Published Jun 13, 2026, 8:00 PM EDT Ayush Pande is a PC hardware and gaming writer. When he's not working on a new article, you can find him with his head stuck inside a PC or tinkering with a server operating system. Besides computing, his interests include spending hours in long RPGs, yelling at his friends in co-op games, and practicing guitar. Over the last couple of months, I’ve started looking into ways I can repurpose old hardware. PC rigs are the easiest to revitalize, as Proxmox is all they need to turn into functioning LXC (and sometimes, even VM) hosting workstations. Meanwhile, individual components like graphics cards, RAM sticks, and storage drives serve as decent additions to my existing home lab nodes. Even old Android devices are malleable enough to serve in smart home setups, especially since they come pre-loaded with a bunch of sensors. Tablets, for one, can double as incredible monitoring panels, especially once you pair them with kiosk browsers. Me?…