Android’s customizability and open source nature is its biggest strength. It offers a lot of flexibility to developers and a lot more freedom to create apps that you typically won’t find on other platforms.
Here are 5 examples of offbeat ways to use an Android device..
1. Spy camera
You don’t need to set up CCTV cameras if you have a spare Android phone: just install Spy Kit app (by Tattu Mobile) on your device. This free app works like a motion detector spy camera and is easy to set up and use.
Not only is it completely silent, it lets the phone capture photos and videos even when the screen is turned off.
In the settings, you can select triggers and their actions. For instance, you can set it to capture a photo when you press volume up — or start recording video when you press volume down. If motion detection is enabled, it will do this automatically.
Lastly, if the phone has a sim card, you can set up a remote SMS trigger. For instance, send the text ‘click’ or ‘record’ to the phone from another phone and it will capture a photo or start continuous video recording.
2. Your wingman
If you feel that your significant other is a bit too demanding at times, your Android phone can help! You can literally automate and outsource a little bit of your relationship to it using the Bro App (by developers Factorial Products).
Now, it may be called the Bro App but it works just as well whether you’re the girlfriend, boyfriend, husband or wife. The makers call it the relationship wingman and what it does is simple: it texts your partner sweet things based on certain triggers that you set.
You start by telling the app who your partner is from your contact list — then you can choose from the pre-set text messages (but don’t be lazy and add your own texts — you only do it once!). And finally tell it when to send the texts. It takes care of the rest.
Aah but what if the partner finds out you think? The Bro App is clever — you can tell it the name of your partners Wi-Fi network (so it won’t text when you’re within its range). It has a recent contact detector (so if you’ve recently texted/called your partner it won’t text soon after that).
3. Brain trainer
Like our bodies, our brain ages with time. And just as we exercise to keep physically fit, the brain needs a bit of help to stay on top of things too.
Here’s where Elevate comes in (by Elevate Labs). It’s designed with small games and puzzles (over 25 of them) that help improve memory, focus concentration, processing, maths skills, precision, comprehension and so on.
As you start playing, the app adapts to your style and level of skill so that it stays challenging (yet doable). It also keeps track of your progress with a calendar.
The makers say that the games in the app have been designed in collaboration with experts in neuroscience and cognitive learning. Proof that it works is provided by the million plus users who have collectively rated it 4.4 on 5.
On the off chance that you do get bored with the Elevate games, you can try others like Peak (Peaklabs), Lumosity (Lumos Labs), Kognitivo ( Sergey Cheparev) and NeuroNation.
4. Charger voltage measurement
A free (ad-supported) app called Ampere by developers Braintrapp aims to measure the amount of current that your charger supplies to the phone. All you have to do is start the app and it displays the current on screen.
When not connected to a charger, the app will display the rate of discharge. This changes based on brightness & number of running apps. The aim is to find out which charger works best for your device.
It only works on Android 4.0.3 devices or newer but there is a catch — not all devices are supported. On the Google Play page for the app, they have a complete list of supported devices. For this reason, on some devices, you may not even find the app when searching in the Play Store.
5. A complete media player
Your Android phone needs to have MHL (or a separate HDMI out) for this, so that you can connect it to a TV with a cable. Load up some movies on a microSD card and you can use the phone as a complete media player.
To make things look better, you need the appropriate software that will display the movies correctly (with album art, info from IMDB and so on — a process called ‘scraping’). You may have also heard of Kodi (formerly XBMC), which does exactly this on a computer.
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