10 Surprising Things You Didn’t Know That Your Smartphone Could Do

Did you know that your smartphone could do these 10 astonishing things?

Smartphones today are nothing but a mini computer in your pocket that is packed with useful features to make your life easier. So, while you may be good at booking a cab or buying grocery online through your smartphone, did you know that your smartphone is capable of doing much more than this.

Did you know that a smartphone could read chips embedded in documents, and even act, diagnose your car, or even act as a do-it-yourself microscope? Surprised?

In this article, we bring to you 10 unexpectedly cool things that a smartphone in your pocket can perform.

1. Light up your living room

You can turn your device into a dimmer you don’t have to install by syncing Cree’s Connected LED Lightbulb syncs with your smartphone via an app. Further, you can also fix the amount of time the light stays on without even being in the room, saving you money all through the year.

2. Remotely lock, unlock, alarm and even start your car

Do you always lose your keys? The Viper SmartKey system lets you to replace your car keys with your smartphone. When enabled, you can lock and unlock your car (and even deactivate an alarm) without even taking your smartphone out of your pocket.

3. Accept credit/debit card payments

Square Register is a revolution that’s disturbing the current old, fixed transaction system. It takes the advantage of the smartphone’s mobility to allow you to accept any credit card payment anytime, anywhere. The buyer signs on the smartphone to authorize payment and prevent potential fraud.

4. Monitor your heart rate

Forget investing in a Jawbone or a Fitbit to monitor your heart rate. Just download and launch the Instant Heart Rate app on your smartphone, place your fingertip over your device’s camera lens for 10 seconds and you are done. You will get a detailed report right on your screen.

5. Work as a sci-fi thermal camera

Once available only for the military and other professionals, Seek Thermal now offers you the thermal technology. It is a tiny camera that attaches to your smartphone, so that you can get a thermal image of anything around you, showing you a temperature snapshot of your environment.

6. Check whether your remote’s batteries are dead when it stops working

Your smartphone’s camera is very sensitive to IR radiation. So, if you wish to try it for yourself, just use a common IR remote control. The infrared beam generated when a button is pressed will show as white or purple light in the viewfinder of your camera app. When your smartphone stops working, you can use this trick to find out if a remote control’s batteries are dead.

7. Reverse search images and photographs

If you are using an Android device, the Google Goggles app allows you to search an image captured with your smartphone’s camera. You can find information on products, recognize famous paintings or learn more about a historic landmark.

8. Scan and digitize your old negatives

You can use your camera’s negative effect or take advantage of some of the many specialized apps like the Helmut Film Scanner, if you want a quick and dirty way to digitize (or just view) your old film negatives.

9. Project a cool augmented reality map on the windscreen of your car

If you are driving in the dark, the rain, fog, or just unfamiliar conditions, download Hudway, enter your destination and put your smartphone on your dashboard. Your smartphone will display a GPS-enabled map on your windshield without the need of any extra equipment.

10. Work as a DIY (Do-it-yourself) microscope

You can turn a smartphone into a DIY amateur microscope by just putting a drop of clean water on the camera lens. The drop of water, which obviously embraces a round shape, acts as a lens, allowing the camera to focus from a distance of under half an inch.

Let us know if you aware of any other cool things that a smartphone can do in the comments section below.

Source: Scoopwhoop