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What is a nifty little feature modern gadgets have lost? (lemmy.world)
submitted 2 years ago* by to c/asklemmy@lemmy.world
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For me it’s the notification light you used to find on older phones, was particularly good to know if your phone was charged without picking it up

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[–] 103 points 2 years ago (3 children)

IR blaster for smartphones. I still have one on mine and I can use it for tons of stuff, not just as a TV remote.

I even worked for a company who made lots of IR based products (taps/faucets, accessibility stuff) and it was amazing how many people had to buy the dedicated remotes for these products for extra money.

When I asked them if their phone has an IR blaster, so they could just download a free app and use it instead. "I have an iPhone" was the most common answer.

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  • [–] 20 points 2 years ago

    There are small and cheap USB-C IR dongles around nowadays - generally USB-C has been a blessing for making additional hardware features available on smartphones.

    My current phone does have IR - though I'm not really using it much since most of the existing Android software for that is horrible (broken, ad-infested, requires account and access to everything, ..), and I have too many open projects to start another one for writing my own software for that.

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  • [+] -8 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    Buy Xiaomi phones.

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  • [–] 29 points 2 years ago (3 children)

    Dont buy Xiaomi phones, the software is absolutely dogshit.

    -sent from Xiaomi 12

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  • [–] 7 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    See if you can install LineageOS on it. Replaces all the dog shit and has opt in for the google services etc. if you value your privacy.

    -sent from Xiaomi 11

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  • [–] 5 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    That sadly isnt viable for me as i do all my banking and have all my government ID, including drivers license, which wont verify on unofficial OS's 🤦

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago* (1 child)

    I don't know about the ID and drivers license, but banking is no problem as you do not root the phones anymore. You can even use the google wallet if you want. I think the only thing not there is the google safetyNez verification, even tho you can install apps through the playstore. So I don't know if the apps can determine if there on an official build or not.

    Edit: Please take my words carefully as I'm only in the experimentation phase myself. All I really can say is: my banking app and PayPal work no problem

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago*

    I agree the software is bad. All my phones bought after nexus 4 was made by Xiaomi. They give option to unlock bootloader and flash custom rom.

    Not all the phones get official lineage os support, but almost all snapdragon versions get custom rom support.

    I gave my Redmi Note 4 to my mom, which is 6 years old and running latest OS with recent security patches. None of the other OEMs were supported upto this period (just give exception to Samsung Galaxy 2).

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago

    I do have a Xiaomi phone and as I mentioned I am actively using the IR blaster, but the majority of regular users will not even think about checking the specs when buying new tech.

    They will just go for the latest iPhone or the current trending android bestseller.

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