A while back, I repurposed an old Motorola phone as a kind of mini-tablet. I use it as a bedside display, a media center, and for gaming with a controller. I keep the display locked in landscape mode, since that's how I use it, but there's one problem. It doesn't let me rotate the home screen. To fix the problem, I installed the free and open-source Discreet Launcher.

If you've got an old Fire Stick that you no longer need to watch TV with, it doesn't have to become e-waste. With its built-in Alexa functionality, you can disconnect it from your TV and use it as a smart speaker. It's not quite an Amazon Echo, but it can make surprisingly good use of the hardware that you already own.

Got an old Android phone sitting unused in a drawer? By installing an open-source ROM, you can bring it bang up to date and give it a whole new lease of life. That's what I did with my old Motorola phone. Here's how it went.

I always find that Android Auto is at its best when you keep it as stripped back as possible. It's great for navigation and music, but throw a podcast app into the mix, and it can quickly start to complicate things again. You don't want to be browsing through hundreds of episodes or fiddling with complicated menus while driving.