Asklemmy

43826 readers

844 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy 🔍

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

Open-ended question
Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

Lemmyverse: community search
sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
!lemmy411@lemmy.ca: a community for finding communities

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~

founded 5 years ago

MODERATORS

106

What uses of a smartphone do you think most people miss out on? (lemmy.ml)

submitted 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) by Kachajal@lemmy.ml to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

107 comments fedilink hide all child comments

By far my most favorite use is as a notepad that I always have with me. I use a custom keyboard to make typing faster and more accurate.

Anything y'all like to do with your phones that you feel like most people miss out on?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] KeepFlying@lemmy.world 58 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (6 children)

USB OTG on android phones is severely underrated.

I can plug in a USB drive and transfer files around, I've used this to manage my retro handheld SD cards before.
You can tether your hotspot over Ethernet to your computer with an Ethernet adapter.
You can plug Ethernet into your phone to get faster connections.
You can plug a mouse into your phone and get a cursor on screen. Not super useful tbh, but kinda cool.
You can use your phone as an external webcam for your computer.
It's a bit more annoying than it used to be but you can use your phone as a universal IR remote with a small adapter and free apps (I miss my built in IR blaster from my S3).
I haven't used it much, but I can plug in a RTL-SDR dongle and get aerial TV on my phone, or a radio spectrum analyzer. I used it to discover that my garage remote is about to die and that's why my car's garage button won't learn the signal.
USB (or Bluetooth) game controllers just work.

Definitely a relatively niche usecase but I have SSH clients, terminal apps, RDP remote access clients, and other networking tools as apps on my phone for quickly messing with things. Very helpful to not need to bring out the PC when I'm fixing my network.

The ability to VPN into my home network to access my NAS. Honestly being able to access my NAS in general is already great for backups or just so I don't have to think about what's physically on my phone.

With a cheap Bluetooth device I can connect to my car's diagnostic port (ODBII) and check engine codes. No more trips to the mechanic just to get it diagnosed.

WiFi direct cameras are a great addon too. I have a wifi endoscope (camera on a long bendy stick) for inspecting inside walls and my phone works as a screen for it.

[–] carzian@lemmy.ml 10 points 4 months ago

When my pixel 5a decided to stop using the screen, I was able to do a full phone backup using the OTG to plug in a keyboard. Ridiculous but was a fun troubleshooting moment

[–] christophski@feddit.uk 10 points 4 months ago

Using a mouse is great for some games like OpenTTD!

[–] AVincentInSpace@pawb.social 6 points 4 months ago

Using a mouse is invaluable if the screen shatters and the touch panel stops working but you still need to get data off it.

[–] SomeGuy69@lemmy.world 4 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

I too miss my build in IR blaster from my S3.

[–] shinratdr@lemmy.ca 3 points 4 months ago

For anyone on iOS, you can do most of this there too. On older iPhones you need a lightning to USB-A adapter you can get on AliExpress for like $3, but on USB-C iPhones it works directly.

The Files app has become like a full file manager, with local storage, unzipping, archiving, SMB connections, as well as most cloud storage services connect to it. Download Keka from the App Store and you can even unpack 7z, ISOs, everything you can do on a desktop.

[–] SwearingRobin@lemmy.world 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

You don't need an ethernet adapter to use your phone as a cabled hotspot for a computer. Just a regular usb cabe works just fine, I've done it before when our home internet was down.

[–] KeepFlying@lemmy.world 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

That's true, but with the Ethernet connection you can tether to a router directly. When my Internet was down I was able to tether my entire home for the time I needed to get some updates finished to get my docker environment back up and running. I had no idea that was possible before that.

[–] SwearingRobin@lemmy.world 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I had no idea! So you use the phone in tether mode and get it hooked up on a router ethernet port and it works like that? Did you have to change any settings on your router to make it work?

[–] KeepFlying@lemmy.world 1 points 4 months ago

Nope it all just worked, it really surprised me honestly. I expected to need to do some weird tethering to a raspi or something to make it work but I didn't need any of that. (Well, I had issues because it turned out lightning borked my router, but that was a different issue entirely.)