YSK: you can setup pihole on any old rooted android (5.0+) device
I just discovered this and it works fantastically on any old / unused android device you might have lying around, I was shocked at how easy it was, all the instructions are there, once you have it running all you need to do is set your router DNS settings to your pihole IP address and presto! Ads and trackers are gone!
401
Comments46
Take the battery out if you can to avoid lithium fires.
Old batteries on constant charge... I worry about this kind of thing.
This is where fair phone and framework laptops shine. So easy to take the batteries out.
I removed the battery but now I can't get the fucker to turn on lol
Most mobile devices won't work without batteries. The best way to work around this is to supply it with 4.2V (anything between 3V and 4.2V will do) over the battery connector.
I think I might have broken something, even when I clip the battery back in I get nothing 😟
This could be a long shot but if it's a Samsung Galaxy Tab S, the battery connector solder joints kinda die after a while, which can either be fixed by reflowing them or by applying pressure (I have a tablet with that issue). You could try pressing on the battery connector and see if it works then.
I looked a little closer at the battery connectors and when pulling the battery out I must have yanked the little wires out of the clip just ever so slightly (I could see a little bit of them reflecting on one side) I carefully pushed them back in and avast! There is life again! Thank you kind stranger!
If you're in the mood for tinkering, you might want to try this: https://www.instructables.com/Power-an-Android-Phone-Without-Battery/
Can I ask what kind of setup you have there? In terms of software etc..
Thanks for the tip. Got a tablet running HA and thus plugged in 24/7. Just ordered a smart plug to schedule the charging.
Home assistant runs on old tablets now? Or are you saying as a dashboard?
Sorry, yes as dashboard :)
I run pihole on a Raspberry Pi Zero with an Ethernet adapter. Runs great, runs off USB power of my router, no risk of battery explosion. Recommend that over a phone any day
I tried to set up something similar but it doesn't block a damn thing and I can't find whatever router setting I'm missing for the life of me....
You need to change the DNS settings in your router to the IP of the Pi-Hole if you want it to affect all devices on your network. If that doesn't work, you'll need to change the DNS on each of your devices instead.
Yeah, when I change the dns on the router, I lose Internet completely. I am unwilling to change it on literally every device because that's a huge pain in the ass.
Sounds like your Pi-Hole isn't set up properly then... Your Pi-Hole itself needs internet connection.
yeah, I'm not sure what part of the instructions I missed, though I'm not terribly knowledgeable when it comes to network setup.
Amazing! I have an old ZeroW thats been sitting around. Any issues? Latency?
Nope can't say I've ever noticed any issues with it. I've had it for a long time now. Kind of forgot they aren't really new anymore lol. Maybe 7-8 years running? I update it every 6 months or whenever I remember and it still works great.
Good point, I'll have to look into that
You might also be able to turn on Battery Idle Mode, although it's not supported on every device.
Got it up and running now! Thanks mate
Is there any modern day android phones that work without the battery. I feel like they'd probably run POST checks to make sure there's a battery inside. Maybe fairphoness?
The FP3 requires a battery at least. Ironically the device will actually still turn on and be usable if you removed ALL the modules besides the display module 😅 and of course the mandatory battery
Good concept but the WiFi latency and the processing speed would I'm sure slow down your browsing experience.
Cool though!
Running a pi-hole doesn't require much juice. It's a fancy DNS server, not a router. First gen raspberry pis were pretty weak and even those things didn't even break a sweat.
Another person who doesn't know what they are talking about
For home use, they barely do much. At an enterprise level, then it's another story.
You try browsing with 50ms average pin to a dns server where a website loads thousands of objects :(
I believe you can do Ethernet over USB c on some devices.
Oh for sure. I think this is for a very niche user base: People who know about PiHole but don't have a pi/linux box but do have an old Android phone. It's definitely a strange but cool project.
I haven't seen any notable issues yet, a lot of people use a wireless pi zero to do the same thing so as long as you aren't running a state of the art gaming rig (which i'm not) I think it'll be fine
Your client hardware wouldn't matter tho. State of the art or whatnot of a gaming rig would be fairly low. In sure most modern mobile phones create more DNS requests these days compared to a Windows machine and steam. It's the configured software on the hosts that will dictate how much traffic your devices will get. A lot also cache by listening to the TTL. There will be some form of additional latency but your average Joe won't probably notice.
Oh I see well I could say I'm an average Joe lol
I'm not sure about that. The average consumer router is fairly underpowered but is still capable of handling the needs of most home networks.
Wifi adds latency. Adding 30-300 ms of latency will noticeably affect your browsing experience.
Exactly, I'm being down voted for two comments which are wrong, meh.
Probably worth it to remove ads and trackers thogh
I don't think you know about what you're talking about mate
Oh shit. Something to use that old galaxy s4 I still have for. Been wanting to set up a pihole, but didn't want to buy a raspberry pi just for that.
On should have a look on the energy saving behavior of the device, as android tends to shutdown processes occasionally. Which is pretty bad for a DNS server IMHO
Yeah I'll keep an eye on it and see how it goes, should be alright though I turned the battery optimization off
Looking good
Nah, just install Blokada from fDroid. And use that old smartPhone for maybe an AlfredCamera surveillance. But the noBattery mod is useful anyway.
I hear you, but I'm pretty happy with how this is working out, the advantage here is that it blocks ads and trackers for the whole network so it works on my wife's devices without her having to do anything (which she wouldn't anyway)