[HN Gopher] I built physical album cards with NFC tags to teach ...
___________________________________________________________________
I built physical album cards with NFC tags to teach my son music
discovery
Author : jordanf
Score : 539 points
Date : 2025-10-10 20:34 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (fulghum.io)
(TXT) w3m dump (fulghum.io)
| philips wrote:
| I did something similar with Home Assistant and Jellyfin for
| movies. https://github.com/philips/homeassistant-nfc-chromecast
| jordanf wrote:
| super cool! thanks for sharing that.
| nedrylandJP wrote:
| Looks like a homebrew Yoto
| dwayne_dibley wrote:
| Yoto is genuinely one of the most underrated pieces of tech.
| 10/10 for me.
| jordanf wrote:
| Yeah, we have a Yoto, and it's great. But their custom cards
| are pretty expensive. And, let's face it, I wanted a weekend
| project :)
| PokeStick wrote:
| Your project is super cool and really well executed. Thanks
| for sharing. I've had success with cheap blank NFC cards
| instead of the official MyYo York cards. I have a quick
| breakdown in my recent comment history if you're curious.
| jordanf wrote:
| thank you!
| crazybonkersai wrote:
| You can use bulk nfc cards from China. I got like 50 cards
| for five bucks or so. Taking them into use is a bit more
| laborious (you have to record an official card first and then
| duplicate the tag to a bulk card), but considering the price
| is a no brainer.
| jordanf wrote:
| oh cool, thanks.
| UtopiaPunk wrote:
| We have a Yoto, too. We got it for my three-year-old and he
| listens to pretty often. My 1-year-old found it recently and
| I'm surprised at how much he likes engaging with it, too.
| schainks wrote:
| Yeah. We love our Yoto but I also can't hook up Spotify
| streaming to Yoto cards, so this post is a very inspired way to
| bring back the "purpose" behind collecting the music.
|
| I think a workaround to the Spotify issue with Yoto would be
| proxying a Spotify account through a raspberry pi or
| lightweight cloud vm. The Yoto cards themselves point to
| playlists in yoto's cloud, and the playlists can link to files
| or stream URIs.
| MangoToupe wrote:
| This is amazing.
|
| How do you anticipate your son will explore his own taste?
| Inevitably he will want to hear his peers' songs
|
| Regardless, massive applause for what you've achieved.
| jordanf wrote:
| Thank you! If his friends shared music with him, I'd be a happy
| dad. I just don't see any of them hooked like I was. It's more
| "single of the week" with them.
| jones1618 wrote:
| Love this idea!
|
| This could also be a way for social discovery that studios could
| promote:
|
| Imagine a rack of album cards at Target where each costs a $1 and
| lets you play samples of all the tracks on the album (read lyrics
| and liner notes, etc) and puts $1 in your online wallet. So, kids
| (or anyone) could sample different albums and then save up to buy
| whole albums they like. Also, already redeemed ("used") cards
| would still play samples so kids could share/trade them as a way
| to say "check this music out!"
|
| Can you imagine Billboard charts of Top Album Cards (Sampled and
| Bought) which would be so much more impactful than a lame count
| of streams or whatever. The charts would represent music kids are
| actually trading and talking about.
| nedrylandJP wrote:
| The rack of cards at Target costs more than $1/ea sadly:
| https://www.target.com/b/yoto/-/N-q643lentif4
| kulahan wrote:
| Sheesh. Surely you could build that device for like $15,
| though I guess all the money would go into the speaker
| quality. Maybe it sounds amazing.
| tbarkow wrote:
| I loved flipping through LPs at the record store and would
| usually go through everything at my favorite stores. The flap-
| flap-flap of the cardboard sleeves was so soothing.
| gwbas1c wrote:
| > I think we're unintentionally teaching our children to consume
| music passively. My goal with this project was to teach them to
| discover it actively, to own it, to care about it at the album
| level. I think it kinda worked!
|
| Some people also say that about _prerecorded music_ and whine
| about when families had to gather around the piano to sing.
| jordanf wrote:
| ha, definitely fair! everything is relative.
| UtopiaPunk wrote:
| My three-year-old and I listen to music together, and he
| (sometimes) really engages with what he is hearing. He'll pick
| out the words and ask about what different phrases mean. I'll
| say who the singer or band it, what genre it is, and instrument
| is playing, etc. Or I'll turn it around and ask stuff like "do
| you want to listen to jazz, or bluegrass, or classical
| musical?" He's developing a pretty good ear, I think! And, of
| course, sometimes we gotta dance.
| emmelaich wrote:
| Curse you pianola! If only we knew.
| derwiki wrote:
| Waldorf?
| gwbas1c wrote:
| An easy way to do this without needing to build a thing is to get
| into vinyl.
|
| One of the nice things about vinyl is that historians will have
| an easier time figuring out what's on it than many of our digital
| formats.
| jordanf wrote:
| ok but building a thing is the fun part
| derwiki wrote:
| Sure but parents of small children often don't have as much
| time for the building
| UtopiaPunk wrote:
| We have a record player and some vinyl records in the house. My
| three-year-old is starting to like them. Today, he even was
| holding the record carefully by the sides. Made me such a proud
| dad, haha.
|
| My 1-year-old, however is pretty monstrous to the records. We
| have some little kid vinyl that I got for cheap off a friend,
| and we placed those within his reach. He thinks they're
| interesting, but grabs the record or sleeve and bends them a
| lot. It's whatever, it's fine. But I did make it a point
| recently to move my favorite records to another room for the
| time being :)
| derriz wrote:
| What's easy about vinyl? If you want a kid to have a physical
| copies of music, then CDs generally cost between a third and a
| tenth the price of the vinyl equivalent and are far more "kid
| friendly" - not just the CDs themselves but the playback
| equipment. Unless you want to have them listen on one of those
| novelty mass produced plastic turntables that sound absolutely
| terrible, a good stylus on a decent turntable is just a kid's
| innocent bump away from destruction.
| deep_merge wrote:
| This is great, love that you're giving your old MP3s a new life.
|
| For the album artwork, be sure to check if there's already a
| cassette j card or ... minidisc album art that's closer to the
| right dimensions.
| badlogic wrote:
| I love this! Not just because I also grew up in the 90ies and
| like your music choice :)
|
| As we drown in media and slop, I think it's super important to
| teach kids how to be selective, develop taste. And I too found
| that physical connection does help with that.
|
| Great project and execution. It would be great if you could also
| introduce a social aspect, i.e. kids sharing/swapping cards.
|
| (Did something similar for our then 3yo, since it's one of a
| kind, the social aspect is kinda not there. Yet!
