this post was submitted on 03 Sep 2023
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I just discovered this and it works fantastically on any old / unused android device you might have lying around, I was shocked at how easy it was, all the instructions are there, once you have it running all you need to do is set your router DNS settings to your pihole IP address and presto! Ads and trackers are gone!

https://github.com/DesktopECHO/Pi-hole-for-Android

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[–] [email protected] 88 points 11 months ago (5 children)

Take the battery out if you can to avoid lithium fires.

Old batteries on constant charge... I worry about this kind of thing.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 11 months ago (1 children)

This is where fair phone and framework laptops shine. So easy to take the batteries out.

[–] [email protected] 32 points 11 months ago

Not to take away from what you're saying but old phones and laptops are very likely to have easily replaceable batteries as well.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I removed the battery but now I can't get the fucker to turn on lol

[–] [email protected] 32 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Most mobile devices won't work without batteries. The best way to work around this is to supply it with 4.2V (anything between 3V and 4.2V will do) over the battery connector.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I think I might have broken something, even when I clip the battery back in I get nothing 😟

[–] [email protected] 22 points 11 months ago (1 children)

This could be a long shot but if it's a Samsung Galaxy Tab S, the battery connector solder joints kinda die after a while, which can either be fixed by reflowing them or by applying pressure (I have a tablet with that issue). You could try pressing on the battery connector and see if it works then.

[–] [email protected] 29 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I looked a little closer at the battery connectors and when pulling the battery out I must have yanked the little wires out of the clip just ever so slightly (I could see a little bit of them reflecting on one side) I carefully pushed them back in and avast! There is life again! Thank you kind stranger!

[–] [email protected] 7 points 11 months ago

If you're in the mood for tinkering, you might want to try this: https://www.instructables.com/Power-an-Android-Phone-Without-Battery/

[–] [email protected] 9 points 11 months ago (2 children)

I have an old Nexus running as a weather station. I just bought a WiFi controlled plug for the power supply so it switches on and off continuously

[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Can I ask what kind of setup you have there? In terms of software etc..

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago

It's just a screen that shows me the weather forecast tbh. It's a paid app called whatweatherpro

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Thanks for the tip. Got a tablet running HA and thus plugged in 24/7. Just ordered a smart plug to schedule the charging.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

Home assistant runs on old tablets now? Or are you saying as a dashboard?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago

Sorry, yes as dashboard :)

[–] [email protected] 7 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Good point, I'll have to look into that

[–] [email protected] 13 points 11 months ago (3 children)

You might also be able to turn on Battery Idle Mode, although it's not supported on every device.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago

Got it up and running now! Thanks mate

[–] Srootus 5 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Is there any modern day android phones that work without the battery. I feel like they'd probably run POST checks to make sure there's a battery inside. Maybe fairphoness?

[–] [email protected] -1 points 11 months ago

The FP3 requires a battery at least. Ironically the device will actually still turn on and be usable if you removed ALL the modules besides the display module 😅 and of course the mandatory battery

[–] [email protected] 32 points 11 months ago (5 children)

Good concept but the WiFi latency and the processing speed would I'm sure slow down your browsing experience.

Cool though!

[–] [email protected] 13 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Running a pi-hole doesn't require much juice. It's a fancy DNS server, not a router. First gen raspberry pis were pretty weak and even those things didn't even break a sweat.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 11 months ago

I believe you can do Ethernet over USB c on some devices.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago

Oh for sure. I think this is for a very niche user base: People who know about PiHole but don't have a pi/linux box but do have an old Android phone. It's definitely a strange but cool project.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I haven't seen any notable issues yet, a lot of people use a wireless pi zero to do the same thing so as long as you aren't running a state of the art gaming rig (which i'm not) I think it'll be fine

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Your client hardware wouldn't matter tho. State of the art or whatnot of a gaming rig would be fairly low. In sure most modern mobile phones create more DNS requests these days compared to a Windows machine and steam. It's the configured software on the hosts that will dictate how much traffic your devices will get. A lot also cache by listening to the TTL. There will be some form of additional latency but your average Joe won't probably notice.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

Oh I see well I could say I'm an average Joe lol

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago (2 children)

I'm not sure about that. The average consumer router is fairly underpowered but is still capable of handling the needs of most home networks.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Wifi adds latency. Adding 30-300 ms of latency will noticeably affect your browsing experience.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago

Exactly, I'm being down voted for two comments which are wrong, meh.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

Probably worth it to remove ads and trackers thogh

[–] [email protected] -4 points 11 months ago

I don't think you know about what you're talking about mate

[–] [email protected] 20 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Oh shit. Something to use that old galaxy s4 I still have for. Been wanting to set up a pihole, but didn't want to buy a raspberry pi just for that.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 11 months ago (2 children)

On should have a look on the energy saving behavior of the device, as android tends to shutdown processes occasionally. Which is pretty bad for a DNS server IMHO

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago

Sure it does. But you can also tell it to put some processes in a top priority list.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Yeah I'll keep an eye on it and see how it goes, should be alright though I turned the battery optimization off

[–] [email protected] 8 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)