets from Japan to North America. :P

    - shazow

  • A few (obvious) links (Score:5, Informative)

    by Norfair ( 845108 ) on Saturday March 12, 2005 @12:41PM (#11920352) Journal
    http://www.phones4charity.org/ [phones4charity.org]
    http://www.actionaidrecycling.org.uk/ [actionaidr...ing.org.uk]
    http://www.oxfam.org.uk/what_you_can_do/recycle/ph ones.htm [oxfam.org.uk]
    http://www.recyclingappeal.com/ [recyclingappeal.com]
  • Is a bit of a problem. See, if you talk about a general purpose computer that still works, altough a bit slow, it can be put to good use in some dedicated application. Like, i still use my 386 for my home network DNS cache, i still use my old sparc pizzaboxen for my firewall, dns & co stuff, i still use "old" pentiumII for my fileserver, i still use !old athlon xp for my app server.

    But if you have a bunch of keitais, built for some proprietary network with some proprietary hardware without any document
    • Boy you must have a helluva power bill using all those old boxes!
      • To be fair, old desktop box computers typically use less power than modern ones.

        386 cpus use less than 5 watts of power, compared to 70+ watts for modern Athlons or P4s.

        Of course, there's also the rest of the box using power too, so the difference isn't quite that drastic. And it may take 1000 of these 386 boxes to match the performance of one 3 gHz Athlon, and the power used by those 1000 boxes would be higher than the one Athlon box.

      • Indeed I have, but I'm trying to keep my alphas and vaxen turned off for the most of the time :)
    • I can totally agree with this. In my office at the moment, I have a PII 466 and 2 PII 500's running different things on my network. Granted, they're not THAT old by my (poor) standards, but I don't mind keeping some of the old boxes around just to have network storage, a print server with a firewall, DNS, etc... Heck, one of the 500's was fished out of a dumpster a few weeks ago - a new powersupply got me a "new" computer for $20.
  • How about using them to... make slashdotters cry about how low-tech thier shit is, and how much great stuff the can't use?

    That done, though, I'm not sure of what to do with them....

    Michael

  • "Alternative" uses... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Saeed al-Sahaf ( 665390 ) on Saturday March 12, 2005 @01:08PM (#11920539) Homepage
    It's my understanding that old cell phones are in high demand in places like Iraq, for, um, "alternative" uses. I suppose you don't *have* to use them to detonate bombs, the remote control aspect is intriguing to me.
  • I've seen several dealers here in the US selling still pretty new but used Japanese vehicle engines, I think because in Japan they have a mileage limit to what can still be used legally on the road. Someone may correct me on that if not true about the Japanese laws. Seems like with those phones maybe you can set up an assembly line of sorts, unlock them, then ship them and sell them for cheap in the US or elsewheres? I don't know the applicable laws or anything on that though, or what the differences in fre
    • Back home in New Zealand there are huge numbers of used Japanese cars, I understood it was because the taxes or registration paid after a certain age were very much higher. [Both of course have right-hand drive cars which helps.]

      They all come with radios that do not pick up most NZ stations because the frequency ranges are quite different. Also, most that I recall (it's been a while) had annoying "features" like a chime that sounded when going over 100km/h, or whatever number you picked - in one car it c
      • A lot of places have very high license fees for the right to own a personal vehicle, in the order of thousands of dollars per year. This is for registration or licensing fees, NOT insurance. Also, it is quite common for gas to cost a lot more than it does in North America.

        So, it makes sense that if you are spending a lot of money on fees and other costs, you have the incentive to upgrade vehicles more frequently because the capital cost of a new car doesn't look nearly as large when all the other costs
      • No extra registration for older cars. But, after a car is ten years old it has to get inspected every year, rather than every two years, as it's normal with a newer car. (This might have changed recently, I can't remember.)
        Radio ... only AM should be affected, unless FM in New Zealand is in a totally different range. Japanese radios generally have a much wider FM scanning range, and scan in .1 MHz steps. This makes it possible for me to use my little portable radio to tune in FM in Canada/US as well as in E
  • I carry an extra (old) cell phone with me. That way, when I get really pissed off while talking on the phone, I can throw the *old* one at the wall, and still have a working phone!

  • When Sweden switched to a new cel.tel. system,
    their old phones were given to wheelchair users,
    who could use them as 2-way communicators,
    a bit like (high-reliability versions of) CB sets.

    My idea (for using bits, only, from old analog
    cel.tel's - in this case, mobile units) was to
    use the handset as a handset for mobile Amateur
    Radio gear, eg, when used in noisy locations.
  • I think they might make good doorstops. However, nothing beats the "Timex Sinclair 1000" [ndirect.co.uk] ZX-81, with that nice wedge shape, perfect for a doorstop.

  • Unlock & eBay (Score:3, Informative)

    by Dragoon412 ( 648209 ) on Saturday March 12, 2005 @02:35PM (#11921175)
    Seriously, a lot of phones in Japan have the capability to work in the US with Cingular and T-Mobile (not so much Spring, Nextel, or Verizon).