| https://mariozechner.at/posts/2025-04-20-boxie/)
| jordanf wrote:
| "game boy for audiobooks" is so cool. Thanks for sharing. (dad)
| rock on.
| aerostable_slug wrote:
| What a wonderful interface. Well done.
| jordanf wrote:
| thank you
| lubujackson wrote:
| Luckily I never got rid of my old CDs. They have been sitting in
| a cabinet for decades and last Xmas I got my son a portable CD
| player for $35. They have been exploring all kinds of my old
| music, which is awesome.
|
| I see it in your photos here - Dookie by Green Day is a big hit
| with my boys!
| blaze33 wrote:
| Nice project! Reminds me of a startup whom I met the founders
| several years ago: they had a system of hexagonal wooden tiles
| you could put on a device to play a specific songs (also maybe
| videos). I'm not sure the project is still alive but I found an
| article with pictures of what I saw:
| https://competition.adesignaward.com/ada-winner-design.php?I...
|
| While digital files are obviously very practical and efficient
| for our pictures/audio/video I can't help but see how different
| our relationship to them is when a physical object embodies the
| data.
| oliverjanssen wrote:
| Love this project! That line about unintentionally teaching kids
| to consume music passively really resonates. I built something
| with a similar motivation - Muky (https://muky.app), an app for
| creating curated, distraction-free music experiences for kids.
| Different approach (digital vs. physical), but the same core
| idea: helping kids engage with music intentionally rather than as
| background noise.
| kulahan wrote:
| I've never been _super_ into music listening, though I do love
| singing. I 'm curious what you think is important about this
| difference in approach. The idea doesn't come naturally to me -
| probably for the same reason intentional listening sounds more
| like a chore to me.
|
| I want to be clear I'm not poo-pooing on the idea! I just can't
| connect with it personally, and if you're that into the topic,
| I figured you might have good insight into this idea, at least
| from a personal perspective :)
| AlecSchueler wrote:
| For me it's just a matter of being able to follow what's
| going on. It would be like watching a movie passively or
| listening to someone read from a book without listening to
| what they're saying.
| rahimnathwani wrote:
| Muky looks awesome for younger kids. The integration with
| Spotify seems really well thought out, and I like the 'iOS 16'
| feature!
|
| I'm not in the target market for this, but I've heard other
| parents wish for a way to curate their kids' YouTube
| experience. For example restricting them to certain pre-
| approved channels. I wonder if there's a clever way to do that
| with a companion app, like you've done with Muky/Spotify.
| dhosek wrote:
| I've made a conscious decision to _not_ do streaming services.
| Having all the music is not much different than having no music
| at all. I don't even want all of my own music on my phone.
| Instead, I use a set of smart playlists to give me a changing
| selection of songs based on ratings, how long it's been since I
| last heard a song and how new the music is in my library.
| hatthew wrote:
| > Having all the music is not much different than having no
| music at all.
|
| This is an interesting statement; could you clarify what you
| mean? Taken at face value it seems like a falsism, but I'm
| assuming you have an interpretation in mind that would make
| sense to me.
| spunker540 wrote:
| Not op, but to me this resonates because none of it is
| "mine", none of it exists in the real world. There's a huge
| difference between the music I physically collected (from
| libraries, friends, Best Buy, Christmas gifts, used cd
| stores) and uploaded into my iPod and lived with for years vs
| music I searched on a whim, listened to for a month while it
| was in my "recents" and then eventually forgot about once it
| was pushed out by something else.
| opan wrote:
| It's like having a library you built up over the years based
| on your tastes and the era you grew up in that you can idly
| look through vs having a search bar to YouTube.
|
| I hear the same argument a lot when it comes to game
| emulation. People will say you shouldn't put full ROM sets on
| your device because it makes it harder to decide what to play
| and to stick to a game. Compare that to browsing the 30
| GameCube games you have in a cupboard from 20 years ago. You
| can kinda recreate that digitally by only putting a select
| amount of games on your device at a time and trying to spend
| more time per game. This particularly comes up when
| discussing emulation on handhelds.
|
| Bringing the conversation back to music, while I do prefer
| digital, I've got albums in FLAC on my phone and I re-listen
| to the same 50 or so albums a lot, only occasionally
| adding/removing from what's on there.
| specproc wrote:
| There are two big offers with streaming services: catalogue
| and curation (playlists, up next).
|
| On curation, taking one's time to do that oneself is arguably
| superior. You get to know your music better, tailor the
| collection to your tastes, discovery and growth is active not
| passive.
|
| If you're really into a band or genre you'll also run into
| the limits of Spotify's collection. Artists have missing
| albums, some artists aren't there at all. It's not as bad as
| film and TV, where six subs are required to cover a broad
| range of viewing, but that's the enshittification pathway.
|
| Also, real music people hate the mainstream, man.
| oneeyedpigeon wrote:
| Paying for a permanent subset of music transfers value to
| that set in a way that subscribing to everything doesn't.
| vitorbaptistaa wrote:
| I love this! I prefer digital stuff (less things to worry about),
| but I miss the physicality, especially when friends come over.
| Books or CDs become a conversation.
|
| If you'd like to do something similar, but don't want to DIY it,
| check out Yoto Player [1]. This is a small music speaker and they
| sell a bunch of NFC cards to "play" them. You can also buy blank
| cards and use their app to add whatever you want to them (music,
| audiobooks, even audio recordings). It's really well made.
|
| There are a bunch of other companies with similar products. Some
| use miniatures instead of NFC cards. If you search the web for
| NFC music player, there are a few FOSS apps on github so you can
| focus on the hardware part and use their software on a raspberry
| pi.
|
| This is also great for elders.
|
| P.S.: if you fancy a cool project, I'd _love_ to see someone
| reverse engineering Yoto so it gets the audio from a local server
| instead. This way we can use their great hardware, but can use
| any NFC cards.
|
| [1] https://yotoplay.com/
| dylan604 wrote:
| > especially when friends come over. Books or CDs become a
| conversation.
|
| There's nothing worse than when having people over, and sitting
| in front of a computer or device isolating from the group. The
| physical medium of vinyl albums or even CDs allow interaction
| with everyone instead of someone just clicking on a screen some
| where. What I read on an album covers might not be the same
| thing you read and take away from it. It just makes music
| sharing so much more personal.
| viraptor wrote:
| Yeah, yoto works really nice for the same purpose. My kid's got
| lots of custom music on the blanks now. Both soundtracks from
| movies and custom playlists. I suspect it's going to transform
| into more of albums in the next years. Whether purchased or
| DIY, it's also a great solution to giving agency to a 3yo
| without something like "have an ipad with the whole spotify".
