[HN Gopher] Boxie - an always offline audio player for my 3 year...
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Boxie - an always offline audio player for my 3 year old
Author : badlogic
Score : 237 points
Date : 2025-04-27 20:40 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (mariozechner.at)
(TXT) w3m dump (mariozechner.at)
| OccamsMirror wrote:
| This is pretty awesome. Although disheartening that you ended up
| spending much more than just buying a Yoto player or Toniebox.
| But I'm sure the learning and accomplishment have been worth the
| expense.
| badlogic wrote:
| Just factoring in the BOM cost including 3D printer materials
| this comes out quite below a retail Tonie Box. The same is true
| for the cartridges vs. Tonie figurines.
|
| The tools are definitely a big expense, but are in constant use
| for other projects, so ammortize.
|
| What's not factored in is the time spent working on this. I
| don't feel too bad about it, as working on this essentially
| replaced watching shows or movie at night when everyone is
| asleep.
| scosman wrote:
| This is brilliant. Great design and great work. I love that the
| cartridges actually hold the content and aren't just NFC tags.
|
| For lazy parents like myself: check out a Yoto player. It's web-
| connected, has limited internal storage, and the cards are just
| NFC cards -- but it is easy.
| mc3301 wrote:
| Bonus: The yoto a nice 'normal' bluetooth speaker, as well.
| turtlebits wrote:
| Actual cartridges makes sense if there are other players,
| otherwise a PCB and SD card seems like a huge waste over a nfc
| card that costs a few cents.
| badlogic wrote:
| I'll be building a few of these for the kids in the
| neighbourhood. I hope they'll start swaping and trading like
| we did with our Gameboy games.
| scosman wrote:
| It's just damn cool and worth the $2. Plus more reliable, no
| syncing, no web-connection. New content is just new content.
| Not how you'd build it at scale, but that's kinda the point.
| jdhawk wrote:
| My kids love theirs, and we get tons of comments from other
| parents since they'll happily listen to stories on them instead
| of begging for a screen.
|
| They swap cards with their friends, and so long as its on a
| wifi connection the first time the card is inserted, the local
| storage is plenty enough to keep the cache there for offline
| use.
| taco_emoji wrote:
| We have a Yoto and it's okay, but my complaint is how difficult
| it is to get custom stuff on there. The "record-your-own" cards
| are expensive (and often unavailable, like during this past
| Christmas season), and off-the-shelf NFC cards don't work
| perfectly (you have to ensure the content is downloaded onto
| the device before a generic card will work for that title).
| aeroevan wrote:
| it does take a surprisingly long time for the device to
| download the content for offline use, but my only real
| complaint is that I can't self host the server side (it seems
| to do some ssl certificate pinning or something similar).
| userbinator wrote:
| This device reminds me of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HitClips
| (also worth reading: https://hackaday.com/2022/01/10/hitclips-
| custom-cartridge-ha... )
|
| It's unfortunate that "always offline" needs to be added, as that
| would be the norm 15-20 years ago when portable media players
| were at the peak of their popularity. You can still buy
| SD/TF/microSD players at a very, very low price today.
| theamk wrote:
| For people who are thinking about getting into electronics: that
| project is very complex for what it does. Nothing wrong with it
| as long as your goal is to learn advanced fabrication techniques,
| but most people don't need any of this stuff for one-off, home
| projects with no strict low price / small size requirements.
|
| The main culprit is that "custom ESP32-S3 board" - in this
| application, it is equivalent to a combination of a random off-
| the-shelf ESP32 board and a separate battery charger/protector.
| Half of the equipment on the list (hot air, hot plate,
| microscope, logic analyzer, etc...) is only needed for this
| board.
|
| Weirdly enough, the rest of the device is a solid design,
| suitable for someone with "a few months" of electronic
| experience: lots of pre-made modules, and designing a carrier PCB
| for them. This means large and easy to solder 2.54mm hole
| spacing, regular soldering iron, no microscope, etc.. It's a
| really weird contrast for me....
