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An NFC movie library for my kids
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- gus_massa 2y agoI have two small kids and this project looks amazing! Anyway, I have to ask: Is it possible to make a similar project for Netflix and/or YouTube?
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- Belphemur 2y agoFrom the article The Apple TV also supports deep links for other services. Here are examples for the biggest streaming services: Netflix (use the regular URL): https://www.netflix.com/title/80234304 Disney+ (use regular URL): https://www.disneyplus.com/movies/coco/db9orsI5O4gC YouTube (use the regular URL with https:// replaced by youtube://) Single video: youtube://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ah3ezprtgmc Playlist: youtube://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v=FkUn86bH34M&list=PLzvRQMJ9HDiQF_5bEErheiAawrJ-2zQoI&pp=iAQB The only problem with these services is that they will require you to select a profile before the movie/show will start playing. With Plex, you can enable "auto login", but I haven't tried it for the other services.
- doublerabbit 2y agoAnd then the issue of when the streaming service removes the choice; the card become obsolete. Not that bad of a ordeal though.
- harshaxnim 2y agoWith only a little bit of effort you can prevent them from becoming obsolete. Most straightforward way is to just reprogram the nfc chip. Alternatively, Just add a redirector, one that maps show names/ids to the urls.
- Aditya_Garg 2y agoThat’s the easy part The annoying part is reprinting the sticker and attaching it to the card
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- aembleton 2y agoEasier to download the shows and save to your plex server. Then it'll work even if your Internet connection stops working.
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- alias_neo 2y agoJust peel off the vinyl printed sticker you attached (See OPs updated cards), and reprogram the card.
- doublerabbit 2y agoHeck, even as an adult I would enjoy something like this. I love the idea.
- xafke 2y agoOP here. Same here! I have debated making something similar for my personal music collection. I used to meticulously organize my albums in iTunes and listen to them in full. Somehow I stopped doing that with Spotify. The magic of the album is gone for me.
- illwrks 2y agoThis is great, I looked into doing something similar when my daughter was little. I didn't get very far and she learned how to use the remote control pretty quickly. I honestly think it was better for her to do it the 'old' way as she's pretty digitally savvy (for her age) than I would have expected. I remember when I was little I figured out how to use the VHS to set timers record shows etc, I think making things difficult is useful, it forces some learning to get a 'reward'.
- sfRattan 2y ago> I think making things difficult is useful, it forces some learning to get a 'reward'. I found the same growing up. But at the time (the 90s) there weren't hyperstimuli available in the form of smartphones, streaming services, or engagement-optimized algorithmic content feeds. The broadcast television that was available was often boring, or at least poorly matched to any given person's interests at a given time. We didn't have a game console at home either, so getting a game to work meant installing it on the family computer, and maybe troubleshooting problems myself. I don't know that I'd have learned as much as I did about computers at that age if such hyper-optimized things had been available to me as a kid. And I think their availability today proves that any notion of "digital natives" was a fallacy. The generation below me (Gen-Z, Zoomers?) seem to be experts at using touchscreen devices and social networks. Some of them are even flocking to text based AI games that seem intriguing. But they see computers largely as fixed appliances, and most give up pretty quickly when a computer malfunctions (whether it comes in the form of a phone, laptop, tablet, television, or something else). I now deliberately work to banish (and keep banished) as much of that algorithmically optimized hyperreality as possible out of my home and life. I feel much better without it, and always have. But I also think it's a good practice to get used to so that, if I ever have kids, it'll be the norm I pass on to their daily lives. Your first computer should require some assembly and tinkering, and digital activities which are really just skinner boxes created as lures by some or other corporation shouldn't be available to compete with more difficult, more rewarding pursuits.
- lolinder 2y ago> The generation below me (Gen-Z, Zoomers?) seem to be experts at using touchscreen devices and social networks. And, importantly, it's not that they learned the new tech fluently while millennials haven't adapted—there aren't "modern" digital skills that aren't readily learned by millennials, but there certainly are fewer Gen Z adults who have learned to fluently use the still-more-powerful keyboard-based tech that we picked up as kids.
- cynod 2y agoAh, that is really cool! I love it.. adds the tactile element back to the experience. Reminds me of this Raspberry Pi + SONOS project from a few years back: https://www.hackster.io/mark-hank/sonos-spotify-vinyl-emulator-3be63d https://www.hackster.io/mark-hank/sonos-spotify-vinyl-emulat... I actually set that system up and it was awesome! Really was cool and fun to have the little cards, look through them and then "tap" to start the album. Unfortunately I needed the Raspberry Pi for an emergency and then have never fot around to running again. I fear now, with all the SONOS fun (that has destroyed my 8 speaker setup :'( ), it won't work any more.
- bentt 2y agoThanks for sharing that! I built something similar but I was talking directly to Spotify and outputting through the RasPi. I had no idea Sonos provided an http api. I thought they were locked down. Maybe worth another go!
