What do you do with your old iPad mini?
from yo6271@lemmy.myserv.one to selfhosted@lemmy.world on 23 Jul 11:54
https://lemmy.myserv.one/post/30605226
from yo6271@lemmy.myserv.one to selfhosted@lemmy.world on 23 Jul 11:54
https://lemmy.myserv.one/post/30605226
Mine’s been sitting in a drawer for months. What do you all use yours for? Trying to find a second life for it.
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I don’t have an iPad mini so I can’t help you
There was a point where I just had the browser opened to a monitoring dashboard.
Mine was so slow it could barely run a website anymore
But monitoring websites - maybe on LAN - could be useful
Or home automation
Media controls?
Use it as an e-reader for Calibre library?
Previously I used it as a home assistant panel, but everything is so automated no one ever touched it (except the kids, annoying the ever loving crap out of mom).
Now its magicmirror as a calendar display
I use mine as a home assistant dashboard.
I have one up that shows transit arrival times for the nearest bus stops.
Like others here, I use mine as a sort of “kiosk” for smart home stuff by using Guided Access to lock it to a single app. If you have a Mac you could also put it into real single-app mode via Apple Configurator policies, but it’s more time-consuming to set up and if the app stops working there’s no way to fix it short of restarting the entire iPad (whereas you can end Guided Access, restart the app, and start Guided Access again).
Wait for someone to crack the bootloader and then someone to get a Linux/BSD working on it and/or code up a bare-metal web view/SDL/uxn/PICO-8 that runs on it. That way, when the App Store stops supporting OS versions that run on it, it can still be reused as generic hardware.
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iPadOS has really a really good music production ecosystem. I bought Loopy Pro and 3D printed a mount for my MIDI keyboard. It’s now a dedicated MIDI controller / looping interface.
My 6th gen iPad is the only Apple product I own. It’s also the only device that refuses to connect to my WiFi. I was going to make it a wall panel, but it’s shit.
My wife bought the $100 digital wall calendar from KMart and it hooked up to my CalDav server. I was surprised that it showed zero dark patterns. No vendor lock-in. No ads. No spying.
HomeAssistant dash
Client screen for Air Manager.
Hot take, but If it’s old and/or no longer useful to you, then I would consider selling or trading it in. Apple products hold value better than a lot of other electronics in the same category and you might as well just take the cash and put it towards other homelab upgrades
Why Apple hasn’t mad the iPad mini a CarPlay screen is beyond me. You can do it with an android tablet but not an iPad.