Recommend an MP3 player for elderly person with no tech skills?

April 1, 2020 6:31 PM

I'd like to get a very, very basic media playback device to give to my grandma during quarantine, so I can provide her podcasts, radio stories, things in her native language, etc. to entertain her. However, she is extremely poor with technology; she frequently has issues with even the radio on her bose alarm clock.

I have a voice-recording device that has a speaker which I could upload files to and provide for her, but I think it's too complicated. Even an ipod would be too complicated, since it has menus, etc. I'm thinking of a device which literally has a power button, a play/pause, and forward/back. Maybe an iPod shuffle, but I haven't used one before so I'm not sure it fits the bill. Any recommendations?

posted by unid41 to Technology (11 answers total)

We did something similar with an echo dot and Spotify. The recipient eventually figured out how to use voice commands, but until they did they would call me and make a request. I could then open it in Spotify and tell it to play on their device. It was also nice to hear from them a few times a day, it might make you both feel less isolated with that constant check in communication.
posted by dstopps at 6:45 PM on April 1, 2020

Response by poster: I left out a key fact - they do not have internet access. I assume this rules out the echo and Spotify?
posted by unid41 at 6:46 PM on April 1, 2020

It would indeed.
posted by dstopps at 7:20 PM on April 1, 2020

Something like this would be literally as simple as possible. She could just advance through the 'songs' (or podcasts or whatever you loaded) with the one button. I bet there are other ones like it, maybe cheaper, if you looked around under 'memory care' products. simple music player
posted by Northbysomewhatcrazy at 8:00 PM on April 1, 2020 [1 favorite]

I’ve tried to do this several times and failed. I liked the simple UI of agptek or old iPod nano’s, but that wasn’t enough.

Unexpected failures include :
confusion about how to recharge the battery and how often. It took me a while to figure out that “it broke” meant the battery had been murdered.
Actual hardware failure, either because of the $20 price point, or snapping off a usb jack with hand tremors.
Confusion about stop vs pause vs power off vs restart playlist. seemingly random restarts (because you did the wrong stop) make books on tape or albums less fun.
Confusion about progress through a file vs position in playlist. This prevents recovery when you do the wrong thing.

I tried using an iPhone and the pretty good audible app, but got stuck when the user exited the app and couldn’t restart.

The one thing that worked was burning cds full of mp3s that they could play in the car or on a Bose desktop all in one. It still didn’t work for books.

For my next try, I think I would buy a small boom box that played mp3s, glue a different plastic animal on each button (because they all default to inscrutable black on black), and to write a script that interleaves each track with a recording of me saying “track N”. Then they could write down how many times to press the pig to get back where they were.
posted by unknown knowns at 8:44 PM on April 1, 2020 [2 favorites]

Missed the edit window. If you like maker projects, there are several raspberry pi plus NFC card solutions .like this That allow placing a large object on the PI in order to select the thing to be played.
posted by unknown knowns at 8:52 PM on April 1, 2020

Ive explored this issue for my aging parents and relatives, and found it really surprising there is a scarcity of music products that are foolproof and dead simple (don't even get me started on cell phones) Any portable mp3 player is way too fiddly, and the screen is too small, a tablet would have too many options, and I found touch screens are a challenge.

I did see some products on the internet, like this instabox that lets you plug in usb/sd card full of mp3s, additionally, they can just 'turn it on' and it will start playing. I ran into issues if the battery ran out, or if they did a total shutdown, the default 'mode' wouldnt be 'usb' so the user wouldnt know how to get their music back.

I even tried experimenting with a car stereo touch screen in a wooden box, as they are 'instant on' and simple interface, but the touch screen, and, like the instabox, if they navigate away or power down completely, they would lose their 'place' and would need to navigate to the correct mode.

There has been some media players for backseats, that might be more geared towards media play, rather than a regular car stereo function.

Something I havent tried is installing some kind of launcher on a android tablet, locking them into a dead simple music app (which i havent found), along with it 'rebooting' every day so if they get 'stuck' they can just wait for the reboot.

The NFC method with a Pi seems like a great idea, not sure if would withstand daily use, and if it would be susceptible to locking up, os corruption etc.
posted by edman at 10:16 PM on April 1, 2020

Is an old iPhone hooked up to speakers with a prepaid SIM that would allow Siri to work an option? You can get data only plans pretty cheap these days in many areas.
posted by Candleman at 10:55 PM on April 1, 2020

No Internet provides an opportunity to go low tech.
Remember portable CD players? Cheap, on/off play/stop.
Send her updates by mail (does she still get postal service? perhaps bundle an initial library), along with a note that includes a track list.
Label the CDs with a marker - this one is an audiobook, this one is Dance Music, etc.
Rather than voice commands and bluetooth pairing, if she figured out how to work a gramophone, she can figure out 'choose disc, insert, play'. Picks up reading glasses, looks at note, skips to track 6 for the thing she wants.
Send both headphones and some headphone-jack compatible speakers. If you can find a model that plugs in with a wall wart, send that. If not, send an AA battery charger with four batteries, so one set is always charging.
posted by bartleby at 12:12 AM on April 2, 2020 [1 favorite]

Oh, and since CDS are old, your computer might not have a CD drive. You can get USB accessory ones for pretty cheap, and a stack of blank CDS too. Assemble a list of MP3 files, write to CD drive, label. Mail grandma her weekly mix of songs and stories.
posted by bartleby at 12:27 AM on April 2, 2020

Look up “senior MP3 player”; also look up Jooki (a portable kid player which allows you to load mp3s of any type and play five different playlists which are activated by placing different color figurines on the device; [it can also stream Bluetooth but I think that’s not relevant for your needs] i’ve used one and it’s pretty awesome); though it’s bigger in scope than what you mention I also recommend Grandpad, which can provide music and video chat to seniors, I believe can use its own cell data, and has amazing customer service
posted by hungrytiger at 1:31 PM on April 2, 2020 [1 favorite]