2025-05-05 | 5 minutes reading

Smart environment monitoring using an old smartphone

I received a very special device as a company phone back in 2013: the Samsung Galaxy Note 3. The team in Korea had a brilliant idea, distinguishing their new flagship phones from the competition by adding additional sensors and marketing them as super-smart "surroundings-aware" devices. Mainstream consumers didn't really care, and therefore only the 2013 models Galaxy S4 and Galaxy Note 3 have these additional temperature, air humidity, and atmospheric pressure sensors. But you should care 12 years later, because these two devices are hidden gems.

enviromon

Why should I care?

Because nowadays, you can buy this 12 year old device for 20–30 dollars (euros) and transform it into a super-smart environment monitor with a beautiful AMOLED display, an integrated battery that can withstand and therefore detect power outages, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and even infrared communication! And of course, it comes with a default set of smartphone features like a camera, microphone, light sensor, and proximity sensor.

But this will be a lot of effort

That's right. But I've already built it for myself and now I've made it public and open-source! So here comes the Enviromon. It consists of an Android app, a Python server, and 3D printable models for frames and stands to give it a polished finish.

It can:

That's cool! But I already have a weather station

Okay, but this one is smart! It's basically a standalone Linux-powered device with an integrated display and UPS. :) You can expand it to perform many other tasks simultaneously. For example:

Bottom line

I started this project more than eight years ago, tinkering with it on and off between other projects and responsibilities. But the good news is that I’m now on sabbatical starting this month. So I finally got time to update it, clean it up, and finally release the project so more of you can benefit from it.

If you find it intriguing, enjoy! And feel free to give me feedback if you liked it. I’d love to hear about your custom setups and unique use cases.


tags: Android, Minimalism, Self-host, DYI