I Built an IP Geo Phone Server — 5 Things I Actually Used

I Built an IP Geo Phone Server — 5 Things I Actually Used

python, #api, #sideprojects, #security

The cheapest server I own isn't a Pi or a refurbished ThinkPad. It's a 2021 Samsung Galaxy A32 with a cracked screen, propped against a windowsill, sucking power from a 5W charger. That phone answers about 4,000 IP geolocation requests every day. My only cost is the trickle of electricity through the cable.

My last side-project VPS cost $38 a month, sat at 3% CPU, ran a cron job I'd swear I'd fix, and spammed me with disk-usage alerts I ignored. That $38 didn't buy compute—it bought guilt. The phone bought me a story.

The whole thing is thirty-eight lines. No geo database, no monthly bill. The phone asks an API, caches the answer for an hour, and serves JSON. Redis keeps my daily API calls under a thousand. The setup uses less RAM than one Chrome tab on my laptop. Code is in the GitHub repo.