Simple Radio and MP3 player for 70 year olds?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Deleted member 68110
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Deleted member 68110

Deleted member 68110

The short version:-

What easy-to-use radio and MP3 player should my parents get.

The long version:-

My parents have had a Roberts digital radio and iPod dock for the last several years.

They roped some poor schmuck into converting all their CDs to MP3 format. These were put on an iPod, and the idea was that they could use the Roberts to listen to those and to the radio.

In practice the iPod screen proved too small for them to read and use properly, and the radio controls were vague and insensitive.

The whole project was a bit of a failure.

Now the machine appears to have bitten the dust.

What replaces it?

I started off thinking that something controlled by a simple tablet might be a good idea, but I'm worried this will be too complicated.

Thanks for any input.
 
Interesting question -
Do they already adeptly use any computers/tablets ?
if so, then does a subscription to spotify, plus a chromecast audio device, connected on audio in of radio/tv, work ?
spotify must have refined their user interface for all age bands.
... but if they listen to bbc mp3 downloads, or want portability in the house, it may not help; a smart tv may have spotify too.
 
jpaul said:
Interesting question -
Do they already adeptly use any computers/tablets ?
if so, then does a subscription to spotify, plus a chromecast audio device, connected on audio in of radio/tv, work ?
spotify must have refined their user interface for all age bands.
... but if they listen to bbc mp3 downloads, or want portability in the house, it may not help; a smart tv may have spotify too.
Click to expand...
Their computer/tablet aptitude is, shall we say, "Mixed".
They had recently taken to listening to the radio through their smart TV already, because they found it easier than the radio/iPod dock.

I bandied a SPotify subscription and this was shot down - not quite clear why but I think they consider it too expensive/unnecessary as I think they feel they own all the music they want to listen to other than what's on the radio.

My current thinking is a SONOS, with their MP3s moved onto a Flash drive plugged into their router, and all controlled with a cheap Amazon Fire 7 tablet.

I'm wondering whether there's a way to connect the flash drive directly to the SONOS, so it isn't dependent on the wifi network.
 
Sounds a bit like a Squeezebox Radio, although they're very old now.

Point is, if a device can pull together local MP3 files and radio capability into a single screen it should be a lot easier to manage and keep working than three devices working in tandem over wifi.
 
I have something similar with my parents, but because my parents listen to songs off YouTube I bought them a bluetooth speaker.
All they do is turn the speaker on and the iPad will connect and away they go.

If say your USB is connected to your router and all the files are available, then you can have a file explorer and just do it that way?
It'd play over the bluetooth speaker
 
garnett said:
all controlled with a cheap Amazon Fire 7 tablet.
Click to expand...

so is the control of a Sonos via a tablet easy for older fingers to find songs and create a playlist.?
Personally have not yet given my folks a windows tablet (I bought nearly a year ago), I think the visual keyboard and touch interface willl not be
easy for them to use, but maybe sonos has a good app ?

Not sure if you can run plex on a fire tablet too - I am still a fan of a chromecast + active speaker which is much cheaper than a Sonos.
my folks would probably like iplayer radio catchup access too, but the BBC do not have casting for Sonos/plex afaik.
 
Yeah, a decent, mains-powered active speaker with DAB radio might also suffice.

Despite my epic Googling powers, such a thing is eluding me!
 
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