Use an Android Device as Screen and Input for Raspberry Pi

Productivity Sauce

Got an Android device? Want to use it as a screen and keyboard for Raspberry Pi? A simple trick described in a thread on the Raspberry Pi forum site can help you with that.

For this trick to work, you need an Android device that supports USB tethering and VX ConnectBot app installed on it. On Raspberry Pi, run the sudo nano /etc/network/interfaces command, and add the following configuration to it:

iface usb0 inet static
address 192.168.42.42
netmask 255.255.255.0
network 192.168.42.0
broadcast 192.168.42.255

This effectively turns the first USB port into a network interface. Reboot Raspbery Pi, connect your Android device to it via USB, and enable USB tethering. Launch VX ConnectBot, and use the pi@192.168.42.42 address to establish an SSH connection to Raspberry Pi. That's all there is to it.