| AliceH0521 wrote:
| Agree. I have a 2.5yo girl at home, who loves songs at the
| moment. Before that, I was wondering if there is a way to
| give her some experience like playing albums, but not just
| the sound. Now I have found the way. (and we have a 3D
| printer)
| bobthepanda wrote:
| CDs are now actually also joining vinyls in being revived for
| physical merch purposes. They're no longer needed, but if you
| want them they are available for purchase.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| They're needed if you want proper digital copies for gapless
| album playback. You can't trust anybody to get that right.
| jdiff wrote:
| Apple seems to do that reasonably right in my limited
| experience.
| selectodude wrote:
| Apple fixed gapless playback in iTunes like 20 years ago.
| lukan wrote:
| And I remember winamp could do this way earlier.
| interloxia wrote:
| Amazon music has gap problems today. In 2025.
| canpan wrote:
| After years of digital only I started buying CDs and books
| again. I am much more selective though. Just buy what I will
| listen to many times or for artist support.
|
| Bought a total of 3 CDs in two years. Movies are more
| difficult, as I can't stand watching most the second time.
| Got some Ghibli classics.
| perilunar wrote:
| CDs are digital.
| lostlogin wrote:
| But less so than Spotify or Apple Music.
| rhinoceraptor wrote:
| I love CDs, and unlike records or tapes they have never
| really gone up in price, even with inflation. A new CD is
| still about $15.
| lb1lf wrote:
| This is one of the most absurd facts there is.
|
| Back in the eighties when CDs were introduced, they were
| NOK 165 a piece for a new release.
|
| Last time I dropped by my friendly neighbourhood dealer (of
| music, that is), the CD rack said CDs were NOK 189.
|
| 165 1985-kroner equals nigh on 500 2025-kroner.
|
| Incidentally, an LP back then was NOK 89, equivalent to NOK
| 270 today - whereas an LP today would set me back approx.
| NOK 399.
|
| Good thing my employer pays me significantly better than my
| parents did in the eighties. I can still sustain my music
| habit.
| Contax wrote:
| Not that it'll happen, or at least I haven't heard of it, but
| I'd love for MiniDiscs to also make a comeback (not that they
| ever were that popular), and see new releases in that format.
| It's my favorite one, a nice blend of CDs and compact
| cassettes (no worries about scratches thanks to the
| protective shell, even when you carelessly throw the discs in
| your pockets).
| majkinetor wrote:
| There is a technical difference though - yolo keeps the audio
| on the cards, while this project uses NFC tags to select
| locally stored audio. To have truly collectable experience,
| yolo type of thing is the only choice.
| fsargent wrote:
| Yoto doesn't keep the audio on the cards, all the audio is
| stored on the cloud and the NFC cards just have a link to the
| album. The Yoto can't play a card it hasn't already seen
| before without connecting to the Wi-Fi and downloading it.
| RileyJames wrote:
| +1 for a yoto.
|
| It also led to my biggest 'Doh' moment with tech.
|
| My sister showed it to me at a holiday house where we had no
| internet. I thought it was awesome, an offline music/audio
| player that her daughter could use. She mentioned you could
| make your own cards. It immediately reminded me of making mix
| tape cassettes and cds as a child.
|
| I bought one the next week without doing any further research.
|
| When it arrived and asked me to connect it to the wifi I was
| very confused.
|
| I realised I made a massive assumption that "someone had solved
| the NFC card memory capacity problem". I'd seen it work without
| internet and made all these assumptions about how it worked.
|
| Obviously wrong in hindsight.
|
| Still a great piece of kit, but I'd love something that was
| more akin to a cassette players rec/play/rewind/rec & Physical
| medium.
|
| But portable cassette recorders still exist...
| jphastings wrote:
| They're a fantastic piece of kit! They have a Micro SD card
| internally and download the album/card on first use, then it
| can be used fully offline any time in the future. It's a
| great trade off in my mind (though I'll post one level up
| about how I wish it'd do even better here...)
| jphastings wrote:
| I pulled apart my Yoto mini! I found an unencrypted ESP32, and
| managed to pull the firmware off it too.
|
| My reverse engineering skills are limited, so my journey has
| paused there for now, but I would _love_ to be able to map out
| all the hardware & write open source firmware for it.
|
| The Yoto set up is very smart (the NFC cards hold a Yoto URL,
| which responds with a JSON document describing the music &
| links to MP3s on S3, or m3u files for internet radio).
|
| The only downside is that the Yoto will _only_ follow what I
| presume are allow-listed URLs, and has SSL certs for those URLs
| baked in, so if the company ever goes under the devices would
| lose almost all functionality, without new firmware.
|
| I want to support Yoto as these devices are really great, but
| I'd also love to be able to drop my own URLs on cards and: -
| Play tracks from Plex like OP - Trigger lighting/mood changes
| with HomeAssistant as well as play an album - Play the music on
| network speakers (eg. Sonos), using the Yoto as the source
|
| If anyone feels like they'd be interested in helping reverse
| engineer them, do reply!
| cja wrote:
| You can also add stream URLs to a card. Thus we have a "radio"
| card which lets my son play radio stations from all over the
| world.
| sandreas wrote:
| There are several projects here in germany doing similar things.
|
| There is https://tonies.com, which is cloud based and pretty
| expensive, but hackable (https://github.com/toniebox-reverse-
| engineering/teddycloud).
|
| Then there is the RFID Jukebox: https://github.com/MiczFlor/RPi-
| Jukebox-RFID
|
| And Tonuino: https://github.com/tonuino/TonUINO-TNG
|
| I built ours with the RFID Jukebox and wrote a little tool called
| labelmaker to print labels for audio books and music:
| https://pilabor.com/projects/labelmaker/, but in the end it took
| too much time to print so many labels :-)
| jcul wrote:
| There's also yoto box, which lets you create "make your own"
| cards.
| sandreas wrote:
| Mmh, I know the yoto play (https://eu.yotoplay.com/) but are
| you referencing to a specific open source project?
| jcul wrote:
| Yeah that's what I was referring to. In relation to the
| tonies. It would be a competitor to the tonie box. Both are
| popular in Ireland.
|
| I did see some stuff about people reverse engineering the
| tonies back when we first got it, not sure if there's
| anything similar for yoto.
| IshKebab wrote:
| We have Yoto for our kids and I was initially skeptical (the
| cards are quite expensive) but actually it's been amazing.
| Probably the biggest benefit that we didn't even know is that
| they have a sort of radio/podcast thing for kids called Yoto
| Daily that's really well produced and totally free.
| dtkav wrote:
| I recently bought the toniebox to hack it for my son's 4th
| birthday. It has become his favorite object.