- legendofbrando 2y agoThis is so cool!
- wlesieutre 2y agoCool use of NFC tags! I remember seeing a similar idea with album art covering the walls, and you could hold your phone up to read an NFC tag hidden on the back to stream that album on the stereo. Looking for link EDIT - not the one I remembered but here’s one implementation https://andreasjr.com/blog/interactive-wall-of-album-art/ https://andreasjr.com/blog/interactive-wall-of-album-art/
- JansjoFromIkea 2y agoLove seeing fun ideas for NFCs, I went into a bit of a dive on NFC/RFID tech a while back after hearing about the game Dropmix (which used really cool tech I haven't seen anywhere else) and it feels like there could be so much room for fun tactile experiences with some of the protocols.
- joe8756438 2y agoThis rules, high probability I attempt to replicate. I got my 3yo a yoto, which has a similar UX but all audio, highly recommend!
- masnick 2y agoSeconded. The Yoto is great. It also supports arbitrary MP3 assignment to their NFC cards. It’s all proprietary but has been rock solid over multiple years.
- lobochrome 2y agoReally cool. But why not just have them handle the blu rays directly? Unless - you ripped them to your Plex and resold them…
- fragmede 2y agoBecause plastic disks attract scratches and kids can be rough with their toys.
- zer0zzz 2y agoThen they will have learned a valuable lesson
- xandrius 2y agoBut that's how OP did it in their youth and they seemingly grow up well. It does seem that some parts of the story is missing. Maybe it's to safeguard the blurays or maybe they never existed in the first place?
- xafke 2y agoOP here I do have all the Blurays. They're collecting dust in the garage ;) My kids are only 3 and 2. They would probably destroy the disks and the player in no-time. Also: I don't have a Bluray player connected to the TV (apart from the Playstation, which I definitely don't want them to fiddle with yet). I use an old computer to rip the discs. I might let them use the discs when they're a bit older.
- agile-gift0262 2y agoOr you store them away because once you've ripped them, you no longer need access to the physical item. So there's no point on having them using up the valuable space of the living room.
- xafke 2y agoOP here. Fair question! I have all the disks. They're in the garage gathering dust. My kids are 3 and 2, so letting them handle the disks isn't a great idea right now. Might do that one day though!
- jijji 2y agoI like the idea of restricting the time time frame duration of watching movies. I would suggest adding a electric zapper to the couch that when they try to watch movies past a certain time they get zapped at a certain voltage eliciting a negative response.
- didgeoridoo 2y agoDo you have boys? I guarantee you all mine would do is run out the clock and then he and his friend would try to push each other’s faces into the electrodes. At least it’s not screen time?
- vagrantGato 2y ago[dead]
- cr125rider 2y agoThis is so cool. I’ve struggled with getting my media setup to work with any automations to call into the Roku and link to any app, let alone app content.
- navaed01 2y agoI love this! The constraints it applies to selection + the tangible interaction gives children a sense of definitive knowledge and expectation.l and agency. Which are very good for development. Congrats, I love it!
- zer0zzz 2y agoDang, the level of engineering to recreate what is essentially a VHS
- aembleton 2y agoThe electro mechanical engineering inside a VHS player is so much more impressive.
- zer0zzz 2y agoI find so much of modern technology to be a huge step backwards. Example: People used to call friends over a land line and tell them to tune into the movie on whatever channel and they’d watch at the same time together from two different places. Doing anything like that with modern tech is such a hassle these days that no one does it anymore.
- sodality2 2y agoThis is so cool! I do something similar for music - I have posters up for albums, and a small NFC tag is embedded behind the poster, so tapping my phone to the poster’s corner and clicking the notification begins playing it immediately. I really want to make a collection of cassette-or-record-style plastic cards with album art and NFC tags, and hook it up to a speaker, so I can place my album on a pedestal and it starts playing immediately.
- SamBam 2y agoWhat app do you have on your phone to do this?
- sodality2 2y agoI use "NFC Tools" to write the URL, which I copy the album/song URL from Spotify and embed it. When I hold my phone near it, the URL appears in the notifications, and clicking it opens it in Spotify, which then starts playing it. I have a bag of 100 tags I got from a friend so no shortage there.
- fragmede 2y agohttps://apps.apple.com/us/app/nfc-tools/id1252962749 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/nfc-tools/id1252962749 is the one I use.
- sodality2 2y agoYep, that's the one! Very simple to use
- hairywalt 2y agoLove the simplicity of this. Out of interest, do you trigger just the web player or is there a URL pattern that can launch onto a specific device?
- sodality2 2y ago
- kdamica 2y agoI was just talking with my wife that that we wish there was a streaming service that made the choices more intentional and limited. Like for each show there should only be one episode available a day. This is definitely in the same spirit. Love the idea and implementation!
