Close

The Intel in the room

A project log for Hacking old Galaxy Tabs for better living

How I helped my high-rise neighbors to actually own their smart homes

neighborinoNeighborino 09/11/2021 at 14:180 Comments

Let's talk about the Galaxy Tab 3 10.1 P5210 a bit. A model released in July of 2013 it was already 2 years old when the construction of the building was complete and the apartments started selling.

(More specs at: https://www.gsmarena.com/samsung_galaxy_tab_3_10_1_p5210-5478.php)

It is a mid-range tablet with a modest resolution of 1280x800, just 1 GB of RAM and what puts it on the wrong side of history and in relative obscurity nowadays is its x86 architecture powered by Intel Atom Z2560. The device felt extremely laggy and in the years to come it would become apparent that putting the thing on permanent charging would require a sort of recall campaign where internal batteries would have to be replaced after becoming so swollen the screen would bulge out.

Besides having to consider the x86 architecture when exploring rooting/modding tools and when compiling my own, the 1 GB RAM meant that even the few background services needed to control the smart home, answer the apartment doorbell and receive IP intercom video calls would often get killed and the building was abuzz with unhappy neighbors that missed their visitor's calls.

At first I thought the whole building had the tablets running the same OS version - 4.2.2 Jelly Bean - but then I discovered some of them were upgraded to 4.4.2 KitKat which from Android prespective changed quite a lot under the hood.

Discussions