| nine_k wrote:
| I suppose this project served as a source of joy not only to
| the kid, but to the maker, too. It likely was a good excuse to
| do a lot of stuff that's not strictly necessary but is fun to
| do, and buy a lot of gear that's not strictly necessary but is
| a pleasure to use. The result is somehow better and more solid
| due to that, too.
|
| Regarding the solidness of the mechanical design, I have my
| doubts. The volume know is too small, and too close to the
| navigation buttons. The speaker grill is too coarse, allowing
| small items to easily drop inside. The cartridge attachment is
| not sturdy, not self-adjusting, and relatively easy to snap
| off. If anything, I would rework the mechanical part. (Alas, my
| kids are too old now.)
| jtwaleson wrote:
| Agreed, and it seems to stem from the NiMH requirement. Maybe
| designing a protective shell around a LiPO battery (to avoid
| puncture damage) would have made more sense?
|
| Pretty impressive work though! I think you must have learned a
| lot. I've spent quite some time on about 5 different projects
| that were way less polished, but it seems we have picked up the
| same level of skills along the way. The post is very
| recognizable ;) Looking forward to the your project!
| alnwlsn wrote:
| I can understand not wanting to puncture a pouch style
| lithium-ion cell (what most people call LiPo), but then why
| not go for an 18650 or 14500 battery? Same lithium ion
| chemistry packaged into a more traditional and durable metal
| can.
|
| Although if I wasn't too confident and wanted to avoid the
| fires of lithium ion I'd probably gone for NiMH too.
|
| But then the decision to put both charger types on the board
| when only one will ever be used? Strange, but you can't let
| indecision paralysis get to you I guess.
| badlogic wrote:
| As I understood, 18650 and 14500 don't like water too much.
| Our 3yo will find ways to spill water onto and into it.
|
| As for the dip: I designed the board to be multi-purpose,
| including new projects down the line, where I might need
| LiPo energy density. I think I mentioned that in the blog
| post.
| badlogic wrote:
| This surely could be recreated with off-the-shelf components,
| no question. It would be a bit of a challenge to stuff another
| breakout board into the available space, but certainly doable.
|
| But there's a reason for doing the custom board. As my projects
| get smaller in size, I need to get away from breakout boards.
| This project was a good fit to come up with sub circuits for
| different tasks that I can just copy and paste onto a new
| design, say for a little gaming handheld, or a micro RC car
| with a much thinner/smaller form factor.
|
| What might be overkill for the current project might be the
| enabler for the next project. And it let's me iteratively learn
| new skills.
|
| That said, I might do another version of this with off the
| shelf parts only for easier reproducibility.
| avinassh wrote:
| > This surely could be recreated with off-the-shelf
| components, no question.
|
| I would love to know how does one go about doing this with
| off-the-shelf components. Can you share more, please
| badlogic wrote:
| Replace any custom PCB with off the shelf breakout boards.
| Redesign the enclosure so the breakout boards can be
| mounted. Instead of a custom motherboard PCB, solder wires
| between the pins of each breakout board, sprinkling through
| hole resistors and capacitors around where needed.
|
| Since I didn't go down that route, I don't jave any
| recommendations for breakout boards that could do the job.
| I'm also not sure if the assembly is any easier than the
| assembly of my design.
| oniony wrote:
| The weirdest decision, for me, was putting the music on the
| cartridges, so that each cartridge needs an SD card holder and
| SD card.
|
| I would imagine putting all the music on the device and just
| giving each cartridge an address would have been considerably
| cheaper and easier. This could have been electrically,
| connecting different pins of the existing battery holder
| solution; mechanically, such that each cartridge has a key
| shape that depresses different microswitches in the device;
| magnetically, using magnets on the cartridges; or optically,
| using different pattern holes on the cartridges and leds with
| optical sensors on the device.
|
| I think, personally, I would have gone the mechanical route and
| just have an array of switches in the device. Then the
| cartridges can be simple plastic keys and the device can draw
| no power when there's no cartridge.
