Are you ready for a new phone, but do you think it’s a shame to just throw your old Galaxy smartphone in the garbage? Luckily, you can breathe new life into your phone soon thanks to Galaxy Upcycling. What do you need to know about it?
The Galaxy Upcycling program has been around for a while and focuses on using old smartphones for useful applications. For example, old “upcycled” Galaxy phones are used as medical diagnostic equipment in disadvantaged communities. But at the beginning of this year, Samsung also announced Galaxy Upcycling at Home, which allows you to reuse your old phone for home applications. With a simple software update you can transform your Galaxy S, Note or Z device with Android 9 or higher into, for example, a baby monitor.
Samsung has now launched a beta version of Upcycling at Home in the United States, Great Britain and Korea and it seems only a matter of time before the program is also rolled out in the Netherlands.
That is how it works
First of all, you need to have the SmartThings app on your phone. This is Samsung’s app that allows you to automate your home and control and monitor supported devices. Then there are two ways in which you can use your old phone: as a sound sensor or as a light sensor.
In sound sensor mode, your old phone can pick up and filter out ambient noise. You can then indicate which sounds your phone should sound the alarm for. For example, if your phone recognizes the sound of a crying baby, you can set it to notify you on your new phone. Then you can play that sound to determine if you need to take action. In this way, your old telephone works as a kind of baby monitor (or possibly as a monitor for your pets).
Light sensor
The light sensor allows your old Galaxy phone to register the light in the room. When a certain light level is reached, your phone can automatically set one of your smart devices to work. If it gets too dark in your room, your phone can, for example, send a signal to your smart lamps, which then switch on.
More efficient battery use
Since your old phone is actually always on in the Upcycling program, your smartphone may drain quickly. The battery is probably not as good as it was when you bought the phone. Samsung has also come up with a solution with a software update that should optimize the use of the battery as soon as your phone is almost empty.
At the moment only the microphone and light sensors of the phone are used, but in theory the camera could also be used. In that case you can use your smartphone as a security camera, for example. Unfortunately, it is not yet that far, but it is obvious that Samsung will continue to develop the Upcycling at Home program.
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