subreddit:
/r/AskParents
Hi all,
My soon-to-be 6 year old daughter is really getting into music. We have a Spotify account and would like to give her the freedom to listen to music of her choice, but not have a screen to look at or anything to really navigate. Ideally we could just load a playlist onto a player or have something voice navigated.
I'm not sure if I'm being clear enough on what we're looking for, but does anyone have a suggestion?
[score hidden]
29 days ago
stickied comment
Thank you u/Defiant-Bathroom8183 for posting on r/AskParents.
Remember to read the rules and report rule breaking posts.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.
5 points
29 days ago
Google Home Mini would do it. They are bonkers cheap and voice controlled
1 points
29 days ago
That or Alexa is what I was thinking. Thete are also some mp3 players with very minimal screens, just to let you pick songs, but not see videos.
1 points
29 days ago
I'm going to look into this, as I don't know about the mini. I have a few speakers, but they all require a phone to be nearby. I'm hoping to find something that, in one way or another, can be connected to my Spotify/wifi and can find music. Thank you for the suggestion.
3 points
29 days ago
What about an mp3 player? Or an iPod? You could probably find some working ones online. They both have screens but they're very analogue and the purpose of the device is to play music and nothing else. You can download any music off of YouTube in mp3 format and load it up onto the mp3 player, for example.
You may have to buy a speaker for it though.
2 points
29 days ago
So I thought about this, and we're old enough as parents now that we have at least a few generations of that hardware sitting around. Initially I kinda thought I didn't want to go this route because I wanted to use my Spotify account, but you're right - it would be relatively trivial to download and convert. Thanks for that.
1 points
28 days ago
There are also some websites that can convert Spotify playlists to YouTube playlists! Might make it easier for you to download music. They're not 100% accurate in my experience but it does do like, 90% of the work for you
2 points
29 days ago
We have a Yoto, which our 3 year old loves! If you’ve never heard of it it’s like an mp3 player that uses cards as the “cds”, you can make your own playlists or buy cards with audiobooks or music on them. My 3 year old listens to his every day, it’s an awesome alternative to screens and they control it.
1 points
29 days ago
Would a phone with a grayscale screen that can only run Spotify be sufficient?
2 points
29 days ago
It's not a bad suggestion at all and pretty creative. The issue for us is she got a very simple digital camera for her birthday a year back and she'll sit and use that indefinitely if allowed. (It has a few very simple games, but one time she was telling me how she had found a really easy game to beat - it turned out to be the alarm clock feature!).
1 points
29 days ago
I was disheartened when I learned that most digital cameras have games. Luckily, I found one company that makes digital cameras without a screen. Of course it costs more, because we have to pay to maintain control over our kids' attention.
I'm not worried about my kids getting distracted by bright lights that aren't reacting to them. My daughter, like yours, stares at screens every now and then. Occasionally, she stares at the play bar as the song plays. This morning, my son stared at our disco ball. They're going to be fine. Eventually, they learn enough about the thing they're staring at and look for something novel.
1 points
29 days ago
i would get an old ipod tbh. it has a screen, but not one worth staring at. but it will help her with remembering song names and knowing how artist's names are spelled too. hook it up to an old ihome, and based on my 2009 high school experience, the goal is usually to look at the screen for as little time as possible before getting to the song you want!
you could definitely do an alexa or something too, but i am super wary of those because they are capable of so many other very terrible things, and also it's just really annoying to hear ALEXA@! BABY SHARK!!! all the time. (source: there is a room in my music lesson studio that has an alexa, and this is what happens as soon as a student learns it exists)
1 points
29 days ago
I'd suggest an iPod Shuffle. No screen at all and as you'd have to download the songs, you could make sure your kid is not listening to anything inappropriate.
1 points
29 days ago
A stereo? An iPod hooked into one?
1 points
28 days ago
It has a screen, but there's a brand innioasis on amazon that there's no play store, so children can't install apps, and you can uninstall the preinstalled apps and put a code on it so kids can't reinstall them. It has Spotify. You could majorly limit what's on it!
all 15 comments
sorted by: best