|
| I think the Fischer Price record player worked this way:
| https://www.amazon.co.uk/Fisher-Price-Interactive-
| Packaging-.... The tracks on the record form a binary number
| and the record player head has mechanical switches.
| buran77 wrote:
| A couple of years ago, inspired bu the Tonie box, I built a
| similar yet much simpler device for a toddler in my family
| but without such a lofty goal of the learning experience.
|
| I wanted to retain the same "always offline" and "physical"
| aspects of the experience. I used NFC labels hidden under the
| cover art label on old (edit: not SD) CF cards because I had
| a bunch of old ones around and they were all standard size
| and not easy to swallow. An internal microSD that held all
| the files needed. Plugging the cartridge in the fake socket
| which was actually just a hidden power on switch would
| trigger the playing of a specific file. It's a tad more
| maintenance heavy but much quicker to pull of.
| asyx wrote:
| That's essentially what Tonie boxes do. They have internal
| storage and NFC stickers on the figurines. The box is then
| caching on the SD card and playing from their based on the
| ID on the NFC chip. If you take the box offline, it can
| still play the stuff on the box because of that.
| buran77 wrote:
| With the very big difference that in my case it never
| needs to (or can, really) be connected to a network and
| someone else's service [0]. Only to the "parents'
| service", which was a more convoluted experience for
| them. They had to manually transfer the file to the
| internal memory, link it to the NFC label, and print an
| appropriate cover art label.
|
| It was also interesting to see that when all the kids
| were gathering around with their toys they were all
| gravitating towards the one none of them had. But that
| was an unintended side effect.
|
| [0] When I first heard of Tonies my mind jumped at the
| idea that the content is stored on the figurine and
| somehow wirelessly transmitted to the box. The child,
| parent, and engineer inside me were all thoroughly
| disappointed this is not the case, and even more so at
| the perspective of the service being stopped one day or
| who knows, monetized more aggressively.
| mattkrause wrote:
| We have a Yoto player, which works ina similarly (NFC
| chip as a "pointer into their web service, content cached
| on the device). I was pleasantly surprised to see that
| they promise that it'll will work for at least five years
| after they stop selling the current version.
| buran77 wrote:
| > I was pleasantly surprised to see that they promise
| that it'll will work for at least five years after they
| stop selling the current version.
|
| That disclaimer makes me even more uneasy. It implicitly
| says the toy might stop working after. You bought a toy,
| you didn't rent it or buy toy-as-a-service. There's no
| reason the device shouldn't work forever or for as long
| as it's in good enough condition to operate. And there's
| no reason you shouldn't own the content on that toy or be
| free to supply your own forever.
|
| If you buy an audio cassette and a player they work until
| they fall apart. Here you need to rely on the goodwill of
| the seller to allow you to keep using them as long as
| they don't compete with their newer product too much.
|
| I strongly believe that the better option for anyone who
| can opt for it is something that relies on no online
| components even if it's more elbow grease for the
| parents.
| cyberpunk wrote:
| There is one advantage of this though, via the tonie app
| you can change to separate episodes from the same series
| without buying additional figures. I'm a network security
| guy, somehow, and I'm sort of OK with the tonie box.
| Alexa etc, no way, but it seems not entirely bad.
| badlogic wrote:
| I actually went with a design like you proposed in the first
| iteration. It turned out to be more time consuming than the
| SD card solution, specifically for my non technical SO. Now,
| she just stuffs an SD card into her laptop, transfers files,
| puts the card into a prepared cartridge, and sticks a label
| on it. The cartridges can be ordered fully assembled, so she
| doesn't have to solder anything.
|
| With a fully mechanical solution, she would still have to
| extract the SD card from the player (or I spend considerable
| more effort on the software side, so the device can somehow
| also act as a mass storage device when connected via USB,
| givng access to the internal SD card), print or construct the
| "key", stuff the key into a cartridge and label the
| cartridge.