- freddie_mercury 2y agoIt is not as simple as some other service already set up but you might look into ErsatzTV which attempts to make streaming more like old school TV channels where you watch whatever is on at 8:30am instead of picking like at a buffet. So you could set it up so that Bluey is only on at 3pm for 30 minutes a day, or whatever. I've thought about setting it up for my kids (and wife) but haven't done it yet.
- ganoushoreilly 2y agofor anyone that's a retro gamer that plays roms / emulators etc.. there's a great project with tons of great artists making prints called TapTo. Most of the setups are with a Mister FPGA setup, but it works with pretty much any setup with a bit of tweaks. I really dig the idea and may integrate one into an arcade cabinet in the office. https://github.com/TapToCommunity/tapto https://github.com/TapToCommunity/tapto https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73Kx3jwyk0U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73Kx3jwyk0U
- djabatt 2y agoI absolutely love this project. Bravo.
- aanet 2y agoThis is such a fab project. <3 Cool electronics, simple workflow, 3D printing, and useful service! <3 <3 <3
- bluGill 2y agoIt looks cool but in my attempts to do this I've discokered it takes too much time I could spend with mx kids or catching up on sleep
- lxe 2y agoFantastic work!
- jdenning 2y agoThis is really awesome - just had my first kid, and I think I’ll do something similar. Well done OP!
- xafke 2y agoOP here. Thank you and congrats! Enjoy the ride!
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- resonious 2y agoReally awesome project. This bit made me think though: > First: you have a limited choice of movies to watch. When I was a kid, we didn't have an infinite catalog of movies to watch. Something always rubs me the wrong way with this way of thinking. "X is good because I had X when I was young." I don't necessarily disagree that X is good, but it's definitely not because you had it as a kid.
- MBCook 2y agoIt does help with decision paralysis, which can be especially hard for young kids. Not that it’s easy as an adult. You could still have a giant library and rotate cards every week or something.
- resonious 2y agoYes, plenty of good reasons to like this project. I might buy something like it if it was off the shelf.
- nolan_wyss 2y agoI personally would rather be interested in buying a "DIY kit" as a package and then build it myself as building it is the fun part (then the kids can use it) :) But I do see the potential for primary schools / kindergartens, retirement homes or any group where they occasionally have screen time. Makes choosing the next movie much more fun and no need to interact with a digital UI.
- agile-gift0262 2y agoI had the same reaction. There are many reasons why I also believe OP's solution is better than the usual having a kid use the remote to navigate Disney+. Having a curated selection instead of a near infinite catalog full of noise is one of them. Not exposing the kids to a UX optimised for retention (a.k.a. addiction) would be my main motivation though. Because I had that as a kid, would be at the bottom of the list.
- xafke 2y ago
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- declan_roberts 2y agoBrilliant idea! We do something similar for our "make your own" Yoto cards.
- MBCook 2y agoAwesome. Reminded me of Yoto, an internet radio style thing for kids that uses little NFC cards. https://us.yotoplay.com/ https://us.yotoplay.com/ Techmoan reviewed it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2mQECKOkkqk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2mQECKOkkqk Less directly was Tonies, an audio player for kids that uses NFC on Skyrim style figures to trigger stories. https://us.tonies.com/ https://us.tonies.com/ Techmoan did a video on that too (it’s how I know about both): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9RbMMJRxzw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9RbMMJRxzw
- declan_roberts 2y agoWe love our Yoto!
- MBCook 2y agoI have no use for one but after watching the video I kind of wanted one anyway.
- declan_roberts 2y agoMy wife actually liked them so much after buying them for our kids that she bought one to listen to music and podcasts around the house.
- zwirbl 2y agoThere is also this 37C3 Talk about Tonies https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNufX-tss5M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNufX-tss5M
- namdnay 2y agothere's a similar one in france: https://www.mybookinou.com https://www.mybookinou.com , they use it in nursery school
- nsteel 2y agoThere's also an RPI based version at https://github.com/MiczFlor/RPi-Jukebox-RFID https://github.com/MiczFlor/RPi-Jukebox-RFID
- hsmchoi 2y agoI always think it's great to do projects for others! I enjoyed reading your review.
- hsmchoi 2y agoProjects for others are always exciting and rewarding. Thank you for sharing your experience.
- Dig1t 2y agoThis is adorable and should be a commercial product.
- tzs 2y agoThe movies visible in the photos in the article, and their runtimes in minutes, are: 94 The Good Dinosaur 92 Trolls 98 Wall-E 88 The Lion King 103 Moana 81 Toy Story 91 Trolls World Tour 95 Inside Out 103 Frozen II 95 A Bug's Life > We have two boys, and the eldest is permitted a 30-minute TV session in the morning and another in the evening. So...if one of them wants to watch The Lion King or Toy Story they have to split it over at least 3 viewing sessions split over at least 2 days? And for anything else on that list they need to split it over at least 4 viewing sessions? That seems overly restrictive. Yes, limiting kid's TV time is probably a good idea, but would it really hurt to have some flexibility so that they can finish a movie in one session? Maybe let them bank sessions, so they can say skip morning TV for 3 days, and apply that time to the 4th day's evening to get a slot for a whole movie.
