Anyone awake in the early 2000’s knows the familiar shape of those candy bar style mobile phones. In the Shenzhen phone markets we see tons of them. Literally, there are tons of these phone passing through the markets every day. Some are resold while others are disassembled for parts and recycled. This is where all those cheap Nokia 3310/5110 LCD shields come from. It’s great to see so much reuse and recycling.
Having all these cheap LCDs is nice, but most of the interesting and useful parts are wasted. We saw a fantastic opportunity to save a heap of phones from the recycling bin and save people a pocket full of money. We can make a positive impact on the environment if we reuse some of these phones that we are literally tripping over in the streets. Let’s make an Arduino to GSM network bridge for just a few dollars.
Hardware
The cheapest and most common old phone we’ve seen is the Nokia 3100. There’s no camera, no Bluetooth, no WiFi, no frills at all. Perfect! We can pick it up in the market for just a few dollars.
This is a pretty old phone and there is no guarantee it will work on a modern mobile phone network. Our test phones are confirmed to send text messages on the China Mobile network in Shenzhen. We will have to do more tests around the world. If you have tested the Nokia 3100 or similar phone in your area, please post in the comments below.
Before we design a PCB we’ll have to determine how everything should be connected and slap it on a breadboard.
For more detail: Nokia phone Arduino shield
