Can an old Android phone really replace a dedicated remote camera?

I started building Darshan when I found an old Android phone lying in a drawer and wondered if it could have a useful second life. The core idea is simple: turn the spare device into a remote camera and watch the live stream from any browser or secondary phone.

Turns out, opening the camera is the easy part. The real engineering headache is keeping the stream running 24/7 without getting killed by Android's background restrictions, handling battery thermal limits, managing network drops, and supporting older OS versions.

I’d love to get thoughts from fellow developers and early adopters:

• Would you actually repurpose an old phone as a dedicated camera?

• What real-world use case would you set this up for (pet cam, doorstep monitor, 3D printer watch, shop counter)?

• What bottlenecks would make you hesitate before trusting it for continuous monitoring?

Darshan is currently in closed testing, so honest feedback, edge-case thoughts, and practical ideas are very welcome!
https://darshan.ginis.in/closed-testing