There’s plenty an old Chromebook can do, even if it’s not your main computer.
Chromebooks are some of the most appealing low-cost laptops out there, but no computer will suit your needs forever. Rather than let yours lie around and collect dust, there are quite a few ways to get more use out of a old Chromebook. With some, you can even save money by adding functions that would otherwise require you to buy yet another device.
Even when it’s out of date, your Chromebook probably has a perfectly serviceable screen. The best way to take advantage of that is by using it as a second monitor with an app like Duet. While it does require a small subscription fee, Duet lets you connect devices like Chromebooks to a PC or Mac to mirror or extend your screen. If you don’t need a second monitor but still want to use the display, using a Chromebook as a digital photo frame is another popular option. Just load it up with the photos you want, set the screen to never automatically turn off, and load an image or slideshow in fullscreen mode.
A Chromebook can support or run your smart home setup
If you’re using any smart home devices, you can also use an old Chromebook to control them. The easiest option is to simply use your Chromebook to access Google Home through your browser or using the Android app. You can also run Home Assistant on a separate piece of hardware like a PC or Raspberry Pi, then use your Chromebook to monitor and control it. The Home Assistant interface is made to run in a browser, and even an old Chromebook is perfectly capable of accessing it. The advantage of this method is that it gives you a dedicated, easy-to-use display (possibly with a touchscreen) that can control your entire smart home from one place.
A more advanced option is to run Home Assistant directly from your Chromebook. It requires significantly more work but means you won’t need to install Home Assistant on a second device. Using this method means installing Linux on your Chromebook, then installing the Home Assistant app. Two popular guides for turning your Chromebook into a Linux machine are Chrultrabook and MrChromebox. The processes they detail aren’t exactly beginner friendly, but they open up the possibility of other advanced uses for your old Chromebook even if you don’t need a smart home controller.
Running Linux on your Chromebook opens up a world of options
Even if your old Chromebook’s performance isn’t great, it can still be used as a file server to stream data to other devices. There are a few ways to do that depending on your needs, but given the Chromebook’s limited hardware, the best solution is using it as a small media server. With Linux installed, you can simply drop the files you need onto your Chromebook, set up a media server app like Plex or Jellyfin, and leave your machine running to access files from your other devices.
For a more specialized use, Chromebooks can also be turned into dedicated retro gaming machines. Batocera is a Linux app that runs various emulators, many of which can run even on Chromebook’s low-powered hardware. A faster PC might run them better, but having a dedicated laptop for gaming makes for a portable option that’s not taking up space on your main machine. Just keep in mind that while emulators themselves are technically legal, using them to run pirated games is not.
If installing a whole new operating system feels like a step too far, you can still get some use out of Linux on your Chromebook through an official feature called Linux on ChromeOS. Also known as Crostini, this option gives you access to a Linux virtual machine. While it’s intended mostly to allow Linux developer tools to run on Chromebooks, other apps can be run inside Crostini, too. The drawback here is that running a virtual machine is more taxing on your machine than running native Linux, so performance and compatibility can be extremely limited on older devices.