|
| There's no great practical difference. The only difference is
| a higher per cartridge cost. Since that's around EUR2.50 and
| could be further reduced by bulk orders, I was fine with this
| design decision.
| bethekidyouwant wrote:
| The ESP 32 has Wi-Fi. You can just connect to it and upload
| the next track.
| cyberpunk wrote:
| So your easier solution is adding an entire network
| stack, getting it to connect to your wifi, adding a
| server and client component?
|
| Duuuuude. What?
| addandsubtract wrote:
| > For people who are thinking about getting into electronics:
| that project is very complex for what it does.
|
| For people who want to get into electronics, I can recommend
| getting started with an LED strip, an ESP32 and WLED. You can
| dip your toes into soldiering, and using an ESP32, for very
| cheap and with a large margin of error.
| broken_broken_ wrote:
| Fantastic article! But when I read "inspired by the Gameboy form
| factor", I thought the cartridge would insert much deeper, like a
| Gameboy (maybe not all the way so that the picture on the
| cartridge is still visible) . That way it cannot be accidentally
| yanked out. It's probably a dust trap but it's more robust and
| compact.
| sandreas wrote:
| Great post, thank you.
|
| I had a similar experience a while ago and believe me that
| building such a thing is a SERIOUS investment in time -
| especially as a parent. While admiring the effort and the result,
| I can't recommend anyone to go for such a self-made device, if it
| is not for the learning experience and the fun of the project.
|
| I've built a "Phoniebox"[1] and a "Tonuino"[2] and both were used
| pretty heavily by my kids. The biggest issue I experienced is the
| "creation" of media. While this should be an easy task, it just
| takes it's time. Creating the cartridge, printing the image,
| copying the file, etc...
|
| As my daughter was getting older (>4) it was so much easier to
| just buy a CD Player and used CDs. In the meantime we use an old
| Smartphone (offline) as spare device with Audiobookshelf to sync
| the media locally and VLC Media Player to play them.
|
| 1: https://github.com/MiczFlor/RPi-Jukebox-RFID
|
| 2: https://github.com/tonuino/TonUINO-TNG
| nvahalik wrote:
| With my kids, I just burned them CDs and bought them $15 CD
| players. They use them a lot. This gives my wife and I ultimate
| control over what they play--plus we find CDs at estate sales
| that allow them to build a collection ~$1 at a time.
| gvalkov wrote:
| I recently built something[1] similar, though with far less
| effort and sophistication than the author. The goal was to have a
| plug-and-play audiobook player for an elderly family member with
| impaired vision. In retrospect, it would have been better to
| adapt an old phone or tablet with a macropad rather than build
| this on top of an espmuse speaker[2].
|
| I keep thinking that a cassette player would be the ideal
| interface for something like this. The controls are as obvious
| and as tactile as it gets and the whole analog-mechanical
| experience is familiar to folks from that generation. If only
| tapes could hold more than two hours of audio ...
|
| [1]: https://www.printables.com/model/1269288-audiobook-player
|
| [2]: https://raspiaudio.com/product/esp-muse-luxe/
| Dyac wrote:
| Could something like [1] work? My understanding is it's a "fake
| tape" that has an SD slot and can be used in any player.
|
| [1] https://www.amazon.com/Funnytoday365-Telecontrol-Cassette-
| Pl...
| sriacha wrote:
| Any tips for setting up a smartphone with a macropad as
| mentioned? I like this idea but worry it introduces a lot of
| complexity for the non-smartphone literate population.
|
| Regarding the cassette player, in the US the 'National Library
| Service for the Blind and Print Disabled' has a player with an
| excellent simple interface, using cartridges for each book:
| https://blog.library.in.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/isl-t...
| abdullahkhalids wrote:
| A standard cassette has two hours in it. You can always make
| larger cassette's yourself.
| mongol wrote:
| > It's his daily driver, be it at the breakfast table or when
| going for stroll in his buggy.
|
| This sounds so strange to me, but then I am not a native English
| speaker.
