I’m very interested to know if there are Fairphone owners who have repurposed their old Fairphone devices after they were done using it; maybe as a remote server or an MP3 player or something else? I’m looking for ideas for what people can do with their old mobile phones apart from recycling them?
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My old Fairphone 3 lives in a box and is used whenever someone with a faulty FP3 comes by my Heaven (for troubleshooting) and is used now and then by a family member when they broke or lost their phone. I’ve considered using it as an expendable gps device but since it’s the only working FP3 in the house, it would be sorely missed at the Heaven (I’ve got a box full of parts but no working mainboard except for mine).
One of the things I really want to do with it, though, is install /e/OS on it (in order to see how viable it really is to be outside the Google ecosystem). A project for when I get enough time on my hands 
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I use my 9-year-old FP 2 to provide computing power for BOINC science projects.
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After using the FP4 for four years as a daily, I repurposed it as:
1.) a backup device. Android is capable of user management, so I created accounts for different users
2.) Dashboard for my car. As my car in not equipped with a dashboard behind the wheel, the FP4 fills the gap quiet good. And it is still in use almost every day.
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My old FP2 is
- backup device for online banking app (receives authentication codes) in case my daily driver gets lost or something
- bluetooth remote control for my TV
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my FP3 purchased in November 2024 is my daily driver using /e/OS android 15…
I still have my FP2 and one thing that it is good in is being taken apart without tools. Therefore, whenever my company (working in mobile communications, SDR) hosts events for students where we present the work as an engineer and our working topics in general, the FP2 is a nice item to pass around to show what a mobile phone looks like from the inside. We can show antennas, a few ICs and so on, to give an impression of what all the RF stuff is about.
Probably not really repurposed, but still…
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My FP2 is a MP3 player I use in the Sauna
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I use my FP4 every evening to watch a short video with my son. For example marble run, lego technics, or something like that. The device has a small scratch on the screen (not his fault), which reduces the secondhand value, but it works perfectly fine for this. I still want to replace Android on it with /e/ though.
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No issues with overheating and humidity?
Well I dont sit with the FP2 in the actual Saun, but I use it in a Wellnesssauna place in the relaxrooms…
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“e” works fine on FP2 (also on FP4), but I missed the last official major stable update, so I’m running 1.18-r-20231207360610. Gave up on finding the last image, data was (re)moved from the “e” archive server.
Meanwhile it’s a bit glitchy, but still works acceptable for some limited use like audio playback.
I believe using it as 2fa device could also become a retirement task.
Since version 2.0-r, /e/OS include the usefull “Advanced-Privacy” app,
thanks to my
[LEGACY_BUILDS] collection for /e/ OS supported “legacy devices”,
it is possible to update to latest e-2.3-r for the FP2, without loosing /data,
choose the OTA file, (not the IMG one)
Download e-2.3-r-20250113-legacy-FP2.zip (/e/OS legacy builds)
- on the phone, then use the “local update” feature in the “settings” → “system updater” app.
- on the computer, then “adb sideload” with the device in “recovery” mode → “Apply-Update”.
(because not compiled by the same building machine, you may face a signature mismatch, choose “install anyway”…)
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Thanks for this. I’ll take a closer look at it.