What to do with a spare iPhone 5?

When I got my new iPhone XS, I handed my iPhone 7 down to my Mom. In return, she gave me back my old iPhone 5 that she got from me several years ago. I’m pondering what I might want to do with it. Gazelle will only give me $10 for it, so if I can find anything even slightly compelling to do with it it might be worth keeping.

It won’t run anything more recent than iOS 10, so it’s pretty limited. It looks like I could download the Apple TV app and the Sonos app, so I could use it as a remote control for audio/video.

Any other ideas?

Women’s shelters are always looking for operational phones. It’s my understanding they can be used to call 911 even if they don’t have an account. I’m sure one in your area would be pleased to get it.

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If you shoot video, you could use it to capture the audio track for the voice (or ambient) and get the microphone much closer to the source than the camera position. Could improve your production significantly.

It could shoot B-roll too, stuck on a tripod.

Of course - giving it away to a charitable cause will probably provide the highest value overall…

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I am using an old iPhone 5 as an alarm clock. I use the app BCRf which has more features then any alarm clock I have ever had.

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I use an old iPhone as a camera for the Cloud Baby Monitor app. Our daughter is 6 and afraid of almost everything, so if we’re downstairs at night watching even a remotely frightening or violent movie, we can use it to see if she wakes up and comes out of her room.

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Put it in the car as an emergency backup or donate to a local worthy cause.

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I’m just about to give an unused iPhone 5 to my local Parkrun.

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Amazon offers Amazon gift cards in exchange for electronics. A quick check shows that the 16Gb iPhone 5 only yields $13 though. (Sad trombone.)

FYI any sub-$500 value donations can be written off using 1040 Form Schedule A.

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I have an iPod touch stuck on iOS 9 that I use as a dedicated MP3 player, maybe permanently mount it in the car.

Depending on what apps it has on it you might be able to use it as a “house remote” to control the home or provide a status board.

The problem with older phones stuck on older versions of iOS is that it is hard to get applications for it since developers stop building apps for it.

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I use mine (which has a shattered screen) to play music while I record video while I practice gymnastics since most video apps are terrible at doing both at once.

I also use it to do browser/device testing for my job (UX designer/UI developer).

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FYI three years ago I sold my iPhone 5 (for a $115 Amazon gift card IIRC), when I got my 6S Plus. If I still had it today, I’d keep it and use it as an iPod Touch, filled with music and apps and connected to the internet solely via WiFi.

The march of technology and price drops on old gear underscores the usefulness of regularly updating ones hardware. Not only do you get the latest, fastest, most capable technology, under warranty, you also maximize the resale value of the replaced item, thus reducing the cost of the new unit. It’s because of price drops like this that I usually recommend that people sell their Macs and iPads after the Applecare+ warranty expires, and apply the money towards something new. There’s something to be said about owning a computer (especially a portable one that’s easily broken) always being under warranty.

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Up until a few months ago my father was using an iPhone 4! and he loved it so for some people it may be the perfect phone. My experience with using older devices not currently supported by iOS is that they are somewhat slow especially old iPads and if you have anything higher than iPhone 6S not worth the bother due to their unresponsiveness.

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We have an iPhone 4 that we just keep around in case one of ours breaks. That way we can at least have a phone while waiting for a replacement.

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Put it in the kitchen with Paprika installed so you can follow recipes easily when cooking without putting dirty fingers all over your XS.

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Use it as your home phone
The remote use case is interesting, sadly would get annoying over dedicates multi function remote
Music players in kids room (if you have kids)
Make it your exercise device, they are nice and small, but can track and also play music (assuming no Apple Watch mind you)
Pass along to someone in need is probably the best thing to do.

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I use my “returned hand-me-down” phones as a “Lawn Pod”…basically the device I use around the house when mowing the lawn, and other household chores. Perfect for streaming podcasts, like MPU, and music. Also gets messages, texts, email, and phone calls (assuming you are close enough to the main phone). All without putting the new fancy (and mostly unpaid) device out of harms way.

It is also great to have an “extra” phone kicking around as an emergency swap…for example when your daughter fumbles her iPhone6 and drops it in the deep end of the pool…why the phone was even near the pool I am not completely sure!!. But when her phone died, I was able to use my lawn pod (iPhone5s) as her replacement until I could get a real replacement. The SIMs for the phones should all work from iPhone 5 and up. ** A really old nanosim may not support NFC, however, but a newer sim would work fine in the iPhone 5.

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