- cortesoft 2y agoEvery parent is required to say they only allow very limited screen time even if secretly they all allow quite a bit more.
- xafke 2y agoLol, kind of true! We stick to the 2x30 minutes rule for 90% of the time but we do make occasional exceptions like when they're ill. Might change when they get older though.
- vitro 2y agoWell, the nice thing about having borders is that you can allow those borders to disappear every now and then. Feels like something special for the kid!
- HippocampusLabs 2y agoHahaha, this is awesome!
- djangelic 2y agoThis is incredible! I want to replicate this at home as well, but I would prefer to use QR codes since they also support URLs. Any reason why you went with NFC instead of QR code? I assume it's doable with a raspberry pi and webcam instead of tapping?
- Double_a_92 2y agoIt's probably easier to embed an NFC tag in something child-friendly, compared to printing QR codes on something that small kids won't destroy. Also in this case (since it just laminated cards anyway) the usability is much easier. The kid just has to touch something. While with a QR it has to be positioned in a way that a camera can see and focus to it.
- xafke 2y agoOP here I actually hadn't considered QR codes. To be honest, I had some NFC tags laying around and I was desperate to find a project for them ;) QR codes might be more complicated because you need a camera and a well-lit environment. NFC tags don't have that issue.
- djangelic 2y agoMy thought process was to laminate them to make them easier to make at home. I agree that it’s definitely more child friendly. This maybe a project I attempt at home and will post if I’m successful.
- vitus 2y agoI was surprised that you opted to use the tag ID as a primary key instead of writing the relevant metadata to the NFC tags in the first place. NTAG215s have about 500 bytes worth of rewritable storage, so you could even embed the full deep links if you so desired. https://www.shopnfc.com/en/content/6-nfc-tags-specs https://www.shopnfc.com/en/content/6-nfc-tags-specs It also seems that ESPHome has support for reading / writing this arbitrary metadata, once you move to the PN532: https://esphome.io/components/binary_sensor/pn532.html#ndef https://esphome.io/components/binary_sensor/pn532.html#ndef (It's not clear that you can access the metadata with the RC522 through ESPHome, but the hardware should support it.) But hey, what you've got works.
- elthor89 2y agoMan, this is such a fun project. I understand where you are coming from. You can do this with music too. There a lot of children audio books or songs where you have the same “issue” that a parent has to operate YouTube or Spotify.
- interloxia 2y agoTonies are popular in my area. We use CDs. Both are available from our local library.
- croisillon 2y agoi found the “thanks to Hans Wurst” part funny: it is a common way to stay anonym while inputting a real sounding name, like John Doe, but nobody really has this name
- RGamma 2y agoIt's also the name of one of those old "web fun communities", like CollegeHumor, and it's even still operational: https://www.hans-wurst.net/ https://www.hans-wurst.net/
- agile-gift0262 2y agoThis is great. And not just for kids. I think I'll copy the idea for my music and film collection. Picking up something and tapping somewhere feels like a nicer experience than navigating menus. I wish my e-reader had an NFC reader to do something similar with my books.
- dusted 2y agoI did something similar for my granny back when she was alive but no longer able to operate her CD player. http://dusted.dk/pages/easyplayer/ http://dusted.dk/pages/easyplayer/ The fact that so many people come up with these kinds of solutions POST betamax begs questions. There seems to be some inherent unfairness in how unaccessible stuff is becoming.. It's interesting how we're trading the convenience (of signing up and paying montly for a dozen of rental services) for usability and tangibility.. Late Gen X rant incoming: WHEN I WAS A KID.. When I was 3 years old, I could put on the music I wanted to listen to.. It was easy, take the tape out of the case, put it into my cassette radio (if it didn't fit, try flipping it), and press the triangle.. poof, music.. I didn't need to be able to read, there were pictures on the tapes, so I could still find my favourite tunes.. When we got our first video machine, a betamax, it was the same thing, just put the tape into the machine, press the triangle, poof, the movie I had chosen played on the TV.. Then came DVDs, I was older then, so it was no problem for me, but, usability wise, DVDs were a step backwards.. You pop it in and press the tr.. No, you're met with unskippable copyright disclaimers and then presented with an animated menu, where you needed to be able to read to understand how to start the movie, suddenly, the movie itself contained (non standardized) ways of starting it, selecting chapters and such.. Sure, we traded the amazing ability to look at deleted scenes for the ability of of a small child to be able to start it.. but honestly, not even worth it.. Skip to online streaming services and their crappy apps.. Jesus.. Disney is how big of a company and their app is nearly unusable compared to a stack of VHS tapes.. We're putting untold layers of unneeded complexity on EVERYTHING these days, and I'm not even sure we do it because we can, I'm afraid we're doing it because we don't know how not to.. The early VCRs, cassette players and CD players were simple due to technological and economical constraints, but those constraints forced an extremely intuitive mode of operation which was transferable between similar devices. We're leaving a world polluted, drowned in untold complexity at all levels for our children, and honestly, we can't even navigate it very well ourselves, even if we have most of the story about how things got to be that way in the back of our heads. Stuff that we understand deeply already seems like complete magic to the younger generations.. We ought to do better, to builder simpler and more BASIC systems at every level, from instruction set architecture through to UI.. The fact people find it reasonable that you almost have to use a "tech stack" is abysmal.. There shouldn't HAVE to be really much of anything between your code and the metal it runs on. All that aside, this is a great idea! I'm going to do something simiar for my kid I think.
