Recycle reuse your iPhone12 things to do with your old iPhone

Now that the newest iPhone series of phones have been released you start thinking about making the move to upgrade. Your old phone may be working just fine so you might be wondering what you can do with your old phone. While you can certainly sell your old phone immediately, there are plenty of ways to re-purpose your iPhone. In general, it’s a good idea to keep an old smartphone as a backup in case your shiny new model breaks for any reason, but you can certainly reuse it elsewhere in your life at the same time

Before upgrading be sure to visit Things to do to your old iPhone before upgrading to a new iPhone for some helpful info for a smooth transition.

List of things to do with your old iPhone

1. Pass it on

Pass it on to your kids – Every parent will soon learn in the history of all toys ever invented there has never been as anything that is more appealing to a kid as an iPhone. They are shiny, they have games and let face it if parents use them then they must have them. More importantly, they are either off-limits or doled out in limited quantities as a reward for, say, sitting still for a minute. Load up your old iPhone with games and give it to a deserving child in your life.

…or to your mum – Alternately if a mum or any or older generation relative has been thinking of taking the plunge into the world of smartphones, your old iPhone may help him or her get over the hump. You might also find someone who’s still hanging on to an earlier model and give them the gift of an upgrade.

2. Use it as an iPod touch or tiny iPad

An iPhone with no cellular service is essentially an iPod touch or a small iPad. Remove your SIM card if the iPhone has one, and you have a media player, mail,contact and calendar device, and with a Wi-Fi connection you will be able to connect to the internet. The iPhone uses Wi-Fi to connect to the App Store and do everything an iPad or iPod touch can do.

3. Donate to charity or recycle it

You can drop any Apple device off at the Apple Store using the Apple Recycling Program. If you don’t live near an Apple Store, Apple will send you a prepaid mailing label and you can mail it in. Apple promises to responsibly recycle all the materials in your phone.Now if only you could just recycle your old iPhone and get some money at the same time. Wait, you can. If your iPhone is an iPhone 6 or newer, Apple will give you an Apple gift card and recycle qualifying phones. You’ll need to go to Apple’s recycling website and answer some questions about your model, its capacity, its colour, and condition and Apple will then tell you what it’s worth.

Several charities accept old phones for donation, though it’s worth remembering that these groups likely won’t physically give your old phones to people in need. Rather, they work with phone recyclers and sell your donated phones to them.

4. Alarm Clock

If you can find a stylish dock to place on your bedside table you can dedicate your old iPhone as an alarm clock.  There are some apps available that can change your display to be always on and emulate a clock radio screen which can also be fun to play with.

5. Sell, sell, sell!

Join the eBay hordes and sell your phone for a few hundred bucks if you can. There will likely be a flood of the gadgets soon after people start getting their new phones, so it might make sense to wait a little to get more for your device.

6. Universal Remote Control

Control your television, a light switch, or even your computer. It’s not just for televisions and home automation – you can also control random toys and gadgets too.

7. Baby Monitor

Definitely cheaper than purchasing a dedicated Wi-Fi baby monitor, utilising an old smartphone to keep an eye on the crib is a smart idea. Likely utilising a powered smartphone dock look at apps like Cloud Baby Monitor for iOS or Dormi for Android. Place your old phone in the nursery and stream the live footage to your new iPhone.

8. Stream music

You can still use your iPhone if it doesn’t have an active SIM card inside it. When you do, you can hook it up to your Wi-Fi network and your Apple Music, iTunes, Spotify, or any other music service you might want to use, hook it up to your system using Bluetooth or AirPlay, and use your old smartphone as a shared music and radio playback system.

9. Vehicle / Bike Tracker

Creating a makeshift tacking system for your car or bicycle, just reactivate your phone with a cheap pay-as-you-go sim card and service and securely attach it on your ride. Then just use apps like Find My iPhone to locate the device if you ride ever gets stolen

10. Barometer / Weather Center

If you have a an iPhone 6 or iPhone 6 Plus, it includes an internal barometer sensor. If you are upgrading to the 7 or newer, you can definitely use your old phone as a mini weather centre. Many Android phones offer a similar sensor. For Android, check out the Barometer app and DS Barometer. On iOS devices, check out Thermo-Hygrometer and Bar-o-Meter.

11. Camera

At its core, a decommissioned iPhone is a hard drive with a really great camera. Snap photos and video with it. When you go on holidays you can take it with you as a backup camera if you start running out of storage.

12. Dash-mounted Navigation / Camera

While built-in navigation systems have become much more prevalent in new cars, there are plenty of older cars that could use the upgrade. In addition, having a dash-mounted version is likely safer when attempting to pull your smartphone out of your pocket while driving to check Google Maps. If you want to use your phone’s camera, you also have a dashcam.

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