    Seriously - get these phones unlocked, and eBay them to Americans.

    I just spent $500 on a brand new Sony Ericsson S710a that isn't even available in this part of the country yet. It's got all sorts of cool features, including a 1.3 MP camera (pretty damned nice, for a phone). But I still can't help but to feel like an ass for spending the money knowing that, for instance, Samsung has a phone of nearly identical size out in South Korea with a 3MP camera and significantly more memory.

    Second-hand phones in the Asian market are still better than cutting edge in the US. Given that most high-end phones can work with the majority of service providers in the world, I'm amazed there isn't a sort of cottage industry around, selling second-hand phones to the US market for discount prices.

    Believe me - take a look at sites like Howard Forums [howardforums.com] - there are a lot of cell phone/gadget enthusiasts out there that would be plenty happy to not have to buy the overpriced, under-performing phones marketed in the US.
  • "Can they be recycled for parts or even software?"

    Is the enviornmental impact of creating new software such a problem? Does it use more raw materials than re-using old software?
    • Yeah, flipping bits increases entropy in the universe. Destroying or creating a bit requires a lot of energy. That's why a "rotate" instruction is always preferred over a "shift" instruction. Besides which, they tend to fill up the bit bucket, and you'll have to empty out /dev/null sooner.

      By the way, anyone in the market for some used inodes? I have some spare ones from an old Macintosh, and if you swap the bytes they can be used on Windows too.
  • I wear old bone conduction hearing aids (since 1990s -- don't remember the exact year). I notice a lot of the newer cellular phone models and other wireless (even WAPs!!) interfere with my hearing aids (buzzing sounds and microphone audio loss).

    The OLD analog cellphones did not have this problem and I could use it. However, they don't exist anymore. All phones are like digital and I am unable to use them due to interferences.

    Do these old phones still exist and still work (service available)? I don't use t
    • My dad was using his 10 watt analog bag phone on Cingular here in Texas up until early this year (when he bought the phone they were still GTE).. The reps offered him nice new free phones to get rid of the old one, but they didn't force him to give it up. So I imagine if you can find someone who refuses to upgrade you could potentially start paying their bill. :)
    • I use a BTE (not bone conduction) and have had similar problems. Motorola has never worked for me, but Kyocera produces a low-quality but tolerable signal, and LG phones have great sound quality (using my T-coil, also known as an induction loop - not sure if you have that).
    • Yes. I have a Motorola MicroTAC, which was one of the first flip phones, and it uses AMPS. It pumps out several watts, and as there's almost nothing else around on the same frequency, it's one of the clearest phones I've used. It's also a tank compared to current phones, but it isn't so large as to be unwieldy. This is what it looks like [google.com], and it's a perfectly, 100% usable phone, although I need to get a new battery for it.
  • Why do people insisit on pretending to be cool by inserting random Japanese words in English conversations? Yes, the Japanese word for cellular phone is "Keitai Denwa", I should know, I worked for KDDI for 6 months. But you know what, I use the word "Keitai Denwa" only when I am speaking JAPANESE to people who understand JAPANESE. I don't need to pretend I am so cool by inserting the words into English conversations.
    And why does it only happen with the Japanese language, why not other ones:
    So Je am s
    • Mod parent Informative. Je thought Keitai was a brand name of keitai, uh, I mean cell phone.
    • In some situations, using the Japanese (or whatever foreign language) term makes sense, because the foreign version of the thing in question is different from the domestic. For example, people say "manga" or "bande dessinée" (the Japanese and French terms for comics) because Japanese comics and European comics are traditionally different from the North American kind. If Japanese cell phones are different enough from the American variety, then maybe it's worthwhile.

      Yeah, there's bit of showing-off i

      • But that is the thing, Japanese cell phones(much to the chagrin of /. fanboys I'm sure) are not unlike American cell phones. They have a few more gadgets and faster network speed(if you cough over the dough of course) but that is pretty much it. You still talk on them, you still can use them to send messages. There is no justification for calling them Keitai if speaking in English.
        I agree that people should learn foriegn languages, but much like my absurd example(Mandarin Chinese, Japanese, French, Germ

  • Incompatible standards (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Spudley ( 171066 ) on Saturday March 12, 2005 @04:53PM (#11922127) Homepage Journal
    Can they be adapted to another type of technology?

    Probably not: they're not going to be wanted in Japan, and they're not going to be compatible anywhere else. Which just begs the same old question: Why do we insist on always making so many incompatible standards to do the same thing???

    If all countries used GSM [for example], it would make re-use of all those old phones so much easier. Plus I wouldn't need to buy a special phone that supports multiple technologies just so I can take it overseas. :-/

    [note - before you all flame me for suggesting GSM, it was just an example. I don't really care which technology we use; just stop with the stupidity of each continent having its own set of standards]
    • KDDI in Japan uses CDMA2000, just as Sprint and Verizon do.

