 i'm really excited to show https://compost.party to the world! it's a web server running on an old, broken phone, getting energy from the sun using one of those portable solar chargers that you may also have lying around. it's a real oddity and a real beauty 143 comments
the phone is connected via wifi to a residential internet connection and runs on its own battery. some of the sensors are working as well, so it's very non-web-server-like. it's made out of scraps that were lying around and are now turned into something new. at the moment it hosts https://links.compost.party which contains some of the links that inspired me. but i'm very open for ideas! if you have something you'd like to run on it, please write me @computersandblues this is awesome! It makes me think I should have one of those solar power panels π€©  @computersandblues Awesome. :D It needs over a minute to answer right now, still awesome. :D @computersandblues I love this! Since you mentioned some sensors were working, it'd be neat if you could poll for those sensor readings alongside the battery reading. Even something like orientation could be fun. Load up the site and get something like "The battery is at 94% and the phone is facing North" @computersandblues fighting obsolescence is the way to go! I'm not far enough on my IT journey but I do similar things with household bits and pieces, using what's there and creating something from so called "trash". Taking this attitudes into the digital is just genius π€© Thought for sure this would be a webcam or time lapse of a compost pile in a remote location on your property. Maybe a diy wildlife or cloud/weather monitor. @computersandblues how are you exposing it to the internet? Something like a cloud flare tunnel? I have a couple of devices that I've wanted to re purpose into something like this for a while, thanks for the reminder! @computersandblues that is really impressive and coincidentially just in the right direction of something I've been looking for these past few weeks. Really cool project, keep up the cool work! @computersandblues you could as well try to join the Solar Protocol (http://solarprotocol.net/)
 @computersandblues This is so awesome and I have so many questions: @computersandblues This is super cool! I've been working on some ideas for low-power, intermittent-availability hosting software, and this is exactly the kind of hardware I'd love to be able to run on someday. I feel like the era of five-nines "big internet" is poised to inevitably give way to a much more hyperlocal, sustainable approach, and it's always great to find projects that are moving that way.  @computersandblues This is what someone reposted that made me want to find your acc't. I have a long history of dismantling and repurposing electronic equipment. I built a crystal radio when I was 5, and a few years later my dad got me a bunch of old car radios that had been replaced. First I just started scavenging for parts, but it got more interesting.  @computersandblues Do you know the solar-powered @lowtechmagazine ? @da5nsy https://links.compost.party lists some additional influences, maybe you find some of that interesting as well  @computersandblues It's awesome, though it seems to be slashdotted at the moment.  @computersandblues Damn, I've had this on my "todo" list for ages now! Thanks for sharing your work here. βΊοΈ     @computersandblues nice work towards #degrowth. Do more with less. Boosted, to help with stress testing. :)  @computersandblues Is this a solar panel that can be easily connected to a USB cable or something? Would love to play around with something like this. Got loads of ancient scrap computers and phones and what not lying around.  @computersandblues I loved the project. Is there a self-hosted, single-user, ActivityPub server running on Android? Is there any project documentation?  @computersandblues cool stuff! The website should have a button that makes the phone ring every time someone presses it!   Iβm here for this future, and Iβm happy @postmarketOS helps make it happen π Very cool project @computersandblues! @computersandblues @computersandblues Thanks a lot! I look forward to it! In the meantime, I'll look for my old phones and see if they're compatible.  @computersandblues Smallest server ever π What system is your #server running on? Maybe a website with a guide on how to build this yourself and all the code? π€  @madeindex @computersandblues I can't remember how I got there (their Masto profile? ) but they did! @madeindex @computersandblues oh. maybe thats not the same device. dunno @tezoatlipoca @madeindex it's the same device, but it's not really a guide. https://post.lurk.org/@computersandblues/112570481019144122 goes into a bit more detail, but i'll still need to write more  @computersandblues @tezoatlipoca @madeindex I'd love to read a blogpost on how this all works! We can construct an enclosed solar-powered box in the wilderness or near the coast, housing a server assembled from electronic waste. It will be semi-permanently self-sustaining. By distributing PDF manuals that explain how to recycle electronic waste, along with providing convenient software packages and other bundled services, we can help anyone set up their own server. The real hard part is temperature. Cold batteries store less at the same time time that the sun is less available.  @computersandblues that was basically my setup for the monerodirect . com server (domain now defunct) back in 2017. Old mobile phones on small solar chargers are a super convenient alternative to a server with a UPS and other fallback gear. @jdrouet the magic really is done by https://postmarketos.org/, they provide a linux distribution for phones. it's geared towards smartphone-like usage (allowing you to make calls and things like that), but it's a full linux that can run all kinds of stuff @The4thCircle According to the OP, it represents the current battery charge level, updates once every thirty minutes:   @computersandblues oh this is cool as heck and very inspiring. Def want to do something similar now, thanks for sharing.  @computersandblues a pretty neat idea! I thought about doing similar with a Pi Zero, but never hashed. A phone has everything one needs to serve web pages; I think I will go this route too! π  @computersandblues reminds me of the old setup over at slrpnk.net. I believe they've since upgraded but it used to be scavenged hardware running off solar.  @computersandblues That's very cool! π If I understand it correctly, it's running #Betula (https://betula.mycorrhiza.wiki/) is a web-server, right? Would it also be possible to run other (minimal) web-servers? π€ @LukasBrausch it's a full linux, set up different with different users running different services. the main website is a static page, the link collection is running on betula  @computersandblues This is an interesting idea, but I think the cell phone should be kept in the shade, because of risks associated with battery overheating. @computersandblues Instead of pushing AI onto devices without our consent, what about solar-powered or solar-charged smartphones?  @computersandblues does it die at night? Or does it have enough battery to get through? And what happens when it dies?  @computersandblues @stragu @dibi58 I have had the thought to host on an old phone, but removing the battery to keep it always on AC... I worry the constant charge/discharge from solar would perhaps speed up potential expansion π @computersandblues@post.lurk.org this is cool as fuck and i might be contacting the email to host something on it  @computersandblues 2010 I did similar things with old Siemens SE505 WLAN routers (which, after retrofitting USB and 32GB SDRAM also doubled as internet radio). It was exciting to get a Linux "server" by hacking a low cost consumer device. Modern mobiles, even the most simple one, have a USB, 250x more RAM and a 50x faster CPU. Phones are abundant, use less power than my SOHO routers, and no hardware hacking is needed. @computersandblues That is such a great idea! I saw something similar some years ago. The builder had to optimize the images and html of the page to get it as fast as possible transferred, so the power consumption was minimized. Can you post images of the attic situation? How many windows are there? Where and when is the sun shining on the panel and so on?    @computersandblues looks great! I had a similar idea a while ago and already looking for "Docker on android" but never get the chance to get to the "charge with solar panels" stage.  @computersandblues  @computersandblues That's so cool. Inspiring me to do something similar with one of the old phones in my drawer of broken dreams π€ @computersandblues There is something so grungy solarpunk about this! I love it!  @computersandblues I honestly can't tell if this is real or not. If it is, I really do hope it's laying in the middle of what looks like a garage floor. I'm imagining the door is broken, so it needs to be propped open with a couple concrete blocks and an old Chevy S-10 repair manual. @computersandblues I've been wanting to do something like this (repurposing an old smart phone for something 'useful') and I love the addition of the portable solar panel! Thank you for sharing.   @computersandblues That's cool. Question for you... Why tie it into the regular internet? Why not use lorawan and have a lorawan website? Go for a federated free inernet. (albeit slow). @BritishTechGuru @LukasBrausch @computersandblues I'm really not sure but somebody must have thought of it and done it on GitHub. @computersandblues yo shit this RULES question tho, how good is the output on the solar panel? i was thinking about getting a few to use to charge up ebike batteries but if its like, "spend six hours to charge" then prolly not a great investment @hi_cial @computersandblues a few watts at most. A foldable panel like this is ideal for charging a phone, but it won't have the oomph for a bike. @fluidlogic @computersandblues curses, no papering an umbrella hat in them and charging as i go then @computersandblues this is getting me excited to get my solar K3s cluster going this fall when I finally get some time back. Have one of these kicking around gathering dust and using it to run my website and other services has been on the books for a while: https://www.hardkernel.com/shop/odroid-mc1-my-cluster-one-with-32-cpu-cores-and-8gb-dram/  @computersandblues I guess this is the vision for #toybox in action... I hope @landley gets permission to put this in his slides for the next time he's giving a talk like this one... @computersandblues This is awesome! My blog and some other services like game servers and matrix are also hosted on a phone, though with no battery at all and no solar power, at least yet! @awooo @computersandblues What does your set up look like? How do you get a mobile phone to run without battery? What software do you use? @computersandblues I love this! What does the number at the bottom of the page indicate? Battery %? @computersandblues how do you prevent the sun from hitting the phone constantly and making it overheat?  Inspiring! Reminds me I gotta repurpose a couple old ThinkPads as a personal server. Gonna need a fkn huge solar panel though π€ @computersandblues@post.lurk.org Damn that's really nice, how do you get it connected to the internet and make the web server within it reachable from outside? I noticed in ipinfo that it's #Vodafone, does Vodafone offer static IPs for mobile? β:sagume_think:β @computersandblues This is so cool! I've had this idea of a "bohemian VPS" where old devices would be placed in beehive-like boxes (powered via solar panels) spread across fields in the countryside or roofs in cities. I will definitely keep an eye on your project!  @computersandblues fantastic! Does it have a permanent "home" where it gets plenty of sun? I have this wonderful image in my head of a bunch of them kept in a greenhouse, tended like plants.  my concern would be a battery fire https://www.howtogeek.com/795732/psa-your-old-gadgets-are-a-fire-hazard-heres-what-to-do/  @computersandblues Put a picture of the setup onto the webpage. @computersandblues I love this so much! I have previously looked at postmarket but had trouble with my device. Is the percentage on the homepage battery level? @computersandblues I have an old house panel above my office, and a decently sized battery I take camping. I'm almost able to run my home office + networking gear. My biggest loss at the moment is running a cheap inefficient inverter. If I threw some money into the setup I'm sure I could completely battery power my office! @computersandblues Phones being DC already + already having battery built in is truly another aspect to postmarket OS that I hadn't considered! @computersandblues "dynamo", also for light or current, to just charge but needs no batteries, nor open fire (candles, matches), not just a thing for camping - but inspires for resourcefulness  @computersandblues Fantastic. βΊοΈ This is such a great used tech combo, since the phone's battery, I assume, let's it last through the night. I rigged up my old phone's google speech recognition tech in airplane mode to do local-only speech control tasks. @computersandblues I have not seen postmarket. I'll have to look at it. This reminded me, I did boot debian on an old Motorola. It was stolen from me at a drivers license center in California. Rotten bastard. |
Gregory's Server
it runs @postmarketOS, so thanks to everybody who contributes there. it's really nice to have people who try to understand these devices and allow us to take them beyond walled gardens and planned obsolescence.
also thanks @paupowpow for designing the web page and convincing me to finally show it around