OpenRackPhone — computing with disused phones

A phone that stops being used still has a processor, memory, networking and a battery that doubles as a power backup. OpenRackPhone looks into whether that capacity —discarded today— can be pooled into a low-cost computing cluster: which tasks make sense on hardware like this, how to power and cool them in a rack, and what it takes to manage them without proprietary services.

An honest status: this is a line of research being documented, not a product or a system in operation. There is no published repository yet, nor measured results we could cite; when there are, they will be published here with their licence.

The devices come from the standing open call for used phone donations: the ones not fit for a field station feed this testbed rather than the electronic waste stream.