      As to whether they use CDMA2000 on the same frequency bands, I don't know.
  • no body mentioned "Look! A Beowolf cluster of old phones!!!"
  • Why not use them like new phones - like calling people and sending SMSes?

  • I've pondered the idea of using a couple of old cell phones I have as tone dialers/boxes (red, blue, etc....).

    Sadly, thinking about it is as far as I've gotten. Might be cool if someone a little more handy with programming for cell phones could do something.

    Speaking purely for geek points of course, as most of these tone boxes don't actually work anymore. Though red boxes do indeed still function here.
  • Several organizations are collecting old cell phones to reprogram them and send them to soldiers in Iraq and elsewhere, so that they can call home more easily.

  • Sell them? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by ThatComputerGuy ( 123712 ) <[amrit] [at] [transamrit.net]> on Saturday March 12, 2005 @08:12PM (#11923211) Homepage
    I was at a mini "tech expo" on campus the other day and talked to some people from Cell for Cash [cellforcash.com]. You go to their site, sign up, and they send you out a prepaid box that you ship the phone back in.

    They say that the more recent phones are reconditioned and resold overseas. If a phone's too old to be of use, their partner (or someone?) recycles it and extracts precious metals, whatever those may be. The guy said it probably wouldn't be much money for my old, bulky Panasonic (if I can find it), but it's better than having it end up in a landfill I suppose.
  • A GSM phone should in theory work anywhere a GSM network is available. It may need to be unlocked; sometimes there are ways to get this done on your own, sometimes the original or new carrier will help you do it.

    I personally would jump for joy at one of them Linux phonezors... an' if you don' wan' 'em no more... :)

    I suppose, though a phone spouting at me in Japanese isn't exactly the best thing for me, but I'm guessing there's ways to solve that.
  • find model that comes with serial or even usb datacable or has one available at stores, then hook it up to old pc

    there are readymade software for your own sms-gateway

    if the phone has gprs, another use is to remote control the pc over gprs

    perhaps hook few motion detecting web cams and ups to the pc and you have your own wireless security system that can send images of the intruder to online storage

    possibilities are endless
    • (Score:111) by Keruo (771880) 11:11 (#11928255)
      Hmmm>find model that comes with serial or even usb datacable or has one available at stores, then hook it up to old pc, there are readymade software for your own sms-gateway/<Have you done this?/>if the phone has gprs, another use is to remote control the pc over gprs/<yes/>perhaps hook few motion detecting web cams and ups to the pc and you have your own wireless security system that can send images of the intruder to online storage/<ok/>p
  • ...and pull out the old address books, and sell the info on to your nearest dodgy geezer?

    Seriously, one of my friends in Japan just last week got a phone call on his mobile from someone who had his name but was wanting his address as he said he had a delivery but couldn't read the label, which my pal reckoned was somebody wanting to do some kind of identity fraud.

  • Old NMT phones were converted to amateur radios (Score:3, Interesting)

    by latroM ( 652152 ) on Monday March 14, 2005 @04:19AM (#11930846) Homepage Journal
    See http://oh3tr.ele.tut.fi/english/modifications.html [ele.tut.fi]. They need to be reprogrammed and need some hardware hacks but they work. I have an RD58 moppe on my desk which I use to make contacts through local 70cm repeaters. I'm not sure if that is possible for those proprietary phones.

  • SMS alarms (Score:3, Interesting)

    by LarsWestergren ( 9033 ) on Monday March 14, 2005 @11:26AM (#11933085) Homepage Journal
    Some Ericsson and Nokia phones (and others too I'm sure) can be programmed by cable. Get a cheap refillable SIM card (such as Comviq or DJuice if you live in Sweden).

    Hook up a laptop with Linux to the phone. If you have burglar alarms, fire alarm, flooding alarms on your summer house/boat whatever, you can hook them up to your computer. It is fairly trivial to write a script that, if one of the alarms go off, the phone SMSes you, the closest neighbour, your significant other.
    "This is Lars's summer house. At 19.55 2003-03-14 the burglar alarm went off."

    Drawbacks - the system can be a bit fragile. You must find a place for the laptop and all cables. SMSes aren't guaranteed to arrive on time, or indeed at all. You have to check that the systems boots up correctly after a power outage. And you can get a complete intruder system that is smaller and more reliable for not much money. Still, it is pretty cool in a geeky way.
  • Do you realise that there is more money to be made in recycling mobile phones then digging in a gold mine?

    By recyling 70000 mobile phones and melting the metals down they are able to extract 1kg of gold. Now when you consider that out of 1 ton of dirt they are only able to extract around 10~50g of gold, at the very least your getting 4 times the amount of gold out of the same weight in mobile phones!

    http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=ja& u=http://www.angel.ne.jp/~shakai-kana/tiri/ya [google.com]

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