|
| I considered building sometime custom, but the tonie hardware
| is cute, portable, and lovable in a way that would be hard to
| replicate.
|
| It has been really fun for my wife and I to listen to our
| favorite music in the car, and then when my son says "I like
| this song" I "burn" him a little disk that evening.
|
| He's turned into a little DJ, and has memorized a handful of
| his songs (and dances and sings along).
|
| One caveat is that finding compatible NFC tags is a little bit
| complicated. if you buy from RFIDfriend [0] then they take a
| couple weeks to arrive from Germany.
|
| Highly recommend!
|
| [0] http://RFIDfriend.com
| doctorhandshake wrote:
| Nice timing. I'm right in the middle of doing this for music and
| video media for my kid (using an elaborate concoction of python,
| nocodb, home assistant, Jellyfin, a NAS, an RPi, and a
| chromecast) and the thing I had yet to figure out was the
| physicality of the RFID-sticker-containing cards themselves
| 3abiton wrote:
| > I used AI to extend the album art to the trading card aspect
| ratio. Highlighted are the generated parts of the artwork,
|
| This was fun to read, I love all the little details that went
| into this, you obviously had lots of fun!
| glenngillen wrote:
| I've been meaning to build a similar thing. I already have all
| the parts, but I was hoping to find a way to build something that
| simulated a small record player. Bonus points for a way to have a
| functioning turntable with the NFC reader + raspi hidden
| underneath it. If anyone has ideas or has seen a way to make that
| work please share some links!
| housebear wrote:
| Love this. What are you tapping the cards _onto_? What is reading
| that info and then pulling the music? (I 'm not super savvy and
| can't figure it out from the writeup).
| jordanf wrote:
| that's the right question! i'm surprised no one has asked it
| yet. part 2 will be all about setting up the raspberry pi with
| an nfc hat and a 'read-only' display as the tap target.
| Rhinobird wrote:
| I just assumed they were tapping them on their phone and had
| some kind of app, or website something
| jordanf wrote:
| no middleware/app needed. PlexAmp can deep-link to an album
| with an autoplay parameter, as long as the device with the
| NFC reader can access it.
| iafan wrote:
| On iPhone, tapping an NFC tag with a URL opens a popup that
| allows you to navigate to that URL with a single click. If this
| URL is supported by an installed app, this app will handle
| this. For example, if you write a URL of a Spotify playlist
| onto your NFC tag/sticker (which you can also do from the phone
| via an app like NFC Tools), then bring that sticker to iPhone,
| it will show this as a Spotify URL, and you can tap on this
| notification and go to that Spotify playlist. So all you need
| to experiment with is a writable NFC tag and your phone, no
| other hardware required. I bet Android phones offer a similar
| experience.
| pluto_modadic wrote:
| I think this skips over /how to do it/.
| jordanf wrote:
| ?
| judge2020 wrote:
| Writable NFC cards are pretty cheap on Aliexpress and Amazon,
| they're writable with most any NFC enabled phone and apps like
| "NFC Tools" that let you input a uri.
|
| If you don't have a Plex server like the OP, you could use a
| link to the streaming service you use.
| xandrius wrote:
| Lovely idea but basically we got a tutorial on how to put a
| square onto a rectangle, print it and cut it somewhat wobbly,
| then profit?
|
| More interested in the NFC side, how to flash these, how to read
| them, challenges, final costs, etc.
|
| Changing the aspect ratio to fit a card is fine too, I guess?
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Also, there are corner-cutters you can get from a hobby store
| that will make a nice, clean, consistent radius on those cards.
|
| I have this one, for example (three radii!):
| https://www.amazon.com/Sunstar-Kadomaru-Corner-Cutter-S47650...
| jordanf wrote:
| sweet! thank you
| jordanf wrote:
| alright fair feedback.
| ks2048 wrote:
| Nice job!
|
| I wonder what hardware is available today to actually store the
| music in the card? i.e. how slim and cheap can you store an album
| of mp3?
| al_borland wrote:
| Without getting too fancy with the tech, I found a 10 pack of
| 128MB micro SD cards on Amazon for $15. Those seem like they'd
| be slim enough for an off-the-shelf option to hack something
| together for $1.50 per album, if you're not worried about
| having audiophile quality.
| yegle wrote:
| Hmm w/o using Plex, I think the same can be done using a RasPi w/
| an NFC reader to send a command to a remote MPD server to start
| casting to my Google Home devices. The NFC tag to album mapping
| can be managed using a plaintext file.
| jordanf wrote:
| cool bro
| Atlas667 wrote:
| This is the next feature i want to implement in my own nfc
| player, which is essentially the same idea as OPs but only
| through vlc for now.
|
| I run it on a raspi and uses nfcpy and python-vlc.
|
| Its on github under nfc_player.
| wkjagt wrote:
| Very cool!
|
| Reminds me of a very similar project I did for my (almost) blind
| grandfather. I used NFC cards too, but to play audiobooks.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8177117
| cpcampbell wrote:
| Very nice! I built a similar system with my young kids a few
| years ago called Qrocodile [1], which used a RPi (inside a custom
| Lego model) to control our Sonos system by reading QR codes
| printed on small cards. QR worked well because they're cheap to
| print. We printed a couple hundred album/song cards (each with
| album art) and a number of control cards. Fun project. Source
| code and all the instructions (for server, client, and card
| generator) are in the GitHub project [2].
|
| [1] https://labonnesoupe.org/2018/02/14/introducing-qrocodile/
| [2] https://github.com/chrispcampbell/qrocodile
| jordanf wrote:
| cool!
| doug_durham wrote:
| Seems like an excuse to play with NFC tags. These types of
| articles come off as sanctimonious. There is nothing superior
| about the cards. On a phone or computer you can get complete
| liner notes for any song. All of that is missing from this
| system. You don't need to justify working on a pet project. Just
| do it. It doesn't have to be "superior". It's ok if it's dumb.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| It is a bit of a humblebrag, like many parenting articles, but
| it's nice that he made something for his kid even if it
| basically an effort to pass on his own musical taste rather
| than investigate what cool new things are happening below the
| marketing radar of today's industry. I do wonder if it might
| not have been more involving to just get hold of an old
| record/cassette player and take the kid to the nearest used
| music store, but hey.
| oneeyedpigeon wrote:
| I was surprised to see nothing about liner notes, lyrics, or
| other info that could have been added to these cards.
| Especially with the aspect ratio issue! Seems like almost
| anything would be a better use of that valuable space than AI
| hallucinations.
| jordanf wrote:
| I want to make the cards richer in phase 2 (track listings on
| the back, at least).
| jordanf wrote:
| Thanks for your vapid and misguided feedback, Doug Durham. I
| hope you find joy somewhere.
