An app that will turn idle phones into workstations

DAU’s MobiTest allows sustainable computing with discarded phones; boosts CPU utilisation by 36% and data transfer speed by 45%

- Niyati.Rana

Most households typically possess at least two discarded smartphones, rendered obsolete by hardware and software upgrades and relegated to forgotten corners. But did you know that these discarded phones, if in functional condition, can actually act as your workstation by harnessing their latent computational resources?

A team of academics and researchers at Dhirubhai Ambani University (DAU) has developed MobiTest, a mobile application that helps multiple smartphones connect with each other, share data and perform computational tasks collaboratively. This framework allows even devices with partial hardware limitations, such as nonfunctional screens or volume buttons, to perform computational work comparable to more powerful computers.