Repurposing an old phone instead of creating e-waste to replace cloud subs

had an old android phone lying in my drawer so decided to turn it into a dedicated mini server instead of paying for drive and streaming subs every month. no root needed and runs completely fine.

the services running:

filebrowser for managing storage over the local network

syncthing fork continuously syncing my camera roll from my main phone

jellyfin streaming movies and music to my tv over wifi

runs inside termux using a proot ubuntu container. ram stays around 400mb idle across all three services. power draw is around 2 to 3w and the phone battery works like an accidental ups during power cuts.

main headache was android killing background tasks. had to kill phantom process limits over adb and keep termux wakelock on so the container doesn't sleep. mounted the internal storage path so both filebrowser and syncthing can read and write without permission errors. and the automated installer script in the comments below if anyone wants to run it

for people running old phones 24 7 like this do you guys use smart plugs to stop battery bloat or just leave it plugged in?

https://redd.it/1x4wutu
@reddit_android