| derwiki wrote:
| Clearly tons of people like this project. You don't have to
| respond to the naysayers.
| jordanf wrote:
| thank you
| neumann wrote:
| I think mentioned elsewhere here,
| https://github.com/MiczFlor/RPi-Jukebox-RFID is great for this. I
| did something similar with an opp shop Fisher Price[0] record
| player, with the RFID reader under the turntable and each 'card'
| is a laminated record cover with the rfid stuck on it. Lots of
| good photos of different implementations in their issue threads.
|
| We also use it for kids podcasts (autodownloads them weekly). I
| added a TTS script that generates a friendly audio message from a
| text file that can be triggered to play from an alarm or for a
| specific record. This announces the weather with a Dad joke at
| the end. I tried to automate the last one with various sources
| (db, LLM, etc - but felt too cold, so I just dictate it to the
| server from the phone) and usually add a customised message about
| our family calendar (wear a jacket for rain. cousins are coming
| today).
|
| [0] https://www.amazon.com.au/Fisher-Price-Classics-Record-
| Playe...
| squigz wrote:
| Haha, using that Fisher Price toy for this is super cute.
| nedt wrote:
| Yeah I've also build a Phoniebox a couple of years ago for my
| kid. It has physical buttons, RFID cards or chips (some hidden
| in plush toys) and works very much like tonies, but with much
| easier access to anything you want to put on it. It's all in a
| wooden box including speakers. I've later extended it with a
| powerbank.
| ge96 wrote:
| Tangent, I miss the carelessness of being young I just feel jaded
| as a grown up ha, referring to the video of her smiling with the
| card
|
| In my case I think externally all the time like how people
| perceive me/I'm being judged
| conductr wrote:
| When similar topics come up I like to add this tidbit, also
| encourage them to listen to full albums. In order, no shuffle or
| playlist, just dedicating an ~hour to sit and listen to an album.
|
| When any Dookie song ends I still automatically start singing or
| air strumming the next track on the album.
| polynomial wrote:
| NFC inlays are paper thin (~0.06mm) and cards are typically 0.2mm
| (Bicyle) to 0.30mm (M:TG).
|
| We can use NFC tools to write an URI pointing at an audio file
| link using NDEF.
|
| I believe Android will play the audio file when you _tap_ the
| card on the your phone. (Apple will need you to confirm in a
| popup.)
| spunker540 wrote:
| I like this idea. While it's great to have all the music at my
| fingertips via Alexa + Apple Music (or Spotify etc), it's
| actually not very conducive to browsing or recalling all the
| music and albums I like.
|
| Something physical to browse like this is a pretty fun way to
| marry the physical world with digital music catalogs.
| baliex wrote:
| I built https://dailyalbum.art/ to solve a part of the browsing
| problem you're talking about. Nothing physical I'm afraid, but
| I do really love this RFID tap to play idea!
|
| I've curated a list of 500+ critically acclaimed albums, which
| I continue to add to as the Mercury Prize nominees are
| announced each year, Rough Trade releases its albums of the
| year, etc.
|
| It picks 12 a day and that's that; it's the same 12 for
| everyone. If you see something familiar, you might want to go
| for that. Or if you're in the mood for something new &
| different, you can give something unknown a try.
| lawgimenez wrote:
| Back in the day me and my friends would also trade cassettes and
| CDs for a week because buying one costs a lot of money for broke
| teenagers like us.
|
| Hey I just bought this new Dead Kennedys tape I would love to
| trade for your NOFX CD!
|
| Kids nowadays just take for granted music and it makes me kinda
| sad.
| squigz wrote:
| > Kids nowadays just take for granted music and it makes me
| kinda sad.
|
| Maybe it's better to say they take their easy access to music
| for granted, which I think is okay. Isn't it better than not
| having access - or having very very limited access - because
| they're also broke teenagers?
| jordanf wrote:
| I added a DK easter egg for you
| karlgrz wrote:
| This is incredibly cool, thanks for sharing! As an album lover
| through and through, I am with you.
| jordanf wrote:
| thank you
| bariumbitmap wrote:
| Related: "How I Built an NFC Movie Library for my Kids"
|
| https://simplyexplained.com/blog/how-i-built-an-nfc-movie-li...
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41479141
| jopsen wrote:
| The more old school alternative is to just buy old CDs and a CD
| player.
|
| Used, you can find this stuff pretty cheap. Abd it's still more
| physical than NFC cards.
| FelipeCortez wrote:
| and you get booklets!
| aidenn0 wrote:
| CDs have gotten a _lot_ more expensive recently where I live. I
| used to be able to find used albums for under $5, but that is
| rare now.
| lexx wrote:
| You are in my mind and in my heart. This is a constant thought
| that I have. I grew up in a house where books, vinyls, cds,
| slides, tapes and other media were everywhere. Some on display,
| others archived in boxes. Large part of my childhood was spent
| with me exploring through that stuff and creating custom mixtapes
| with songs that I really liked. I still have a lot of them.
|
| I also remember my 10 yo self, designing in Corel draw my own
| labels and printing them to fit the tape case.
|
| I always ask my self "what is my kid going to explore? My Spotify
| account?" It's one of the reasons I still collect vinyls and
| books. Even if I don't really listen or read them from the
| physical format.
| testdelacc1 wrote:
| I'd like to think someone in future would read my kindle books
| and see the notes I've made on certain paragraphs.
| Pfhortune wrote:
| That would be possible in a sane world, but in this world, we
| have DRM
| leptons wrote:
| If you had a record player, your kid could explore all the
| vinyl you claim to have (but never play?). I think that
| experience would be a lot more valuable for a kid than some
| "NFC cards".
| rhinoceraptor wrote:
| If your inkjet printer has the right tray, you can buy printable
| CD-Rs for about 25 cents a piece in bulk. And somewhat unrelated,
| I've also been printing out a lot more of the photos I take.
|
| I got a Canon PRO-100 printer for $25 off of Facebook
| marketplace, they practically gave them away with higher end
| DSLRs so they're easy to get second hand, and a set of generic
| ink cartridges is about $15. With generic ink and generic photo
| paper, you can do a 13x19 prints for about 50 cents each. It's
| not archival grade printing, but it's pretty good and affordable.
| geluso wrote:
| Awesome album picks. Odelay looks especially great on your card.
|
| I made something like this for TV shows and movies using floppy
| disks. Each floppy has a text file with filepaths of videos on a
| hard drive. When the floppy is inserted a bash script detects it
| and plays a random video from the text file on the floppy.
|
| I like the physicality of systems like this. It is much more
| satisfying to to flick through physical items than to scroll
| through a digital list of things.