- grujicd 2y agoPrints from inkjet printer look amazing. Do these printers still clog up when not used for a month or two?
- xafke 2y agoAuthor here. I was quite surprised of the printing quality as well. Never had it clog up. But I have all kinds of issues with that printer. Always connects to the network but randomly refuses to print. Sometimes it only prints half a page. Sometimes it prints half a page and retries by itself. Scanning is pretty much impossible on macOS because the drivers aren't maintained. etc... It's horrible. But when it prints, the quality is good... Honestly, I get cold sweats from the thought of having to print something.
- hlandau 2y agoThis is lovely. This feels like a new genre of hardware hacking to me, where someone is motivated to make a device out of compassion for their family or others. It reminds me of this instance where someone designed their own peristaltic pump to ensure their grandfather can eat: https://hackaday.com/2015/11/10/3d-printed-peristalic-pump-has-impressive-capabilities/ https://hackaday.com/2015/11/10/3d-printed-peristalic-pump-h... I seem to recall another similar device to this posted on HN also, but with audiobooks. On an unrelated note, the modern digital age does deprive me of my longtime love of removable media, whether analogue or digital. There's a mechanical satisfaction in having a physical token which is decisively inserted into something. USB drives just don't have the kinetic enjoyment of a floppy disk or tape. (Clearly the next iteration of the OP's design needs a motorised NFC card loader, ATM-style. ;))
- baliex 2y agoReally cool! I want this for my own vinyl so I can physically flip through my collection (with nfc tags stuck on) then place my sleeve of choice on a stand (with embedded nfc reader) to listen to the “vinyl” without having to touch a computer. That would be amazing and you’ve just proved it’s totally doable.
- maweki 2y agoI have an extremely similar setup for my 3yr old. He has his NFC cards and select from stuff we find suitable. The TV comes on, one episode runs, TV goes off. He's not fighting over the remote and he has agency. And he's certainly not stumbling his way through YouTube on a tablet. No ads. Very nice for him. It's not yet necessary to track his usage. But I'm well prepared for it. Home Assistant works very well for these cases. I'm sad that Netflix&Co. do not publicize their urls/intents/etc. for smart TVs. I'd be happy to call an episode directly. This setup therefore needs to run through my own media server and that's why I sometimes have to resort to pirate-y means, even though I have licenses to watch it.
- A4ET8a8uTh0 2y agoI am slowly preparing myself, but the usage tracking made me wonder. What are you planning to do?
- maweki 2y agoSo whenever the card is held to the reader a script starts and plays the media and shuts down the TV after the episode has run. It's easy enough to measure the accumulated script runtime and disable the reader once a daily allowance has been reached. Though I am not a fan of an allowance like that. Nevertheless, tracking the script runtime is easy enough. It's a family TV, but a private TV can easily be tracked via power consumption. Then you can track any usage and help managing consumption.
- sgt 2y agoDeep links are now possible with Infuse as well: https://support.firecore.com/hc/en-us/articles/215090997-API-for-Third-Party-Apps-Services https://support.firecore.com/hc/en-us/articles/215090997-API... I also evaluated Plex but ended up with Infuse as it seemed perfect for my needs. The Apple TV app is great. Plex probably has more features though. I renew it once a year.
- robertlagrant 2y agoThere's a commercial equivalent we use for audio-only stories called Yoto - really high quality. Same level of agency, but less screen time. Good for bedtimes, but the kids also carry the thing round the house to listen to.
- TomJansen 2y agoThis is a very cool project, and I like the nostalgic feel of it! However, this project got me thinking: We are on a forum filled with people working on these super addicting infinite scroll technologies at YouTube, Instagram, maybe even TikTok. At the same time though, this post removing all these addictive technologies has reached the #1 spot on HN (and HN is deliberately made without any of this addicting tech!!) I think it is time for people to really realize how addicting the tech they are making is, without masking it with words like 'friction' and 'engagement'. And hopefully they will slowly work on making their tech a little bit less addictive. Before Covid we had some kind of movement like this, but it has sadly dwindled.
- juergenpabel 2y agoI build something very similar, but for playing music/audio books in my kids rooms. But this is not why I am commenting: I found "HERMA 5028 Universal" stickers to be a very good fit for rfid/nfc cards; I don't know if they're available where you live, but here in germany they're a great solution for labeling cards. PS: I will also publish my solution once I rewrite a few parts of it (cleanup).
