I am not someone who sells his old electronics. I might give them away or loan them to a friend, but selling? Never, at least not my phones. As a result, I always have a couple of old Android phones that are simply sitting in my drawer, doing nothing.
So, I started to look for ways to put them to good use in my day-to-day life. After some trial and error, I’ve found a few apps that make an old Android phone worth keeping, and all of them are free.
Camo Studio
Turn your old phone into a high-quality webcam
Most laptop webcams are stuck at 720p with tiny sensors that produce grainy, washed-out images. Your old phone, on the other hand, has a camera that manufacturers spent serious resources optimizing. I’ve been using Camo Studio to turn my old phone into a wireless webcam, and the difference in video quality is immediately noticeable.
The setup is simple. Install the Camo Studio desktop client on your PC and the companion app on your phone. Open the Device dropdown on the desktop app, choose Pair a device, and scan the QR code from your phone. Both devices need to be on the same Wi-Fi network.
Once connected, Camo Studio shows your phone as a standard webcam in Zoom, Teams, Discord, and dozens of other video apps. You can bump the resolution up to 1080p or even 4K, switch between front and rear cameras, and fine-tune exposure and white balance. The one thing to watch for is heat; extended high-resolution streaming can make your phone warm, especially over Wi-Fi. But for meetings and video calls, it’s a solid alternative to buying a dedicated webcam.
Droid Dashcam
A free dash cam that records more than just video
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If Camo Studio puts your old phone’s camera to work at your desk, Droid Dashcam does the same inside your car. Dedicated dash cams with decent sensors cost anywhere from $50 to $150, and your old phone’s camera is likely better than most of them.
What sets Droid Dashcam apart from other dashcam apps is how much it records beyond just video. It automatically logs the date, time, GPS coordinates, driving speed, and your exact location address on every clip. You can even add your car’s license plate number to the footage, which is helpful for insurance claims.
The app also supports loop recording, so it overwrites the oldest files when storage runs full. You can configure it to start recording automatically when the phone connects to USB power, Bluetooth, or when it boots up. Mount the phone on your windshield with a clip-on grip, plug it into a USB charger, and you have a dashcam that runs itself.
Touch Portal
A free Stream Deck without the hardware
An Elgato Stream Deck costs around $80 to $150, and most people who want one aren’t even streamers. They want a quick way to launch apps, trigger shortcuts, or run macros from a physical button. Touch Portal does all of that using your old phone’s touchscreen.
Install the companion app on your PC, pair both devices over Wi-Fi by scanning a QR code, and you can start building pages of tappable buttons. Each button can launch an app, fire a keyboard shortcut, or run a multi-step macro. The IKON pack from Touch Portal’s asset store gives your buttons a polished, Stream Deck-like look, which is a nice touch.
The free version limits you to a 4×2 grid and two pages, which is enough for a basic productivity layout. I have buttons for Slack, Spotify, my browser, and a few apps I use daily. The setup process isn’t the most intuitive, and I’ve written about it in more detail with my Android tablet, but once you get past the initial configuration, it works reliably. The Pro upgrade is a one-time $13.99 purchase if you need more buttons and pages.
Moon+ Reader
Turn your phone into a dedicated e-book reader
A Kindle Paperwhite costs around $150, and while E Ink displays are easier on the eyes, your old phone can do most of what a Kindle does for free. Moon+ Reader is one of the most popular reading apps on Android for good reason. It supports EPUB, PDF, MOBI, CBR, and a bunch of other formats that Google Play Books won’t touch.
What I like about Moon+ Reader is the level of control it gives you. You can adjust fonts, margins, line spacing, background color, and even set up custom gestures for page turns. There’s a built-in blue light filter for nighttime reading and a text-to-speech option if you’d rather listen. The app also syncs your reading progress across devices via Google Drive or Dropbox.
To make the experience more book-like, disable notifications and turn on Do Not Disturb. It’s not going to replace E Ink for marathon reading sessions, but for an hour or two at a time, it works well enough that I stopped reaching for my tablet.
Simple Nanny
A baby or pet monitor using two phones
Dedicated baby monitors with a camera and display run anywhere from $30 to over $100. If you have two old phones, or even one old phone and your current one, Simple Nanny can turn them into a baby or pet monitoring setup.
The concept is simple: install the app on both devices, designate one as the camera and the other as the monitor. Simple Nanny comes packed with useful features like noise detection, push notifications when it picks up sound, and even the ability to play a lullaby or white noise remotely through the camera phone’s speaker.
There are two things to be aware of, though. First, Simple Nanny is subscription-based for its premium features, though the free tier covers the basics. Second, this is an app that’s going to have a camera pointed at your child or pet around the clock. Read the privacy policy and reviews carefully before committing, because for this category of app more than any other, data privacy matters.
Fotoo
A digital photo frame without buying one
A decent digital photo frame with a 10-inch HD display costs $60 to $80. Your old phone already has a higher resolution screen, touch input, and more storage than most dedicated frames, so the use case here is obvious.
Fotoo is a freemium Android app that turns your phone into a digital photo frame. You can pull photos from cloud storage like Google Photos, Dropbox, and OneDrive, or use the images already on your phone. Set it up on a stand, plug it in, and you have a photo frame cycling through your favorite memories on your desk or nightstand.
The free version limits you to a single pan-style transition, which works but isn’t the prettiest. The premium upgrade unlocks over 15 transition effects, non-stop slideshows, and a date and time overlay that gives it an authentic photo frame feel. You can even schedule auto-start and set a sleep timer to save battery.
RetroArch
An all-in-one retro gaming emulator
If none of the above use cases interest you, turning your old phone into a dedicated retro gaming device is another option. RetroArch is an all-in-one emulator that many people swear by. Instead of installing separate emulators for each console, RetroArch handles everything under one roof, from NES and SNES to Game Boy Advance and PlayStation.
The setup takes a bit of work. You need to download the cores (essentially individual emulators) for each system you want to play, and then load your own ROMs. Connect the phone to a TV via HDMI or cast it wirelessly, pair a Bluetooth controller, and you have a retro gaming console that fits in your pocket.
If RetroArch feels too complex, there are plenty of individual emulators on the Google Play Store that are simpler to set up. But for anyone who wants one app to cover multiple consoles, RetroArch is the go-to option.
Old phones are worth more than a drawer
Repurposing old phones keeps them out of the e-waste pile, which is a good thing on its own. But what’s more interesting is how many of these apps replace gadgets you might have been thinking about buying. A webcam, a dashcam, a Stream Deck, an e-reader, a baby monitor, a digital photo frame, a retro console – that’s hundreds of dollars’ worth of hardware sitting in your drawer, waiting for the right app. Even if you only use one or two of these, your old phone earns its keep.