| sigmaisaletter wrote:
| "daily driver" originally used to mean "car to use every day",
| as opposed to "fun car for the weekend". Its meaning then
| broadened to mean anything which is the most-used example. Here
| it just means "my kid uses it every day".
| ololobus wrote:
| I was wondering how cartridges are designed and I think it's a
| very simple and elegant design -- just wire the standard microSD
| card. Otherwise, I love such cozy projects. Even if they are not
| that efficient, they solve the problem and bring joy into
| someone's life, both author's and a small user (in this case).
| chaosprint wrote:
| this is very cool
|
| i am also working with esp32 s3 but only write rust code
|
| https://youtu.be/y2Hi9ThKcy8?si=yV8onefVb9o7MdHC
|
| My goal is to send midi wirelessly.
|
| I'm curious why you chose the ESP32? Because if you're working
| offline, the cost for its most well-known features - BLE and WiFi
| - would be unnecessary.
| zild3d wrote:
| Not op but I would also just use an ESP32 since they're super
| cheap, I already know how to work with them, and there's a pile
| of em in the drawer.
|
| If producing multiple, yeah esp32 is overkill, but when cost is
| <$5 wouldn't be worth the time to make the project harder to
| get started
| badlogic wrote:
| I have about 25 laying around idle. And I wrote a little C
| framework around ESP-IDF, which simplifies the software part. I
| was also sure the ESP32 can decode MP3s in real-time without a
| problem.
| HenryBemis wrote:
| Definitely NOT going to build that. I haven't touched a soldering
| iron in 30-35 years, and don't plan to do so again. Perhaps after
| retirement (and with some massive magnifying lens) I was thinking
| to buy and make some cool 'ready-to-built-kits' with silly stuff
| I don't really _need_.
|
| But I do miss those days that I would blow a fuse because I made
| a mistake in the soldering.. heh.. good/fun days!
| icoder wrote:
| Cool! I'm working on something comparable, but with the audio
| stored on a single SD and playback triggered using an RFID tag
| that we can than stick on wooden figures made by my GF (or
| anything 3D printed).
|
| I'm still iterating over hardware, realising Pi Zero is a bit of
| overkill, using too many NiMH batteries in series may actually
| break those batteries, that ESP8266 has much less GPIO's
| available than the module design suggests, among other lessons
| learned.
|
| My current approach is Pi Pico (ESP32 was the alternative) with a
| DfPlayer Mini and a 32GB SD card.
|
| The DfPlayer isn't too keen on running on 3v3 from cheaper LDO's
| (which are on the modules I'm using) so my current approach uses
| a small power bank. That just offloads the hard part (for me) of
| battery management to the professionals. This weekend I added a
| few resistors and a transistor to draw extra power (0.5secs every
| 20 seconds) to keep the power bank awake.
|
| But I have different LDO's and an ESP32 coming in, so it's not
| fully decided yet. Will for sure scan this thread and OP's
| article for more ideas!
| neilv wrote:
| When 3D-printing toys for young children, are there any safety
| tips to know?
|
| (I'm wondering things like material toxicity, microplastics,
| teething hazards, swallow hazards, fracturing to sharp pieces,
| rounded corners, etc.)
| badlogic wrote:
| I used PLA, which is a non toxic bio plastic. ABS is also an
| option for at-home 3D printing, which is the material used in
| lego bricks. At his age, he doesn't put anything in his mouth
| anymore, so swallow hazards were not a concern. That said, the
| only thing that's small enough for him to swallow are the
| buttons and the knob, which can not be detached from the device
| without unscrewing the enclosure. If he is able to do that,
| nothing is save.
| herbst wrote:
| Pretty sure the issue with 3d printing materials is that they
| contain additional materials other than PLA and ABS for
| proper melting and flowage and those could indeed be an
| issue.
|
| I have some actually recyclable PLA but even that has no real
| no toxicity rating.
| badlogic wrote:
| That's good information, thanks!
| lawn wrote:
| You should never put anything 3D printed into your mouth,
| regardless if you swallow it or not, because 3D prints aren't
| "food safe" and may release small pieces.
