I have posted my first build a few days ago here, and many people are curious about how I manage to use my old Galaxy S4 as a PC hardware real-time stats monitor that I put inside my case. It looks like this (sorry for the bad photo quality):

Galaxy S4 as PC hardware stats monitor

Some people have asked me how to do it so here I am writing a short tutorial that can hopefully get you started on turning any old Android phone/any other smartphones (e.g. iPhone, tablets, etc.) to a highly customizable stats monitor (or for whatever other purposes).

Preparation

• As you have probably expected, you will need an old smartphone and preferably an Andriod one. iPhone has its own workaround which I will mention at the later part of the tutorial. For this tutorial, I'm using a Galaxy S4.
• A USB cable
• A Windows PC
• A Local Area Network (LAN)

Steps (Android Phone)

Step 1. On your Android phone, go to Google Play and search for the App 'Remote Panel' and download it to your phone. This is the App that is used to display all the stats, graphs, numbers, etc.

Remote Panel on Google Play

Once you open the App, you will see this:

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Remote Panel (for Android)

Step 2. Install AIDA64 Extreme on your Windows PC. After installation, you will see this once you open it.

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AIDA64 Extreme

Step 3. Install Remote Panel (for Windows) (click on this link will start downloading automatically, be careful). This software is required since AIDA64 Extreme requires a file that can only be found in this software. It doesn't have a GUI and it will sit quietly in the icon tray like this:

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Remote Panel (for Windows)

Step 4. Now all the software required is installed and we need to set up our AIDA64 Extreme. Go to AIDA64 Extreme and click on File -> Preferences and in the new Preferences window that just popped up, click on the LCD option on the left.

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AIDA64 Extreme LCD Panel

Then find out the 'Odospace' panel on the right side of the screen.

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Odospace Panel

In the IP address field, enter the local IP address of your Android phone. This local IP address can be found in your Android phone's WIFI setting. Click on the WIFI that you are connected to and your local IP address can be found there. (Do look for the device-specific online tutorial if you have trouble at this step).

For the TCP/IP Port field, just leave it as default.

LCD Resolution: Enter the resolution of your phone. For my Galaxy S4, it has a 1080p resolution and I want it to have a landscape view. So I put 1920 * 1080. If I want to have a portrait view, I'll just put 1080 * 1920.

Panel position: There is no need to change anything here.

Lastly, check the 'Enable Odospace LCD support' box, hit Apply and you are all set!

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You can check whether your phone is connected to your AIDA64 Extreme by opening your Remote Panel app on the phone. It should now look like this:

Remote Panel (for Android) after successfully connected to AIDA64 via LAN

If it does not show this screen, go back to previous steps and troubleshoot, or you can leave questions here. I believe there will be many kind individuals who are willing to help:)

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Step 5. Congratulations! You are one step away from a fully customizable stats monitor. Go to AIDA64 Extreme -> File -> Preferences -> LCD -> LCD items, and start designing! I believe there are tonnes of tutorial online about how to customize your own stats screen. However, I was kind of busy recently so I didn't have a whole lot of time to design my own, so I used this design by the user operbico on AIDA64's forum. (Thank you operbico!) It looks amazing on my phone:

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Stats Screen

Step 6. This is probably the easiest step. Open your case and mount your phone wherever you like! Probably connect it to a USB cable otherwise its battery will run out.

I was lucky to be able to route the USB cable to the back of the case and hide it so that I don't see it:

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USB Cable

In order to control my phone without taking off the side panel, I installed 'SideSync' on Windows which allows me to use my phone with just keyboard and mouse. However, SideSync is only available for Samsung phone, other brandss phone may need other supporting software which I believe there is a ton.

Step 7. Take pictures and post them on r/pcmasterrace and wait for upvotes.

Steps (iPhone/also works on Android Phone)

Step 1. Same as Step 2 under Steps (Android Phone)

Step 2. Same as Step 3 under Steps (Android Phone)

Step 3. Same as Step 4 under Steps (Android Phone). However, instead of clicking on the 'Odospace' panel, click on 'RemoteSensor' panel.

Step 4. Adjust the Preview Resolution and Check the 'Enable RemoteSensor LCD support' box then hit Apply:

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RemoteSensor Panel

Step 5. Same as Step 5 under Steps (Android Phone)

Step 6. Open any browser on your iPhone and enter the local IP address of your Windows PC.

You can check the local IP address of your PC by pressing 'Win R' and enter cmd and then hit OK. The Windows Command Prompt is now opened and you can type 'ipconfig' to the command prompt to see what your PC's local IP address is.

If everything is set up properly, you can now see your stats screen. Congratulations!

Step 7. Take pictures and post them on r/pcmasterrace and wait for upvotes.

About Stats Screen Design

Special thanks to u/invictus81 who shared with me how to use PowerPoint to design your own customized stats screen. You can check out how he designs his own panel.

Conclusion

Initially, I thought about using those 5-inch LCD screens that are more commonly used on Raspberry Pi as suggested by many popular online tutorials nowadays. However, I find that using an old smartphone for the same purpose has advantages in almost every way:

• Better display quality: I believe any decent smartphone nowadays will have a much better display quality (e.g. color accuracy, resolution, etc) than those LCD screens.
• Cheaper: No extra costs incurred for this customization. (LITERALLY)
• Easy cable management: As opposed to those LCD screens which require both power cable and HDMI cable, a smartphone only requires one cable to keep it charged. This makes cable management a lot easier.
• You can display anything even when the PC is off. For example, I used it to display time when my PC is off or sometimes I let it stream videos. The possibilities are truly endless.

I might have missed certain details in the above tutorial, do leave a comment if you have questions or find this helpful. And please share your very own custom PC hardware stats monitor:)