Web app turns your old phone into a new smart display

Summary

offbeat Web app turns your old phone into a new smart display ScreenWall's creator tells El Reg he doesn't want those obsolete devices going to waste HANDS ON If you've got a drawer full of old phones, unloved tablets, or even an ancient monitor, you can now give those devices new life in your home by turning them into wall-mounted status boards, clocks, weather stations, or photo frames. ScreenWall is a web platform developed by German software engineer Tuan Anh Bui that’ll turn any compatible device with an internet connection into a widget display without the need to install anything. If you can scan a QR code, you can have that old device displaying any number of things in no time. “Use it to build clocks, status boards, ambient screens, signage, and shared walls from the hardware you already have, without asking people to install anything first,” Bui says on the app’s website. Currently in beta and free for users (with some restrictions on the number of widgets one can deploy), ScreenWall comes with a number of demo widgets, like a clock, weather display, and a split-flap screen able to display various types of information. You can customize pre-existing widgets with some JavaScript tweaks, which is how new ones are written as well, and you can connect data sources via JSON files. Placing a widget, whether preconfigured or homemade, is simple: Add it to a workspace (called a “wall”), and it’ll sit waiting for a display to be paired with ScreenWall, which is done by either scanning a QR code from a device with a camera, or clicking on a link and inputting a six-digit code for devices that lack one (like an old monitor paired to a thin client, no matter how ancient).Once paired, ScreenWall detects the device’s resolution and shows it on the wall as a blue square. Drag it over the widget you want it to display, and that’s that. The screen won’t go to sleep or shut down as long as the ScreenWall widget is present, as it uses the standard Screen Wake Lock API baked ...