I’m guilty of hoarding my old phones, and if you’re a tech geek like me, you probably do the same. In fact, I have a pile of old iPhones sitting on my deck waiting for me to use them. The thing is, even though the phone is perfectly usable, these phones have been sitting for years to find the perfect use case for me. So lately I’ve been trying to find ways to use hardware as a dashboard for things in my house. More precisely, a musical score.
I listen to music all day through Spotify and Plexamp. With a large library in hand, most of this listening is effectively in radio mode, I’m constantly switching to the app to identify the track being played. The Spotify app on my computer and Spotify Connect A streamer is my go-to. When I want to determine what’s playing right now, I have to jump tabs or switch programs to figure out what I’m playing. Obviously, there must be a better way to achieve this. So I decided to turn my old iPhone into a permanent Spotify display that sits next to my desk. It shows what’s currently playing and automatically updates when the track changes. I set it up using a simple web-based service called Descent.live, which makes the process simple enough to get up and running in minutes. It effectively turned my phone into a dedicated dashboard for all my music listening.
Capture live track data from music scrobbles
Minimal interface designed for a clean dashboard
The setup is based on a very simple, lightweight website called descent.live. Rather than acting as a full-fledged music player, the website acts as a visual display for everything streaming to your Spotify account. But more importantly, unlike similar apps and services, it can even work with any other music service that can make the jump to Last.fm. The open source project is easy enough to self-host if you want to go that route, but I personally prefer using a web hosting service.
The service pulls live data from any public Last.fm account, and all you need to do is enter your username. You do not need to enter a password or manage authentication. The page then takes information about the current track and presents it in a simple layout. You’ve got all the basics in place, like album art, song titles, and artist names. Equally important, the screen updates in near-real-time so you won’t miss out on the music playing on your streaming app of choice.
Because the site is based on your Last.fm scrobbling data, it works with a surprisingly wide range of music sources. Spotify can stream directly to last.fm, and Plexamp also supports it. Tidal too. This means that the dashboard reflects whatever music service I’m currently using without the need for separate integrations for each. As soon as a track appears on my Last.fm profile, the dashboard automatically displays it.
What I like about using Descent.live is how focused the interface is. There are main menus for working with usernames and, if you want, artwork. You can also choose between displaying the last scratched track or the current track. Finally, you get the option to display the current weather and in Celsius or Fahrenheit if you prefer. Everything is very simple. Even in the dashboard, the entire page is mainly designed to show the currently playing track as clearly as possible. The album art takes up most of the screen, with the song title and artist name sitting more prominently below it. It’s this clarity that makes it great as a dashboard.
Turn your old iPhone into an always-on music display
Use Guided Access to lock your iPhone into dashboard mode
With the initial step of launching the control panel, the next step is to configure the iPhone dashboard that is always open. The easiest way to achieve this is to open the control panel using Safari on your iPhone. Safari lets you save any website as a shortcut that launches in full-screen mode by adding it to your home screen as a shortcut. When opened this way, the page runs without the usual browser interface, making it feel like a standalone web application instead of another website.
The next challenge was to prevent the phone from accidentally coming off the screen. A stray swipe or notification can easily knock it off the dashboard and defeat the whole purpose. For this, I resorted directly to a feature built into iOS. Guided Entry mode lets you lock your iPhone to a single app. Once activated, the device cannot exit the app unless you enter a password. I turned on the controlled access mode with the dashboard open and the phone effectively became a kiosk showing only the music screen. Simple. When the setting is enabled, the iPhone always opens the dashboard and stays there. I also turned off auto lock so that the screen stays on when the phone is plugged in. The device now sits on top of the charger I have next to me and the screen automatically refreshes with artwork and song information when any track starts playing.
Give your old iPhone a second life as a music screen
I started experimenting with the setup to see if it would work. It turned out that this is one of the most practical uses I found for old hardware. It turned the iPhone, which was just sitting there, into a useful tool. If a track catches my eye, I can instantly see the album art and track details on my desk. If you have an old iPhone lying around, it’s an easy project that takes minutes to set up.
