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I have loved all my Sansa MP3 players, but I find my current Sandisk Clip Jam a bit annoying for some things (very long files names; playlisting; working out wh
by DanBC 7y ago
I have loved all my Sansa MP3 players, but I find my current Sandisk Clip Jam a bit annoying for some things (very long files names; playlisting; working out what fields it sorts on and why). It won't take rockbox.
If you want a cheap device to run rockbox...
> Either develop a a player from scratch or port a subset of Rockbox (no games, FX, etc.) on a small SBC plus added display, DAC, SD and LiPo circuitry. The SBC could well be the ESP32 which would add wireless functionality; *Pi and other Linux boards would be tremendously overkill for the task. Shouldn't be that hard for skilled developers, and it would surely sell among those of us who don't want to use a cellphone.
...this feels like it's going to end up as being an expensive device. There are a bunch of other MP3 players available from companies like FIIO, Cowon, Shanling or others. Would you be able to build something that competes with these? https://www.advancedmp3players.co.uk/shop/Digital_Audio_Players.463/?sort=4a&am3sid=tc49ts9uj1l74l1mjuo8d25k80#guide_result https://www.advancedmp3players.co.uk/shop/Digital_Audio_Play...
EDIT: Thinking about it, if you had braille on the buttons and a clear simple layout you could push it to both markets: people who want a hackable MP3 player, and people who want an accessible mp3 player for things like audio books. (Which is something my Clip Jam is not great for).
- frabbit 7y agoJust looking at your link the price of those is astoundingly high. It seems like they've taken a modest tool and sought to turn it into some sort of Veblen-good by replacing plastic cases and mechanical buttons with high res touchscreens and aluminum cases. The rockbox-compatible sansas (and earlier cowons) were: 1. cheap (circa 30 bucks) 2. very small (I just measured my Clip Zip as: 5cm x 3cm x 1cm ) 3. very light 4. has an SD slot (I don't know its max supported size but 32GB works fine for my audiobooks) 5. is easily flashable with rockbox
- benologist 7y agoThere's a lot of funky semi-open handheld retro gaming devices that might repurpose if you're into buttons - https://obscurehandhelds.com/ https://obscurehandhelds.com/
- squarefoot 7y agoThe very cheap Odroid GO, once fitted with stereo DAC and headphone jack, would make a nice platform to build an audio player. Surely not the smallest around, but good enough to generate interest to make a smaller version. https://www.hardkernel.com/shop/odroid-go/ https://www.hardkernel.com/shop/odroid-go/