This appears to be based on Firefox OS (aka "Boot to Gecko" B2G). Unfortunately, that was terminated Sept. 2016 [1]. The links to FOS on the JanOS site (such as "View porting instructions" on the Device List page) no longer work, though there is still a home page on Mozilla [2].<p>Edit: JanOS project looks to be zombied. The "Read more on our blog" link on the front page returns "Server Not Found".<p>[1] <a href="https://groups.google.com/g/mozilla.dev.fxos/c/FoAwifahNPY/m/Lppm0VHVBAAJ" rel="nofollow">https://groups.google.com/g/mozilla.dev.fxos/c/FoAwifahNPY/m...</a><p>[2] <a href="https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/products/firefox-os" rel="nofollow">https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/products/firefox-os</a>
It should be required for vendors to unlock the bootloader on hardware devices that have reached EOL. Think of how much e-waste we could reduce if we were able to repurpose hardware <i>we already own</i> instead of it just going into a landfill or worse incinerated which is often the case with e-waste shipped overseas to low income areas for disposal.
Folks who do this: how do you keep the battery from bulging and being a fire hazard after a year being constantly connected to a power outlet?<p>I wanted to do this with an older phone that just two wires going to its battery, so I thought I'd measure the voltage and then just use a step-down converter to supply that same voltage to those two pins. Unfortunately no dice, device can't be fooled to think this is a battery and doesn't even turn on.<p>I also tried just connecting a huge cap instead of a battery, but realized that if it runs empty the board night just assume the battery discharged too much and will refuse charging it. Also it still didn't work when I tried.
Funny this project should turn up now. This project started with a container full of phones our company couldn't get rid of and the question "could we do something useful with them". The short version: not really. Phones consume huge amounts of energy and have tiny batteries relative to their power usage. If you want to repurpose them this isn't the way to do it.<p>Jan, who so modestly (ahem) named this bonsai'd Firefox OS after himself, has since done a lot of interesting things with LoRa and now machine learning. You can find him at <a href="http://janjongboom.com/" rel="nofollow">http://janjongboom.com/</a>.
I really wanted to repurpose my old phone as a security camera , but android power management and lack of sensible way to automatically restart the app for an IP camera made it not very practical.<p>this could be a promising project but device support looks very lacking at this moment.<p>I also considered postmarketos but AFAIR for my particular phone it didn't support the camera, so I stuck with rooted android with some hacks to slow/pause battery charging (it is holding about 5min anyways)