HN Distilled

Essential insights from Hacker News discussions

This blog is running on a recycled Google Pixel 5 (2024)

Original Article

Hacker News Discussion

Here are the key themes from the Hacker News discussion:

Viability and Impressiveness of Hosting on a Phone

A central theme is surprise and admiration for the technical feasibility and performance of hosting a website on a Google Pixel 5, especially when compared to traditional hosting solutions. Users express awe at how well the setup handles traffic, including from Hacker News itself.

  • "I guess I was thinking maybe a phone wouldn't handle the HN load, but probably a mistaken assumption as it is after all a static site (believe it's Hugo generated html) and Pixel 5 likely has decent CPU and RAM (or at least plenty for static requests probably)." - indigodaddy
  • "Blog author has confirmed that it's still running on the phone. Also it seems to have handled the HN traffic beautifully and without a hitch. Loading extremely fast (as I've been randomly sporadically checking it since it's been on the front page) the whole time." - indigodaddy
  • "Hello, not OP but I can confirm after >10 years of doing it that hosting on reused portable hardware from a home connection is not just viable, it's cheap and stable. No issues with handling the HN frontpage here either" - Aachen
  • "Pretty wild how readily available compute has become. Sure not AI level compute but between modern consumer hardware and the mountain of free tier stuff out there I’ve always got more than ability to use it effectively" - Havoc
  • "Impressive. The page loaded very quickly for me here in Singapore. Is it still running on the Pixel?" - kovac
  • "I like this. We are surrounded by old phones that are more powerful and energy efficient than a raspberry pi we should use them!" - 2OEH8eoCRo0
  • "Running a blog on a pixel is next level efficient" - NoPicklez

"Off-Grid" Definition and Interpretation

The author's claim of the website being "fully offgrid" sparks a debate about the definition of the term, particularly in relation to internet connectivity and the electrical grid.

  • "I laughed at "Having a website that is fully offgrid". I guess not being connected to the electrical grid while still being connected to the internet qualifies as "offgrid", but it kinda feels wrong to me." - bigiain
  • "Why, consider a device, like a mobile phone, which is not connected to power grid (solar-charged instead) and uses radio to access the Internet (typically 4G). I think it would be as off-grid as it gets. Quite a bit of off-grid equipment, like weather stations, traffic cameras, etc do exactly that." - nine_k
  • "I'd agree that it's not fully offgrid, but I think the OP meant it as 'not connected to the electrical grid'. It's still connected to the internet via ISP, which is the grid of communication." - TheBicPen
  • "Idk about power efficient but it's definitely more resource efficient. Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. Let's really stop fixating on the last one." - chneu
  • "I'd argue that's happening right now. But we don't know if it's still running on a phone as the post is from September 2024. *Edit, Blog author confirmed it's still running on the phone." - indigodaddy
  • "Anyone else find it kinda funny to have a "fully offgrid" website? That's an oxymoron, right? How can it be off grid if it's literally connected to the grid? I understand they're using grid to mean electrical grid, but still funny." - chneu

Environmentalism, Reuse, and Resource Efficiency

A significant portion of the discussion focuses on the environmental benefits and principles of reusing old hardware. Users champion the "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle" mantra, emphasizing the efficiency gains from repurposing existing devices rather than buying new ones or relying on energy-intensive cloud solutions.

  • "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle is in order of environmental impact, so reusing is an upgrade!" - hamdingers
  • "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. Let's really stop fixating on the last one." - chneu
  • "The environmental impact of reusing vs recycling electronics is under appreciated." - pbd
  • "If you reuse otherwise wasted electronic it is efficient in avoiding extracting resources / energy building new hardware and avoids recycling energy or waste polluting earth. A big picture analysis of reusing old hardware would be very interesting." - holri
  • "I like the idea of using old phones for infrastructure-lite applications, taking advantage of their low power requirements and built-in UPS (which, yes, has its own drawbacks which can only be mitigated to a certain degree)." - BLKNSLVR
  • "The environmental impact of reusing vs recycling electronics is under appreciated." - pbd
  • "For a personal blog, that's 400-800 kWh/year savings. The environmental impact of reusing vs recycling electronics is under appreciated." - pbd

Technical Implementation Details and Debates

Users delve into the specifics of the setup, questioning technical choices and discussing alternative approaches. Topics include wired versus wireless networking, power management, running background services, and security.

  • Wired vs. Wi-Fi:

    • "My only query about this cool project is why not wifi? Whilst I'm sure there's a good reason for the author (and I can understand having esoteric specific requirements because I have my own "things"), but it would negate the need for a docking->Ethernet device, which feels to me like unnecessary addition of a device that requires power." - BLKNSLVR
    • "I'm not the author but can speculate. WiFi is higher latency and a bit probabilistic. Like the slowest 1% of requests to the server may take an additional 1000ms or so. And if I was running a blog from a phone I'd want it to be impressively fast. Also an old Android phone may not be able to use modern WiFi standards and it could struggle with the traffic from being on the HN homepage." - varenc
    • "The requirement for Ethernet was just for bandwidth consistency. My WiFi network isn't the best." - cinimodev
    • "An additional device just to facilitate wired network usage over wifi usage felt like unnecessary additional complexity and probably higher power usage. The blog author replied, however, saying that wifi was a bit flaky, explaining the design choice." - BLKNSLVR

  • Background Services and Persistence:

