Resurrecting a Pixel C

I'm putting off the post I need to write so I'm going to ramble a bit about resurrecting an old Pixel C tablet by sideloading a custom operating system. This is something that sounds scary but really isn't, so I thought I'd share in case anyone else has hardware in the cupboard and no desire to buy new, expensive kit.

Setting the scene

My tablet usage is pretty modest. For anything significant, I'll use a laptop / desktop or my mobile phone. My tablet is mostly used for video streaming (YouTube, Netflix, etc) and a bit of web browsing when it's the closest thing to hand. I am not a power user.

Many years ago (2016), I bought a Google Pixel C tablet. This was originally released in 2015 and was Google's first tablet under the Pixel brand. Other than having a name that is really annoying to search for, it was a fabulous piece of kit - feeling very solid and chunky. However for boring reasons, when COVID hit I moved and my Pixel C fell out of use.

Fast forward many years, and my iPad battery is dying so I thought I'd see about resurrecting the Pixel. Firstly, I hadn't realised how long it had been since it was last used - like a lot of people I know, my sense of time has been utterly smashed by two years of lockdown - so it was a bit of a surprise to discover Google stopped supporting it nearly six years ago (end of 2018). Consequently, although it fired up fine, it was hideously out of date with no path to catching up. It seems older versions of Android (8 in this case) have a problem connecting to modern 5ghz wifi connections and so my lovely hardware was dead unless I wanted to run a lower speed wifi network.

Why take the easy solution, eh?

So, with my brain telling me "this is only a few years old" (it's nine years old?!) I thought I'd look at bringing it back to life via the medium of a custom ROM. For the uninitiated, this is basically installing a new operating system package - pre-built with proper drives and so on - however is more complicated because tablets and phones tend to lock all this down to stop people fiddling and bricking the device. However, I'm (apparently) a grown adult so I'll fiddle if I damn well please. Plus, it doesn't work now so it's not going to get any less functional - perfect for some learning.

Get on with it

The hard part was really all the prep. I needed to find a good ROM, which I did via the application of Google and reading. LineageOS is a the gold standard for community-run operating systems, but even they have dropped support for the Pixel C. However there are some intrepid folk out there who are keeping the dream alive on the XDA forums and a helpful dev going by npjohnson is pushing out builds for the Sphynx project, via his forum thread. Sphynx is an unofficial build of LineageOS tailored for the Pixel C - perfect for me.

The instructions are good - I read them a few times before giving this a go because I was scared - and basically there are four stages:

1. Download adb and fastboot to your computer - this laptop is Ubuntu Linux so that was as simple as sudo apt install adb fastboot but Windows options are also available
2. Learn how to boot your tablet into the recover mode menu (for the Pixel C, with the device off hold Power and Volume Down)
3. Download the desired image - I just took the latest (lineage-21.0-20241019-UNOFFICIAL-sphynx.zip at the time) and it worked fine
4. Follow the instructions very closely

Extremely minor gotcha - I extracted the downloaded zip file to get a recovery.img file for page 3, then used the original zip for sideloading in step 4. Other than a couple of slightly alarming beeping sounds from the device, this was the only time I really needed to think once I got going. The whole process took about an hour, going very slowly and carefully, then additional time to set up the tablet (obviously it is wiped so you'll lose anything on it from before).

Behold

And it's working! There are some known issues - the camera doesn't work properly, apparently bluetooth is a mixed bag and the rotational sensors also don't work - but these haven't impacted my needs. If you like running your tablet in portrait mode, apparently this can be a pain. However, for me I have a shiny refurbed tablet that plays videos and doesn't keep turning off mid-video. Hurrah!

Overall, this is scary. But it turns out it is also easy. Hopefully others will give it a go and bring their devices back to life.