|
| You've got great artwork. I need to up the artwork on my floppys!
|
| There's a demo video in my repo:
| https://github.com/geluso/floppy-vision
| Nursie wrote:
| It's an interesting toy, but I wonder if this isn't someone
| trying to hold back the tides of modernity by making their kids
| appreciate music the way they did.
|
| AFAICT most of the old musical tribes we used to arrange
| ourselves into are a bit of a thing of the past
| (punks/goths/greebos/grunge/indie kids/ravers/etc), and kids
| don't build their identities around music taste any more, because
| music is no longer so much of a scarce commodity.
|
| Sometimes things just change...
|
| That said, as a fun tech project, definitely cool.
| jordanf wrote:
| Hi, I'm the "someone". It's me trying to have fun and do
| something special for my kids, hoping to find more shared
| connection with them.
| Fuzzwah wrote:
| I did a similar project... <checks date of yt video... oh my I'm
| old> 13 years ago. I haven't used it in some time, but I really
| do miss the visual aspect of selecting what to listen to...
| you've inspired me to get it rigged up again. Thanks.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwyq2xqjHW0
|
| My hacky solution, which is obviously way out of date and a bit
| specialised to my situation (in that I use kodi to play my music)
| is over here: https://github.com/Fuzzwah/xbmc-rfid-music
| Vaslo wrote:
| I had a huge music collection of everything from thrash and death
| metal to new age and 80s. I don't miss those days at all. I can't
| tell you how many times I bought cds for one song and the rest of
| thing was garbage. When you're a teen without a job or working to
| pay things like car insurance, gas etc, that 17 bucks was
| precious. No record store would let you return shit albums where
| I live.
|
| Now I have all the music I'll ever want for a low monthly fee,
| and I've discovered genres I would have never splurged for
| because of the limited resources I had at the time. My son does
| tons of music discovery through Spotify that I could have never
| done and doesn't have to plop down 17 bucks for only 12-13 songs,
| 11-12 of which might be utter garbage.
| specproc wrote:
| This reminds me of the present I came up with for a mate's 40th.
|
| I ran up a bunch of playlists on Spotify, pulled them down with
| spotdl, burned them to CDs, ran up some album art, and slapped QR
| codes linking to the playlists on the back. Was super fun.
| larusso wrote:
| I really like the idea. I also grew up in a household with tons
| of physical media to explore. I still have my blue ray collection
| but it's mainly sitting in the shelf because I honestly don't
| know what else to put there.
|
| But I'm wondering reading all the comments from people doing
| something similar with alternative products etc how they do this
| legally? I mean I can't just download stuff from Apple Music and
| play it offline on some random player. Same with most other
| streaming providers. Or are you accepting the greyzone here by
| saying you pay for the service so it doesn't matter? Or are you
| happily buying all the content on some other medium / drm free
| stores to put them on these alternatives players? I specifically
| mean solutions where one needs some form of copy of the files.
| ozim wrote:
| There are still legitimate options to buy media and download
| mp3.
| larusso wrote:
| Yes I know. But audiobooks bought are way more expensive than
| getting them from audible with the credit system over the
| course of one year for instance. I used to buy my albums
| rather than having a streaming service subscription. But I
| sadly caved in. I just wonder if all who report they do this
| for they kids etc really go out and buy all these great
| records and audiobooks etc. because for me there is a reason
| to have a subscription. An album on iTunes costs roughly
| 10EUR. For that I can listen a whole month to whatever album.
| Sure the album is somewhat mine when I purchase it
| (definitely when bought on a physical medium). At the moment
| I purchase my favorite movies digital even though I could
| watch them on Netflix and co.
| oneeyedpigeon wrote:
| It seems to me like this is more about nostalgia than
| current music. I'm considering doing something similar with
| my cd collection which is original from the 90s/00s with
| some back catalogue 60s-90s stuff thrown in. I listen to
| most modern music via streaming, but still buy the odd new
| release album that really matters to me (literally one or
| two a year).
| IanCal wrote:
| I've ripped a bunch of cds which I think is not technically
| legal here but I have no moral issue, an we'd bought some.
|
| Other than that with setups like music assistant you can stream
| from these services, it's just a different trigger. I know
| that's not quite what you asked but it's a clean solution to
| play on the speakers you'd already stream on.
| squigz wrote:
| Why get hung up on the legality of something like this,
| assuming you're just going to use it for personal use in your
| home?
|
| It's not morally wrong to take music you pay for and use it in
| a perfectly reasonable - and fun - way.
| larusso wrote:
| Well because at least from a German perspective one can get
| in lots of troubles when going the non legal way. Of course
| the question is how you do it etc etc. my question was if in
| fact people go the greyzone or start to purchase from
| alternative sources instead of using streaming services.
| fireinsnow wrote:
| I use Apple Music and have made a very similar setup to the
| article. Instead of the NFC pointing to a Plex URL, I have it
| trigger an Automation to play the relevant album on Apple
| Music. Works well, plays instantly, feels magical, and most of
| all it's got rid of the 'what should I listen to' friction so I
| now find my home is filled with music way more often. Downside
| of this approach is it only works on my own phone.
|
| This article (not mine) explains the Apple Music/Automation
| approach - https://hicks.design/journal/moo-card-player
| trn217 wrote:
| Very cool! (I would suggest not showing your kids face on the web
| though)
| torvald wrote:
| I've been thinking about the same, but use old cassette tapess
| and just print a small QR code on the back, then rip out the
| intestines on an old cassette player and put in a raspi and
| camera to read the QR and play the equivalent song/album.
| AlecSchueler wrote:
| I feel something the same but actually feel the CD and records
| generations missed out on a lot as well, not that music was a
| formless thing but that it was disembodied, appearing from
| plastic discs and dumb speakers.
|
| With my daughter I'm trying to just have much more music in the
| house, instruments laying around, singing and teaching her
| traditional songs and making them up together. I don't really
| worry about her not sitting around choosing between the Stones or
| the Beatles, as long as she's developing her own relationship
| with music.
| Gud wrote:
| Very good point!
| andai wrote:
| The next phase of this process is that generations which will
| experience music telepathically will be extremely nostalgic for
| music perceived by means of vibrating the air in the living
| room.
| jordanf wrote:
| i love this take
| sdenton4 wrote:
| Already there's a transition from bass (which you can feel in
| your body) to hearing music through tiny earbuds...
| roomey wrote:
| You can also buy a cheap cd player and some CDs from a second
| hand store
| Atlas667 wrote:
| Nice! I did this as well, but with python. Wanted to detach a bit
| more from the machine.
|
| Made a python script that uses nfcpy to connect to an nfc reader
| and triggers vlc player through python-vlc. I think its
| nfc_player on github.
| royletron wrote:
| Meh I feel like this sort of misses the point. It's very cool
| technically but if the aim is to bring back a sense of connection
| to music then I'd say the execution is way off.
|
| Music stores are struggling, if they go all that'll be left is
| Amazon and Spotify...
|
| Here's my tip. Buy your kid a CD walkman, go to a music store
| once a month and give them a budget. If they're lost help them
| get started. If they make a choice they don't like then most
| stores will offer trade in. Eventually they'll even form a
| relationship with the store workers (shout at to Mark in Truck)
| who will give more recommendations. My son's even started
| listening to radio to get more inspiration and we pumped all of
| our money into the local economy...