|
| Also, some materials are hazardous to print (ABS or resin for
| example) but fine when they've cooled down.
| herbst wrote:
| Next to what others have said (pretty sure there are only very
| few PLAs who are even close to actual non toxic in terms of
| small traces of helper materials) but there are finishings you
| can use to make it food save!
|
| I wouldn't eat from it, but it works and would pretty much
| solve any issues.
|
| Pretty sure those finishing resins are marketing to finish
| Beton and stuff like that.
| Ai_Summary wrote:
| Great idea, so many proprietary and DRM locked solutions exist,
| all incompatible with each other.
|
| For power wouldn't an internally routed trace on the cartridge
| function better than the switch on a stick? the gold contact
| fingers could have been offset so it doesn't power up till fully
| inserted.
| badlogic wrote:
| That's an excellent idea that didn't occur to me! If I build a
| new revision, I'll give that a try.
| neuroelectron wrote:
| It's amazing what you can accomplish when abusing adhd meds.
| dmd wrote:
| I had grand plans to build something like this when my kids were
| small, but ended up building this https://github.com/dmd/nkplay/
| instead.
|
| It's just a rpi plugged into a standalone numeric keypad, acting
| as a jukebox. Playlists are numbered.
|
| By the time my kids were about three, they could enter the
| numbers on their own, and by four they had memorized the
| playlists so well they didn't look at the printed catalog any
| more.
| badlogic wrote:
| I love this idea!
| dukoid wrote:
| I wonder if one of the Anberinc (or similar) devices with
| single-purpose software would be an option for people shy of
| going into hardware...
| fsckboy wrote:
| > _I also need an IC to convert the I2S signal (currently sent to
| the MAX98357A) to a headphone output. I haven 't researched
| options yet. The motherboard will need additional routing to send
| the I2S signal from the ESP32-S3 to both the MAX98357A and this
| new IC. Suggestions welcome!_
|
| isn't a headphone just a high impedance speaker? you just grab
| the same output that goes to the speakers and reroute it through
| a big resistor to the headphones.
|
| did a little searching, here you go (the extra resistance isn't
| that great)
|
| https://samtechpro.blogspot.com/2014/03/how-to-use-speaker-o...
|
| i suggest put efforts into stereo for speaker and headphones,
| more pleasing, and wouldn't stereo set the stage for truer brain
| development?
| JansjoFromIkea wrote:
| I really like this, it looks great!
|
| Did you investigate using a MiniDisc player at any point? I could
| see a minidisc player with some kind of shell and a DIY inline
| remote working with relatively little. Never actually used one
| enough to know how much they'd withstand a kid though!
| carpenecopinum wrote:
| Besides being a great project, this device reminds me a lot of
| the Technifant (https://technifant.de) which, under the hood, is
| similarly simple. The "hats" that you put on the Technifant
| contain a cheap USB thumb drive with the contacts soldered to a
| magnetic connector. All the audio is stored locally on the hat
| itself, and you can even add your own MP3 files with a cable
| provided by the manufacturer.
| sriacha wrote:
| Does anyone have suggestions for an simple audiobook/music player
| like this for the elderly and or those mild dementia? It should
| have large, tactile buttons, simple play/pause interface, volume
| control (ideally knob), and be able to read from sdcard or usb/
|
| - I've used the Relish 'dementia radio' [1] before. Its a radio
| with support for reading from usb, but has no memory so useless
| for audiobooks. Very overpriced.
|
| - The 'National Library Service for the Blind and Print Disabled'
| has excellent cassette type players [2], but they only take their
| cartridges. Ideally something this format but supporting usb/sd
| card
|
| - Another comment [3] here suggests a smartphone with a macropad.
| this could work. they also built a custom solution.
|
| [1] https://relish-life.com/en-us/products/relish-radio [2]
| https://blog.library.in.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/isl-t...