    • "On Android devices, it’s generally difficult for apps to maintain persistent background services. I’m curious how you were able to prevent Android from terminating the process, and how the Pixel 5 server managed to keep running?" - R
    • "It runs inside Termux, which has a persistent notification to keep it open in the background. I believe I also extended the max phantom process to prevent it from being killed." - cinimodev

  • "Spicy Pillow" (Battery Swelling) Problem:

    • "My number one concern is how do I avoid the spicy pillow problem... If I could have phones run off of USB without a battery, I would love to do that." - mcny
    • "The worst part of the spicy pillow problem is that even if you remove the battery cell and solder a power supply to the BMS, Android will eventually decide "I must be out of battery by now" and shut itself down. You have to root the device to override this and it is supremely annoying." - daemonologist
    • "My concern too. I go check on it about once a week. I definitely need to find something safer." - cinimodev
    • "Most of the devices also have a custom ROM and are rooted, and using the ACCA app I restrict charging to a maximum of 80% battery capacity." - BLKNSLVR

  • Power Consumption and Efficiency Comparisons:

    • "Is a phone plugged in 24/7 actually more power-efficient than a slice of a mega-optimized cloud server?" - judge123
    • "It is when it's plugged into a battery which is charged from a solar panel." - BLKNSLVR
    • "Pixel 5 probably draws <5W under load vs 50-100W for a typical x86 server. For a personal blog, that's 400-800 kWh/year savings." - pbd
    • "A single cloud server could host hundreds of thousands of personal static websites though. I suspect they probably do use less power than 100,000 old phones." - SchemaLoad

Semantic and Pedantic Debates (Recycle vs. Reuse)

A minor but humorous side thread emerges regarding the correct term to describe the phone's repurposing: "recycle" versus "reuse."

  • "Pedantry: A reused Google Pixel 5. It was not broken down and reconstituted." - hamdingers
  • "Recycle is definitely grammatically correct. It's just a different word for re-use." - treve
  • "Ironically, this is semantics, not grammar." - Clamchop
  • "No but it was reused as a whole. "Recycle" is completely correct. Pedantry failed." - IshKebab

Security Concerns for Older Devices

The long-term security of using older phones that may no longer receive software updates is raised as a potential issue.

  • "One issue I have with doing this is what about security? Many older android phones don't get updates anymore (I'm not sure if a Pixel 5 is still supported, it might be) so I'd be concerned about security vulnerabilities going unpatched especially if the phone is exposed to the internet." - lhamil64
  • "Pixel 5 went EOL in 2023, though did get some extra (probably security) updates last year." - ryukafalz
  • "This is part of why efforts like PostmarketOS are so helpful." - ryukafalz

Comparison to Cloud vs. Self-Hosting and Alternatives

Users compare the phone-hosted solution to cloud-based hosting and other self-hosting options like Raspberry Pis or dedicated Micro PCs, discussing trade-offs in cost, reliability, and complexity.

  • "If you're buying ultra-power, you're forgoing power-efficiency." - bb88
  • "For a static site you can get a lot better by dumping it on S3 or Github Pages. Your site uses 0W while not being used since the server was already running, and it consumes no resource usage while not being requested. But yeah an x86 server at home for a static site is awfully inefficient." - SchemaLoad
  • "The easiest way is with a programmable plug, it does not have to be smart, just set it up to charge the phone for 1 or 2 hours at the cheapest, or available by solar, the rest of the day the phone will use battery as usual." - erremerre
  • "I use Nearly Free Speech to host and pay $20 every few years. Is there a freer host?" - ljsprague
  • "Github and Gitlab offer free static site hosting." - SchemaLoad
  • "I've had a NextCloud server and an IRC bouncer running on Oracle Cloud with static IP for two years now, free of charge. More than sufficient to host a site, even dynamic." - mPReDiToR
  • "Very efficient but enough grunt to do multiple things at once and have great hardware and driver support. Running a blog on a pixel is next level efficient" - NoPicklez

Novelty and Precedent

Some users note that while impressive, the concept of hosting on mobile devices isn't entirely new, recalling similar projects from years past.

  • "I had a web server running on my jailbroken iPod touch back in 2009/2010. It’s neat but not entirely novel, or practical." - treesknees

DNS and Residential ISP Concerns

The use of a residential ISP IP address raises questions about DNS management and potential ISP policies against running servers.

  • "How does DNS work with a setup like this? I assume that ISPs generally don't want people hosting servers on residential connections." - TheBicPen
  • "Plenty of dynamic DNS solutions. TP-link even has one you can set up from their app (not a endorsement, don't know if it is good or bad)" - nick49488171
  • "One unexpected benefit of hosting your blog on a phone: an excellent defense the next time Comcast sends a nasty letter admonishing you for connecting a "server" to your residential internet." - daemonologist
  • "It's on a Comcast IP" - tiagod

Community and Author Engagement

The discussion highlights a positive interaction between the blog author and the Hacker News community, with the author actively answering questions and providing context.

  • "Hey, blog author here. Thanks!" - cinimodev
  • "So, uh, hi. This is my blog post. I'm just some guy that blogs and gets like 5 reads per post, so I'm a fish out of water here. I didn't even have a HN account until today." - cinimodev
  • "You think like an engineer, so you're in good company here. I had a brief skim of the rest of your blog and there's definitely content that's interesting to me at least, and as I said in a comment above, the site design is beautifully easy to read and navigate. I plan on returning." - BLKNSLVR