LineageOS: an old smartphone and a Raspberry Pi as a free smart TV
Summary
On Hackaday, Maya Posch shows how LineageOS brings Android 15 to a 2016 Xiaomi Mi 5 and turns a Raspberry Pi 4 into a home-built smart TV replacement running Android TV. With the phone, the unlocked bootloader and a missing fastboot driver took most of the time; the actual installation via fastboot and adb sideload then went quickly. On the Raspberry Pi it was enough to write an image to the SD card, and hardware video decoding worked straight away.
What is LineageOS?
LineageOS is a free, community-maintained Android distribution based on the Android Open Source Project. It is the successor to CyanogenMod and supports more phones and tablets than any other free Android variant. Compared with the manufacturer’s software, there are no preinstalled, non-removable apps, and features such as developer mode can be enabled without obstacles.
The biggest benefit: devices that the manufacturer stopped updating long ago get current Android versions and security updates again. Xiaomi had abandoned the Mi 5 in 2018 with Android 8.0.
Why getting started with the phone is tedious
Unlike PCs, smartphone bootloaders are usually locked. Xiaomi allows unlocking on request, but on Windows fastboot only recognised the phone with a special driver that was only available in an archived version of the Xiaomi tool. Posch eventually found it via the XDA forums. After that, recovery, image and optionally the Google apps went through fastboot and adb sideload without problems.
A fresh battery had previously made the device technically fit again, so a phone almost ten years old became usable for everyday life once more.
The home-built smart TV with a Raspberry Pi
For the Raspberry Pi there are unofficial LineageOS ports by a developer called Konga, as regular Android and as Android TV, for the Pi 3, 4 and 5. Installation is trivial: write the image to an SD card, insert it, done. Remarkably, hardware video decoding, which often requires patched FFmpeg versions under Raspberry Pi OS, worked immediately. Updates come as images that you flash by hand.
The result is a TV player without the data collection of commercial smart TVs. Streaming services with strict copy protection are likely to cause problems on it, though.
Ideas
- LineageOS brings current versions back to abandoned Android devices.
- A locked bootloader is the biggest hurdle when switching.
- A Raspberry Pi with Android TV replaces a data-collecting smart TV.
- A new battery makes old phones usable for everyday life again.
Insights
- Free firmware extends the life of hardware far beyond manufacturer support.
- Locked bootloaders protect manufacturers’ control more than they protect users.
Facts
- The Xiaomi Mi 5 dates from 2016 and last received Android 8.0 from the manufacturer.
- With LineageOS it runs Android 15 with over-the-air updates.
- The LineageOS ports for the Raspberry Pi exist for the Pi 3, 4 and 5, also as Android TV.
References
Critique
- The Raspberry Pi ports come from a single developer and are not officially supported LineageOS devices; their long-term maintenance is not assured.
Remarks
- The article describes Windows as the platform for fastboot; on Linux the driver problem usually does not arise.
Recommendations
- Before buying a used phone, check whether LineageOS officially supports it and whether the bootloader can be unlocked.
- Back up all data before unlocking, because the device is reset in the process.
- Only download fastboot drivers and tools from trustworthy sources.
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