Useitagain.io

What it does

Useitagain.io gives an old Android phone a second life as a free smart-home hub. Instead of buying new hardware, you reuse the phone sitting in a drawer. One script installs Home Assistant, Node-RED and Mosquitto on top of Termux, turning the device into a capable control centre for your home.

No code, no root and no custom firmware are required. Everything stays isolated inside the Termux data directory, and you can keep using the phone normally.

How it works

1. Install F-Droid on the phone and allow installation from unknown sources.
2. Open Termux and run the one-line install script:

pkg update -y && curl https://useitagain.tuchsoft.com/install.sh | bash

3. Answer "y" when asked, grant storage access, and wait. Your smart-home hub is ready.

Requirements

• Any Android device running Android 6 or later (an old, unused phone is ideal).
• Enough storage for Home Assistant and its add-ons.
• No root required, though a rooted phone unlocks a few extra perks.

Why we did it

Roughly 5.3 billion smartphones are discarded every year. Most of them are still perfectly capable computers with sensors, storage and network connectivity. Useitagain is a small, practical answer to that: keep one more device out of the drawer and out of the waste stream, and get a free home-automation hub in the process.