device to stream music via bluetooth (but not a phone!)

[Gilesyb27]

Hi all,
Forgive me if this is an utterly luddite question......
We stream music from our phones/tablets to our Sonos speakers, amazon prime music subscription so can play (pretty much) whatever we want, whenever we want. Our Son (9) would now like to play his own music in his bedroom which we are keen to accomodate but not to the point of allowing him a fully functional phone or tablet for his sole use. He currently has a DAB radio that we can stream music to via bluetooth, so my question is, does a device exist for logging into amazon music, selecting some tunes and then stream them to the radio over bluetooth?

MP3 players seem to rely on downloading rather than streaming? tablets would come with a degree of internet access that we dont want yet. personal assistants (ie voice activated google type things) rely on him knowing what to ask it to play, rather than being able to peruse a selection?

Any help much appreciated!

[pje16]

Try an Amazon firestick
https://www.alphr.com/play-music-amazon-fire-tv-stick/
https://www.frugallivingnw.com/what-is- ... -tv-stick/
ticks some of the boxes for you

[Infrasonic]

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/help/custom ... _search_rd
I don't know what they are like for music playback but wouldn't a cheap Fire tablet from Amazon with the parental controls switched on fit the bill?...https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/help/custom ... F5V2T8XUX8

There's also freemium third party DNS services like NetxDNS with filtering so you could lock down internet access options for kids on PC's/Phones/Tablets...
https://nextdns.io/

[Gerry557]

Tablet or laptop or PC or chromecast

[BobbyD]

MP3 players seem to rely on downloading rather than streaming? tablets would come with a degree of internet access that we dont want yet. personal assistants (ie voice activated google type things) rely on him knowing what to ask it to play, rather than being able to peruse a selection?

Any help much appreciated!

An Amazon dot would probably work. No screen which fulfills some of your requirements but makes 'browsing impossible', on the other hand you can tell it what sort of music to play and then ask it what it is playing when it plays something which peaks his interest then have it play more by that artist. I mean surely browsing music with your ears is better than browsing music with your eyes? Would also open up audible for audiobooks.

You can still pick up the last version on ebay for around £25.

[JessUK98]

Something like Amazon's Alexa? You can link your music accounts to it (I have Amazon, Spotify and Apple Music linked to mine). He won't be able to browse music but should be able to say something like "Alexa play some happy music".

My 4 y/o has difficulty making my Alexa understand him, but pretty sure a 9 y/o should cope.

[servodude]

If you have an android tablet or old phone have a look on the web for how to set up "kiosk" mode

There are a couple of ways to do it - the easiest being just "pinning" the app you want him to have access to
- but you can also add software that will give you more control (e.g. allowing a few apps)


- sd

[formoverfunction]

I sometimes link a Raspberry Pi to a speaker like this and play podcasts through it.

My main music set up is Volumio on a Pi using a DAC and speakers, but I do have a second Pi running JStock that I also use as a pod-catcher, RNS/RSS catcher and general back ground task device.

That one doesn't have any speakers, as JStock is set up to send notifications via gmail, so I play some podcasts through a speaker via bluetooth, but mainly transfer them to a cheap mp3 player or pick them up to play on my laptop.

[WilliamRobertson]

You can try the iPod touch. With a subscription and a Wi-Fi connection, you can stream music from the Apple Music app using an iPod touch. Through Bluetooth connection, you can use your speakers with an iPod touch. Now that the iPod touch has been discontinued, there is not much software available for download. Don’t worry about your children downloading too many entertainment apps. You can also try to download songs with AMusicSoft Apple Music Converter and keep them on iPod touch, so you don’t need to open the Apple Music app or subscribe to Apple Music to play it anymore!

[xeny]

MP3 players seem to rely on downloading rather than streaming? tablets would come with a degree of internet access that we dont want yet. personal assistants (ie voice activated google type things) rely on him knowing what to ask it to play, rather than being able to peruse a selection?

I'd wonder about the Echo with the 5" screen. You can ask it to play genres from Amazon or a free Spotify account, and it displays the artist and track name, so he should be able to find things he likes. You can also ask it to play "Roxette radio" for example from Spotify and it plays a pre-prepared playlist with a mixture of the named artist and similar material, so you browse, but browse by listening.

Spotify will let you play on a remote device, so there's nothing to stop him building a list of music in a supervised web browser, and then sending it to play on the Echo.

I suspect anything smart enough to offer a track browsing interface, will be smart enough to browse the web more generally.