Question might be is it still hosted on a phone... DNS resolves to a residential ISP range, and the site seems to be holding up quite well still, so not sure
I like the idea of using old phones for infrastructure-lite applications, taking advantage of their low power requirements and built-in UPS (which, yes, has its own drawbacks which can only be mitigated to a certain degree).
I have a number of old android devices that I'd like to use for ...something cool like this, but my existing homelab infra could just add an extra VM or container to do this without any likely additional power draw. It's still cool and I want to do it though.
My only query about this cool project is why not wifi? Whilst I'm sure there's a good reason for the author (and I can understand having esoteric specific requirements because I have my own "things"), but it would negate the need for a docking->Ethernet device, which feels to me like unnecessary addition of a device that requires power. Also, bandwidth / throughput probably isn't much of a limitation given the device that's being used. I think I'm mainly interested in the author's specific reason for this requirement (I'm a BA, these questions are my bread and butter).
Comment to author: Gotta add the Pixel 5 to your homelab inventory! Also, nice site, layout and information.
IIRC, WiFi on cellphones tends to have power-saving features that cause unsolicited incoming connections to have poor performance and very high latency. I don't know if there are kernel parameters to disable this, but even if there are, you'd likely need root to toggle them.
Pretty wild how readily available compute has become. Sure not AI level compute but between modern consumer hardware and the mountain of free tier stuff out there I’ve always got more than ability to use it effectively
Some phones now have an option to limit charging to 80%. That should eliminate the problem entirely.
If your phone won't do that, you can use a smart power switch. Some mentioned to simply have it on a timer, but if you wanted to get fancier, you could use IFTTT to toggle it on/off based on battery percentage. I'd likely make it turn on at 40% battery and off at 60%.
Anyone else find it kinda funny to have a "fully offgrid" website? That's an oxymoron, right? How can it be off grid if it's literally connected to the grid?
I understand they're using grid to mean electrical grid, but still funny.
So, uh, hi. This is my blog post. I'm just some guy that blogs and gets like 5 reads per post, so I'm a fish out of water here. I didn't even have a HN account until today.
To answer a some questions: 1. Still running on the Pixel. I never had a reason to change it. 2. It is on a residential internet connection because, well, I never planned on having any volume of readers. 3. I'm just some dude that does random projects at home after work. I'm not even in tech. I actually own a construction contracting biz.
The power efficiency is fascinating - modern phones are basically ARM servers optimized for battery life. Pixel 5 probably draws <5W under load vs 50-100W for a typical x86 server. For a personal blog, that's 400-800 kWh/year savings. The environmental impact of reusing vs recycling electronics is under appreciated.
there was another post from this blog earlier today that led me to check it and I've been scanning posts since. my kinda hackin', and yours too if you're into low power, recycling, self-*-ing ... very cool stuff
Don't most ISPs hand out IPs that are only nominally dynamic?
My IP is dynamic, but in practice only changes ~once/year. Even if I go to my router and release the WAN IP and reboot, when it comes back up, it'll have the same WAN IP. But then that once/year, my Internet randomly goes down and I have to reboot my router and I end up with a new WAN IP.
When that happens, I just go and manually update the IP for a hostname I use. If I wanted to get fancy, I could automate all this, but meh. CBF to spend the time automating something that only takes me 30 seconds to do once/year.
> I assume that ISPs generally don't want people hosting servers on residential connections.
They likely don't care unless you're saturating your upload consistently. Also, some ISPs like Comcast/XFinity are known for having extremely asymmetrical connections. At least, they used to. I'm fairly certain I've heard of some people having 1 gbps down, but only like 16 mbps up.
43 comments
[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 64.3 ms ] threadReduce, Reuse, Recycle is in order of environmental impact, so reusing is an upgrade!
I have a number of old android devices that I'd like to use for ...something cool like this, but my existing homelab infra could just add an extra VM or container to do this without any likely additional power draw. It's still cool and I want to do it though.
My only query about this cool project is why not wifi? Whilst I'm sure there's a good reason for the author (and I can understand having esoteric specific requirements because I have my own "things"), but it would negate the need for a docking->Ethernet device, which feels to me like unnecessary addition of a device that requires power. Also, bandwidth / throughput probably isn't much of a limitation given the device that's being used. I think I'm mainly interested in the author's specific reason for this requirement (I'm a BA, these questions are my bread and butter).
Comment to author: Gotta add the Pixel 5 to your homelab inventory! Also, nice site, layout and information.
If your phone won't do that, you can use a smart power switch. Some mentioned to simply have it on a timer, but if you wanted to get fancier, you could use IFTTT to toggle it on/off based on battery percentage. I'd likely make it turn on at 40% battery and off at 60%.
I understand they're using grid to mean electrical grid, but still funny.
To answer a some questions: 1. Still running on the Pixel. I never had a reason to change it. 2. It is on a residential internet connection because, well, I never planned on having any volume of readers. 3. I'm just some dude that does random projects at home after work. I'm not even in tech. I actually own a construction contracting biz.
Very efficient but enough grunt to do multiple things at once and have great hardware and driver support.
Running a blog on a pixel is next level efficient
https://mitanshu7.github.io/html/SSH_into_Android_with_Termu...
My IP is dynamic, but in practice only changes ~once/year. Even if I go to my router and release the WAN IP and reboot, when it comes back up, it'll have the same WAN IP. But then that once/year, my Internet randomly goes down and I have to reboot my router and I end up with a new WAN IP.
When that happens, I just go and manually update the IP for a hostname I use. If I wanted to get fancy, I could automate all this, but meh. CBF to spend the time automating something that only takes me 30 seconds to do once/year.
> I assume that ISPs generally don't want people hosting servers on residential connections.
They likely don't care unless you're saturating your upload consistently. Also, some ISPs like Comcast/XFinity are known for having extremely asymmetrical connections. At least, they used to. I'm fairly certain I've heard of some people having 1 gbps down, but only like 16 mbps up.