- leononame 2y agoI'd be super interested in your writeup, I'd like to build a homemade Tonie for my kids as well. Any way you could contact me when you're finished or do you have a blog I could regularly check out?
- niedbalski 2y agoWe realised that even a lot less cool than nfc, just put an inexpensive blueray reader + disc movies next to the tv and no internet connection was the best option for us.
- edu 2y agoI'm going this way, also our local library has a very nice selection of movies in DVD so we can expand the experience to going there and picking up.
- rmnclmnt 2y agoThis! We also discovered out teeny tiny local library has a movie section. Each time I feel like a kid in a video store from the 90’s! You can even book a title on their webapp and pick it up when available, it really feels great. Having offline and finite media consumption feels much more satisfying than the modern endless scrolling IMHO.
- hinkley 2y agoDisc movies get trashed by children young enough for an NFC system to be appropriate.
- tinyshi 2y agoNow only problem is get Apple TV remote from my 4 year daughter back...
- left-struck 2y ago> And finally, if you're a non-English speaker, Blu-rays will include a dubbed version in your native language. This is a big plus for the kids, especially when they're as young as mine are now. I grew up in a country where English is not the primary language spoken and when I was young all the cool shows and movies were in English. As a kid this was a huge incentive and went far above and beyond any education I had in English in my home country. I can’t overstate how valuable this has been to me as an immigrant to an English speaking country.
- theodric 2y agoI have this general feeling based my 21 years bouncing around Europe that subtitle countries have better English than dub countries, although I'm not proposing that the link is causative
- noduerme 2y agoMy perception from traveling to 40+ countries is that countries where dubbing is common do so for the reason that the population is more illiterate and lower-educated in general, and that trend just extends to having less fluency in other languages.
- Novosell 2y agoGermany and France, famous for being lowly educated and illiterate.
- NemoNobody 2y agoI didn't kno that.
- redleader55 2y agoI don't think that is true. France is a highly educated country, while for them dubbing is a part of culture. I would say the same applies to Japan and China. I'm neither one of these nationalities.
- stovestone 2y agoSoon, your sons will learn how to hack into this system, bypass your time limits, use the NFC cards you provided to play other cartoons, or convert your NFC reader into a room door lock.
- xafke 2y agoOP here I hope so!
- jonwinstanley 2y agoThis is absolutely awesome. For v2 I'd say the NFC cards be the size and shape of a VHS and you have to leave them in the slot to play. If you take them out it stops playing. Maybe v3 you need to virtually rewind them before they work again? :-)
- xafke 2y agoOP here Definitely crossed my mind! Especially the slot system! Rewinding could be fun as well. I could use our Sonos speakers to play the VHS rewinding sound, lol
- jonwinstanley 2y agoHahaha excellent!
- flir 2y agoKids are gonna go to college still believing you have to rewind discs. Do it. That's a long game prank.
- alias_neo 2y agoMy mum got mad at me once, when I was younger, because I wouldn't rewind the DVD before I returned it to the rental shop. My dad had to confirm before she believed me; thought I was just being lazy.
- seszett 2y ago> slot system I have a similar setup but I've been using chip cards and a card reader. I find it much more intuitive than just placing an NFC card over a reader. The card reader blinks when a card is inserted, changes colour, it's all very obvious and physical, with immediate feedback. In my case I only use it with music though (I deem them still too small to choose movies themselves). I've been using reclaimed chip cards (various bank cards mostly) which all have an easy to read kind of ID, but I haven't been able to find a way to write things to blank cards as easy as one can do with NFC cards though.
- greener_grass 2y agoThis is fun, but wouldn't some second hand Blu Rays have been simpler?
- probably_wrong 2y agoI'm not going to knock the idea down because that's how I grew up but, depending on your setup, buying a Blu-ray player means you have to hook it up (do you have enough inputs? Enough room? Do you need an extension cord?), choose the right source every time ("no, you're in HDMI1, you need S-Video"), have a second remote ("Have you seen the remote? No, the other one"), figure out why the box is empty (perhaps the disc is under the couch? And why does it have marmelade on it?), etc. Maybe there's a plus to solutions like those where you learn how things work because you need to get them all to collaborate. But that's a different discussion.
- alias_neo 2y agoDo you have children aged 0-4? My daughter had a CD player before we got the kids a Yoto each, and she and her little brother scratched the heck out of the CDs, not intentionally, but you just can't expect a child that age to handle them carefully enough not to scratch them. I know Blu-Rays can take a bit more than a CD, but even they won't stand up to a 2yo.
- supportengineer 2y agoIf you teach your children to treat everything gently from birth, they won’t even know how to abuse things. They’ve never learned it.
- DannyPage 2y agoCongrats on having the only kids on the planet that are gentle with everything and have never broken a single toy or object they have come into contact! What is your secret??
- scopendo 2y agoThis is a product.
