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Wouldn’t an old Android phone make pretty efficient web server? (24+ hours battery life, WiFi and cellular data, DC charging, low-power built-in display) Here’

Wouldn’t an old Android phone make pretty efficient web server? (24+ hours battery life, WiFi and cellular data, DC charging, low-power built-in display) Here’s a http server: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/6329468/how-to-create-a-http-server-in-android#6329508 https://stackoverflow.com/questions/6329468/how-to-create-a-...

LeifCarrotson 7y ago
The display is the worst part of the phone, in terms of efficiency as a web server. There's no need at all for a display; visitors and developers alike connect to web servers from a remote machine. The display hardware and graphics processor on the SOC consume a significant amount of power.
- oarsinsync 7y ago
  Would the effect of the display hardware on battery life not be mitigated by simply keeping the display turned off? Not sure how much that would help the power draw of the graphics processor, but it would remain idle at the very least.
  - philshem 7y ago
    Yes, the idea was to keep the display off. I didn’t think about the graphics card.
    - jschwartzi 7y ago
      Just gate the clocks.
- thanatropism 7y ago
  Unless you also want to use it as a phone.
jsight 7y ago
Yeah, I would think so. The onboard battery is probably more than sufficient on some of them as well. The pi is probably more useful for connecting to sensors and things like that, though.
pmlnr 7y ago
Years ago I put a Wordpress on a HTC Desire. It was grindingly slow because of the MySQL backend. Static or near static sites should be fine though.
fenwick67 7y ago
You can install NGINX with Termux.
heywire 7y ago
I used to run an app on my old Android phones that turned them into a web based security camera. I'd plug them in around the house when we'd leave for vacation so I could keep an eye on things.
vbezhenar 7y ago
Old laptop is even better. Android might pause your applications so they won't respond to the requests. There are ways to overcome that, but it will eat much more power. And those ways might break with new Android versions, probably because Android creators hate when some app does not allow their phone to sleep. What I don't understand is why nobody does some kind of cheap battery backup for PC. Even cheapest UPS costs a lot and good UPS costs like a PC. While laptop battery is pretty cheap and provides a lot of power. All I need is few seconds to properly turn off the machine when power cuts.
- oarsinsync 7y ago
  +1 for laptops as home servers. Built in KVM and UPS, small form factor, generally optimised to have a small heat and power footprint. Have done this quite successfully for 20 years, each laptop lasting about 5 years as a small homeserver or router, having already been used as a laptop for 2 years prior.
dredmorbius 7y ago
There are some impressively small systems: http://linuxgizmos.com/tiny-arm9-module-runs-linux/ http://linuxgizmos.com/tiny-arm9-module-runs-linux/
justusthane 7y ago
Found this a couple weeks ago in a comment on HN: https://pocketweb.io/ https://pocketweb.io/ Serves a website from the app on your phone, and their service acts as a proxy to send traffic there.

LeifCarrotson 7y ago

The display is the worst part of the phone, in terms of efficiency as a web server. There's no need at all for a display; visitors and developers alike connect to web servers from a remote machine. The display hardware and graphics processor on the SOC consume a significant amount of power.

oarsinsync 7y ago
Would the effect of the display hardware on battery life not be mitigated by simply keeping the display turned off? Not sure how much that would help the power draw of the graphics processor, but it would remain idle at the very least.
- philshem 7y ago
  Yes, the idea was to keep the display off. I didn’t think about the graphics card.
  - jschwartzi 7y ago
    Just gate the clocks.
thanatropism 7y ago
Unless you also want to use it as a phone.

jsight 7y ago

Yeah, I would think so. The onboard battery is probably more than sufficient on some of them as well. The pi is probably more useful for connecting to sensors and things like that, though.

pmlnr 7y ago

Years ago I put a Wordpress on a HTC Desire. It was grindingly slow because of the MySQL backend. Static or near static sites should be fine though.

fenwick67 7y ago

You can install NGINX with Termux.

heywire 7y ago

I used to run an app on my old Android phones that turned them into a web based security camera. I'd plug them in around the house when we'd leave for vacation so I could keep an eye on things.

vbezhenar 7y ago

Old laptop is even better. Android might pause your applications so they won't respond to the requests. There are ways to overcome that, but it will eat much more power. And those ways might break with new Android versions, probably because Android creators hate when some app does not allow their phone to sleep. What I don't understand is why nobody does some kind of cheap battery backup for PC. Even cheapest UPS costs a lot and good UPS costs like a PC. While laptop battery is pretty cheap and provides a lot of power. All I need is few seconds to properly turn off the machine when power cuts.

oarsinsync 7y ago
+1 for laptops as home servers. Built in KVM and UPS, small form factor, generally optimised to have a small heat and power footprint. Have done this quite successfully for 20 years, each laptop lasting about 5 years as a small homeserver or router, having already been used as a laptop for 2 years prior.

dredmorbius 7y ago

There are some impressively small systems: http://linuxgizmos.com/tiny-arm9-module-runs-linux/ http://linuxgizmos.com/tiny-arm9-module-runs-linux/

justusthane 7y ago

Found this a couple weeks ago in a comment on HN: https://pocketweb.io/ https://pocketweb.io/ Serves a website from the app on your phone, and their service acts as a proxy to send traffic there.