| [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43818639
| juujian wrote:
| If there is enough material on Spotify, you could grab one of
| those mini-keyboards with 6 or nine buttons and remap them to
| play/pause, next, previos, and just leave it on shuffle on one
| playlist?
| sriacha wrote:
| I think that might be the easiest, or even one with 3 buttons
| and volume knob.
| tweetle_beetle wrote:
| A Yoto player might work. They're designed for children. They
| have two knobs (with momentary switch) to control everything
| (and a small on/off button). They're designed to be usable by
| children who cannot read, primarily through Yoto cards.
|
| These are just NFC type cards with with some kind of DRM. They
| allow your player to connect to an API, download the audio
| content (books, music) and store it locally for instant
| playback whenever the card is inserted.
|
| Normally I hate vendor lock in stuff like this. But
| surprisingly they also sell "blank" cards. Using the app you
| can load any audio content "onto" them (same deal - audio is
| sent to cloud so it can be redownloaded if local storage runs
| out). These are pretty cheap and can be "wiped" and reused as
| many times as you want and you can write on them or mark them
| up. You can even design a specific image to show on screen when
| your custom card is inserted.
|
| The hardware is good quality too and can survive daily life.
|
| https://yotoplay.com/
| schnable wrote:
| Any suggestions for someone who wants to get started on a similar
| but less ambitious project, ideally without any soldering? Ie,
| more software and breadboard-style wiring.
| stavros wrote:
| You can get a DFPlayer module:
|
| https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005007061184507.html
|
| Connect a speaker, hook it up to an ESP32, then connect some
| buttons to it so you can select the track to play.
| bigstrat2003 wrote:
| This is really cool! I don't remotely have the skills to pull
| this off, so I am in awe of what you achieved here. The
| explanations were pretty clear even for someone such as myself,
| but I was confused by one thing. If the device is powered by NiMH
| AAA batteries, why include the charging circuit, rather than just
| removing the batteries when needed to put into a dedicated
| charger?
| badlogic wrote:
| Because this way, I (or my SO) doesn't have to unscrew the
| enclosure to get at the batteries. Usually, the batteries die,
| while the boy is in the middle of an audiobook. This way, we
| simply plug in a USB-C cable and everything keeps going.
| bigstrat2003 wrote:
| That makes sense, thanks for the clarification!
| bufferoverflow wrote:
| Could be simplified a lot by making SD cards as cartridges.
| turblety wrote:
| I think the beauty of this is that it's big and clunky. An SD
| card takes quite coordinated motor skills to insert, can be
| quite flimsy and has to be inserted with an exact fit.
| delfinom wrote:
| I think the real answer isn't motor skills.a 3 year old may
| eat a sd card.
|
| Lol
| thih9 wrote:
| Always offline is an underrated feature.
|
| Eg. my kindle is always offline, has been working great for the
| last 5+ years, I see no ads, upgrade prompts, UX changes, or
| slowdowns.
| rideontime wrote:
| When he's older, you should blow his mind by putting DOOM back on
| it.
| timcobb wrote:
| This is so cool, thanks so much for sharing this. Wow.
| Dwedit wrote:
| Your "cartridge" could just as easily be a sheet of paper with a
| barcode/QR code printed on it.
| bsdice wrote:
| His wife, chose wisely.
| chromate wrote:
| I would love to do a project like this, but having toddlers
| around, how did he find the time to actually do this? These seems
| like hours and hours of learning and working (which I would
| love), but one of the things I miss most after having kids is
| having time for hobbies like this.
| badlogic wrote:
| Instead of watching Netflix/YouTube/whatever or spending time
| on social media, I used 1-3 hours every night to learn and
| create.
| rsync wrote:
| We needed this device and satisfied that need with a Sony
| Walkman:
|
| https://electronics.sony.com/audio/walkman-digital-recorders...
|
| Very simple. Shows up as a USB drive and I copy mp3 files to it.
|
| My son likes to listen to audiobooks so we purchase them at the
| maximum price possible and then download them from bittorrent.
| butlike wrote:
| This is potentially a sell-able product
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