- nateberkopec 2y agoIs there an option for an NFC reader that doesn’t require 3d printing or soldering?
- ThrowawayTestr 2y agoYou could probably use an old Android phone
- nolan_wyss 2y agoI don't have kids, but now I really want to build something like that too! Really nice idea and well executed!
- nanna 2y agoPersonally I would just buy my kids a dvd player. Edit: seem the author himself sort of agrees. He buys Blu-Rays and puts them on the Plex. Could just skip the Plex part and let them play the Blu-Rays...
- calini 2y agoI love this, the tactility of it is super good, and a good break from a world where everything is touchscreens!
- passwordoops 2y agoThis would also be amazing for tech-disadvantaged seniors!
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- harshitaneja 2y agoLooks great. I am working on side to learn product design by working on a similar system for music. The idea is to have the tactile feel of a vinyl like system but with the features of a digital library and ecosystem. The base implementation was really straightforward and hardly a few hours but to make it bridge the gap we see with our digital tools emulating analog ones is quite fun to work on. From the latency involved between placing the card to the output from a remote service, the sound dial's latency when paired with bluetooth speakers all take one away from the experience. It's also fun to learn little leathercrafting and concrete moulding for the prototype design.
- juujian 2y agoI always thought it would be nice to simply add QR codes to my vinyls. Get that feel of browsing, and then simply open the Spotify URL.
- djhworld 2y agoThis is really cool and demonstrates the power of stuff like home assistant really well. I’ve recently rediscovered my old music collection from the pre-streaming days on an old NAS, thousands of mp3s with carefully curated id3 tags etc. I’m almost tempted to create a similar system but for albums!
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- braggerxyz 2y agoNice idea, and great implementation. And I really resonate with the "physical media is great" mantra. That's why I still buy a lot of DVDs of the movies I or my kids like. Last winter we had a two day internet outage, and all of the neighbors came to me for lending DVDs :D That experience reinforced my believe in physical media more than ever!
- ramses0 2y agoFor "project adjacent", look at `catt` - Cast ALL the things! https://blog.fuzzymistborn.com/homeassistant-and-catt-cast-all-the-things/ https://blog.fuzzymistborn.com/homeassistant-and-catt-cast-a... You can cast YouTube URLs directly, as well as general media files over the local network. My theory is QR-codes up to a camera: http://192.168.1.123/randomvid.php?topic=XYZ http://192.168.1.123/randomvid.php?topic=XYZ => shuf | head -1 | catt --target=$MY_TV You can even do QR code reading via a web-page, and "add-to-homepage" if you wanted to put it onto an iPad. Obviously the OP project is better thought out, but it's quite good to learn different bits and pieces and strategies about deep linking and internal media.
- dmd 2y agoI made a similar system but for music, using QR codes on plastic cards and a webcam, when my daughter was 1. After a year or so we switched to just having a standalone numkey pad where she could just punch in numbers from a jukebox-style catalog. https://github.com/dmd/nkplay/ https://github.com/dmd/nkplay/ She's now 10, and knows ~100 playlists by number. "I want to listen to 37!"
- josephernest 2y agoYour numpad solution looks great! Would you have a photo of the whole setup? I thought about doing the same, but I fear to end with cables and PCB everywhere in my children's room if I take this path :)
- dmd 2y agoThere's honestly nothing really to see. It's a raspberry pi in a standard plastic case[0] with 3 cables coming out of it - power, usb to the numkey, and audio (male to male headphone jack) to the speakers. The pi and power are hidden behind a bookshelf, so all that is actually visible is the numkey and the speaker. [0] https://www.microcenter.com/product/608178/4_Official_Case_-_Red-White?storeID=121 https://www.microcenter.com/product/608178/4_Official_Case_-...
- bigfatfrock 2y agoAmazing write up and work in general putting this together - this is such an ideal form of the word "hack" in its incredibly low cost, durability, and usefulness. I was staggered when I saw your build cost list - I know ESPs are in the realm of "Cheap AF" but all of those NFC cards also for $9?! This is one of the few reasons I would shop Alibaba! We're talking around $15 total for the full NFC setup if you can print/rig yourself a case! (yes, of course, another $X for screens, sound etc) I have run into such a crazy amount of cool hacky kid tech in the past couple of days for some reason (this and Makey Makey), and am so lucky to have done so. I can't wait to outfit my kids with this, it is going to blow their minds. I want to hook it up to Jellyfish because I feel Plex is total marketing trash these days but as soon as I can get time I am all over this.
- vdfs 2y agoIf you search more you can cut price by half
- rtkwe 2y agoYou can get loads of NFC tags as stickers extremely cheap. I think using the cards is better here just for durability but if you're willing to put in a bit more DIY and accept a slightly less durable final product you could print it on a heavy card stock and stick one of the innumerable NFC stickers to that then laminate.
- ClumsyPilot 2y agoThe author himself pointed out in the end of the article that blurays are cheap- in my view they provide a close enough physical experience. I would probably stick with Blu-ray approach?