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| My friend's slightly less geeky approach was just to rebuy a lot
| of his classic albums on CD that he'd previously sold, which his
| daughters seem to enjoy at about half the age of the one in the
| story.
|
| Possibly bossing their dad around to do the actual disc insertion
| is part of the fun at that age.
|
| As someone who borrows books from the library rather than buys
| them (partly as an added motivation to actually read them within
| a set timeframe) I have similar thoughts about my bookshelves
| that mostly contain gifted books.
| pachico wrote:
| This is so great!
|
| On one hand, I love the possibility of having millions of albums
| at your disposal via streaming services. On the other hand, I
| hate having to type or click to select them (voice recognition
| just doesn't work).
|
| Yours seems to be the best combination.
|
| Congratulations!!!
| jordanf wrote:
| thank you for the comment
| mieses wrote:
| Poor kids forced to listen to the pop music of their dad's youth
| derwiki wrote:
| That's how I was raised. The Lion Sleeps Tonight, Summer in The
| City, Mr Bass Man.. good music is good music, no matter the
| genre or time period.
| jordanf wrote:
| haha. no one is forcing my kids to listen to my music. also,
| you think YHF is pop music...?
| oytis wrote:
| In Berlin someone made it a real product. Not sure whether there
| was any commercial success.
|
| https://www.red-dot.org/project/moodplay-64498
| MedAzizBenSalem wrote:
| It's this gorgeous mixing of innovation and nostalgia. I love how
| you tied the haptic joy of finding music with modern tech the NFC
| + PlexAmp partnership. It's amazing how streaming gave music to
| everyone's fingertips but reduced it to something less personal,
| and your solution restores that sense of ownership and ritual.
| I'd love to see this be a bit of an open source kit or community
| project I suspect lots of parents and music nerds would leap at
| it.
| IanCal wrote:
| I built a scanner with a nfc reader and esphome, and I made some
| 3d printed things to stick the tags on - the kids love them. I
| originally partly did this as not all songs play well when asked
| for on a smart speaker. I know all these are safe and I can put
| playlists on them too.
| reboot81 wrote:
| Was thinking of a way to recreate MTV for my daugther, for the
| same reason - to explore and discover outside the algo bubble on
| social media.
| jordanf wrote:
| recreating MTV or a mid-90s alt-rock radio station for our kids
| would be a really fun little project.
| kilroy123 wrote:
| I did this by pulling down lots of videos from YouTube. Then,
| using this app https://www.quasitv.app to make an "MTV"
| channel.
|
| It's pretty cool to have an all-day station on.
| emsign wrote:
| I remember going to the flea market with my dad discovering new
| music by buying old vinyl records just by liking the cover art or
| because I've vaguely heard about the band. How times have changed
| even though t=ose flea markets with records still exist today.
| paffdragon wrote:
| I love this, and so many good projects mentioned in the comments
| too. My son just turned three and we still have a real CD player
| that we use, sometimes, but now often it's streaming from Spotify
| or NAS. I was just thinking about how to do something similar,
| thanks for the inspiration
| crazygringo wrote:
| First of all, this is super super cool. I love these cards, and
| how he's doing this for his son.
|
| But it also makes me sad when people write things like:
|
| > _My 10-year-old doesn 't have that. Music just sort of...
| happens. It's like it's infinite and invisible at the same time,
| playing from smart speakers, car stereos, my phone. Endless
| perfectly curated playlists, designed to fade into the
| background. The default listening experience has become both
| literally and figuratively formless._
|
| That doesn't match my experience with Spotify, for example. By
| using things like related artists and radio stations based on an
| obscure track I've discovered, I've been able to become far more
| intentional about my listening and discover _far_ more music than
| I ever could when I was younger.
|
| And music that "happens" and "fades into the background" isn't
| anything new. That's what analog radio has been for as long as
| most of us have been alive. Only with far, far, far less choice.
|
| So I love this project -- aesthetically it's super cool and it
| demonstrates a lot of love. I just wish the author wasn't trying
| to paint this narrative that the "default listening experience"
| is somehow getting worse. It's not. It's better than it's ever
| been.
| jordanf wrote:
| do you have children? :)
| adamors wrote:
| I don't agree, endless music from faceless artists have made
| everything weightless and interchangeable, the never ending
| stream of recommended artists means that clicking next is more
| exciting than actually listening to something.
|
| I remember 15-20 years ago, every album (even digital album)
| meant something, I remember trading CDs and MP3s with friends
| and listening to an album (or even a song) over and over again.
| Now we're spoiled for choice and very, very few artists produce
| something that will be remembered in 10 years, let alone 5.
| lxgr wrote:
| The other thing that has happened over the past 15-20 years
| is that you've aged as much, though.
|
| I remember being very excited about my favorite band
| releasing a new record when I was a teenager. Not that I
| don't enjoy that today at all, but I feel like the difference
| can be explained by my having heard dozens of more great
| albums since then much better than by the shift from physical
| to virtual media.
|
| Looking at today's teenagers, I am not concerned about them
| not appreciating individual songs and artists enough. (If
| anything, I'd argue the opposite!)
| crazygringo wrote:
| I feel like you're describing some strange alternate
| universe. I genuinely don't understand what you're talking
| about.
|
| Faceless artists? Artists have dedicated followings with
| fanbases where they interact more than ever before.
| Weightless and interchangeable? Artist's personalities are
| more distinct and individual than ever.
|
| You think people don't listen to albums anymore? That they're
| "clicking next" rather than listening? Do you actually _know_
| anybody who likes music? I think you might not actually be in
| touch with today 's music scene.
| autoexec wrote:
| > Faceless artists? Artists have dedicated followings with
| fanbases where they interact more than ever before.
|
| Not so much these days. Especially on streaming platforms
| where countless tracks that get pushed on listeners are
| recorded by anonymous session musicians whose works are
| sometimes put out under an assigned name for that singe
| track, then they get assigned a new name for the next track
| they put out. Even worse, a lot of music on Spotify and
| Apple Music are 100% AI generated tracks. Literally
| faceless.
|
| > You think people don't listen to albums anymore? That
| they're "clicking next" rather than listening?
|
| Many aren't even "clicking next". They're just taking
| whatever comes next over their speakers and letting their
| streaming platform decide for them what they're hearing.
| crazygringo wrote:
| Of course faceless artists _exist_ if that 's what you're
| actively seeking. And sure some people are putting on AI-
| generated tracks in the background while they study or
| whatever.
|
| But that's not representative. Regular people who like
| regular real-life artists continue to listen to them, the
| same as they always have.
|
| And I don't know anybody who outsources their music
| tastes entirely to e.g. Spotify. Like, you have to
| actually pick a playlist or something. You have to make
| _some_ choice. And like I said, people have been "just
| taking whatever comes next over their speakers" by
| _listening to the radio_ for many, many decades.
|
| You're commenting as if something has changed for the
| worse in the past 15-20 years. It hasn't. It's only
| gotten better in terms of real music. And if you don't
| like the AI slop, _don 't listen to it_.
| squigz wrote:
| > very, very few artists produce something that will be
| remembered in 10 years, let alone 5.
|
| So... like most artists of any type since forever?
| mihaaly wrote:
| You are right.
|
| Children today can be as conscious music listeners as we, who
| collected and sought out music of our own in our youth in the
| 80' and 90'. Or as unfastidious as those listening to top chart
| hits exclusively (including both Mike Oldfield and Milli
| Vanilli, whichever is in the top) in our childhood.
|
| Two, possibly related anocdote.
|
| My goddaughter is 12. She is in a revolting phase where
| difficult to find way to her heart. But we are on the same
| wavelength and can engage in hours and hours of excited
| conversation (we are 40 years apart btw.) about music beacuse
| she listens to those I listened when I was in her age or more.
| "Today's music sucks", she argues, and we share playlists.
| Actually I am able to show her those do not suck today but
| rarely found because you have to broese similar atrists of a
| similar artist from somthing you found by accident as a
| background music of a movie. These kind of discovery through
| huge music databases is great! About the same good as being
| lost in a huge vinyl/cd shop. You cannot touch, but you can
| listen!
|
| Another is just interesting, and a reflection to the "todays
| music suck" kind of oversimplification. But also to how young
| people can discover their own music. Once in Germany waiting
| for a tram a loud group of graduating high school student like
| figures came by shouting the refrain of '99 Luftbalons' while
| it was playing from an uncomfortably loud boombox. I could not
| stop smiling thinking of them. : )
| MarkBagh wrote:
| What's your approach to expanding his collection - do you add
| cards based on what he gravitates toward, or do you intentionally
| introduce "bridge" artists to expand his palette?
| jordanf wrote:
| we'll see! probably both. for example, he likes Weezer's Blue
| Album, so I'll introduce him to Wowee Zowee next. I just want
| him to stay engaged.
| pedrogpimenta wrote:
| Im not OP but i have a player for my kids which is basically
| the same. I do both. Sometimes I introduce songs and we talk
| about it, other times they hear something somewhere and ask me
| for it.
| Western0 wrote:
| I don't understand this concept. Can you show me how it works?
| Does it work on a stereo tower or only on a desktop PC with
| Linux?
| throwpoaster wrote:
| See Yoto for the non-DIY product version.
| NoraCodes wrote:
| I've done something similar, for myself. I have a Tangara [1],
| which despite being quirky and expensive, I really love. It has
| an SD card slot, and while SD cards aren't as cheap as NFC tags,
| you can get hundreds from AliExpress for $1 each. I put one or
| two albums or a short mixtape on each one, and make a label for
| it myself. I don't use streaming services anyway, but now,
| instead of having music on my phone, I have a big box of SD cards
| I can physically arrange, choose from, and take with me. It also
| means that notification sounds never intrude on my listening
| experience.
|
| 1: https://cooltech.zone/tangara/
| browningstreet wrote:
| This reminds me of how frustrated I am that none of the music
| streaming services allow playlists of albums.
| liendolucas wrote:
| This has to be one of the coolest, near zero cost projects I've
| seen in a while. KUDOS to the author for the simplicity and
| creativity found on those cards!
| jordanf wrote:
| thank you!
| sigmonsays wrote:
| I started thinking about how to build this at one point but never
| got around to it. i've thought about doing this with QR code
| stickers, but the NFC approach might be nicer.
| zacharycohn wrote:
| I built a similar project! https://github.com/zacharycohn/jukebox
|
| My jewel cases have not survived contact with my 2 year old, and
| I've been idly thinking about more robust solutions.
| variegated_mons wrote:
| I love this. I have had a similar project on my todo list for
| about a decade. My intent was to just use album art image
| recognition though. That way you could queue up streaming service
| music using actual physical media or using printed card
| facsimiles which would be even more accessible without the need
| to include NFC.
| mft_ wrote:
| Nice project, but It's interesting how differently one's
| formative experiences makes this subject seem.
|
| As someone who grew up in a household in a small village, brought
| up by parents whose music collection was 99% classical music and
| who actively fought the influence of modern/US-centric culture,
| and with limited personal money (a typical album would have been
| ~1.5 month's pocket money) the current world of Youtube, Spotify,
| et al is a utopia.
|
| I wish I'd had the problem of infinitely available music. :)
| ct0 wrote:
| There is a similar children's toy called Yoto that uses cards to
| load stories and songs on a player. I love the idea of hacking
| something together, this is really cool !
| fladd wrote:
| This is really nice! I also feel that the same way about how
| music, and especially the concept of an album, has lost its value
| in times of streaming due to giving up ownership, having access
| to everything, over-using playlists, and the absence of the
| visual art (i.e. packaging/booklet/liner notes) that used to
| accompany albums (and also compilations/EPs/single releases) when
| they were still physical entities.
|
| A few years ago I made Zipped Album [1] as an attempt to solve
| this purely in the software domain by slightly changing the way
| we store and consume digitally owned (i.e. bought and downloaded
| vs. streamed) music. It contains a proposal for a simple single-
| file music album format that incorporates visual art [2], and an
| example cross-platform player for it that (hopefully)
| demonstrates how this can promote a more (inter)active/conscious
| listening experience [3].
|
| [1] https://zipped-album.github.io/ [2]
| https://github.com/zipped-album/zlbm [3]
| https://github.com/zipped-album/zap
| gambiting wrote:
| I mean that's super cool, but faced with the same problem I just
| bought a second hand Sony CD player off ebay and lots of discs,
| people sell them for nothing because no one wants a collection of
| CDs anymore.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2025-10-11 23:00 UTC)