- bigfatfrock 2y agoI for one don't own a blu-ray anymore and really don't want to - they feel to me like LaserDiscs or BetaMax at this point! :) Plus, to fathom a three-year-old-destroyer-of-property handling your blu-ray disc collection, I shudder! They are great frisbees, and coasters, and etc. If I even still owned blu-rays I might consider ripping them and then converting to this just to avoid the above mentioned pain.
- philjackson 2y agoWhat a brilliant idea! Not everyone's motivation of course, but I'm sure this has valid business potential.
- eadmund 2y agoThis is an awesome example of the kind of innovation which overlong copyright prevents. There’s no particularly good reason that it should be legally impermissible for someone to build and sell a system like this loaded with movies from before, say, 2010 (or 2000, or whatever), but instead what the prospective entrepreneur would be legally able to include would be … Steamboat Willie, and other films of that vintage (as an aside, while Disney’s had a pretty rough couple of years, I’m pretty sure that Steamboat Willie being out of copyright has nothing to do with any of that). This sort of experience shouldn’t be limited to children of high-tech folks with access to 3D printers: it should be possible for any child — or adult!
- nd6s8 2y agoThat kind of innovation is quite common abroad. No one is paying for content or cares about copyright in poorer countries. There is more content now then there are eyeballs or time available to consume any of it. What happens to value and price of product when there is more of it produced than consumed?
- Cthulhu_ 2y agoKeep an eye on the financials of the streaming services; at the moment few are profitable, and they will increase their prices and/or decrease their spending on new productions.
- Cthulhu_ 2y agoIf there's a business case to be made, companies like Netflix might release a physical product for this... but I doubt they would, because of the investment and time required vs the revenue. Spotify tried something with an in-car device, but they cancelled and recalled the product pretty quickly. Streaming services rely on volume; for them, hardware just isn't worth it.
- ndriscoll 2y agoIf not for excessively long copyrights, streaming might not have taken off in the same way. You could instead buy e.g. $250 HDD that's loaded with 2,000 movies from 20+ years ago or whatever. A company could sell a NAS-like appliance that's designed to slot in drives that are pre-loaded with tons of media along with a card library like this to play them. Since they'd be out of copyright, there's no need for DRM and HDCP and all that, so the system might actually work without tons of fiddling. You wouldn't need high-paid techies to maintain a gargantuan delivery platform; you just clone drives at manufacturing time and ship them. There's definitely a business case to be made with this if it were legal. There's sketchy Chinese pre-built mini PCs with emulators + 50k-100k ROMS that you can buy for ~$100 on Amazon right now, so basically following this exact business model. I'm actually surprised that there aren't similar products for movies (from what I can tell anyway).
- backwoodsbk 2y agoSweet project! I did something similar a few years back after reading this: https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/tag/#building-an-rfid-jukebox https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/tag/#building-an-...
- NemoNobody 2y agoI love this. I dislike the half hour brackets. Love how the OP frequently talks about his childhood and being able to pick movies - he didn't half a timer going that determined when the movie ended, the movie did. Kids movies are like an hour long. How are kids ever going to develop any sort of an attention span if they never see the ending of things
- mostly_harmless 2y agoSomewhat related: I wanted to track watch time, and perhaps set a time limit with Plex and HomeAssistant. Has anyone come up with a solution I can cheat off of?
- rhinoceraptor 2y agoI've been buying CDs as well as burning FLAC albums I have on blanks for basically this same reason, the limited choices and slightly higher switching costs is more enjoyable to me. And CDs still cost about as much as they ever did, which means they're much cheaper now with inflation. I found vinyl CD labels [1] that I can print on my color laser printer that look pretty decent, it only takes a few minutes to burn the CD, find an image of a retail disc and put it in the label's Canva template. My car is a 2017 and it still has a CD player, and I also found a fairly inexpensive portable player [2] that charges with USB-C, the anti-skip is pretty impressive now. I can put it in my pocket and walk around or clean the house and I've never had it skip, it will actually spin down the disc when it's read far enough ahead. [1] https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0C2V9D3FD https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0C2V9D3FD [2] https://klimtechs.com/products/klim-nomad-portable-cd-player-bluetooth?variant=44754932826391 https://klimtechs.com/products/klim-nomad-portable-cd-player...
- lxgr 2y agoIf you want a really impressive portable optical disc format, consider looking into MiniDisc! The players are even more impressive (I have one that plays something like 20 hours on a single AA battery), you can re-record the disks via USB using a WebUSB based webapp [1] these days for NetMD recorders, and the disks actually are almost infinitely re-recordable and much more stable than CD-Rs (which are write-once and only last a couple of years). [1] https://stefano.brilli.me/webminidisc/ https://stefano.brilli.me/webminidisc/
- wsintra2022 2y agoLoved reading that and realising that the author has hit on something. I do wonder though, who was looking after the house and kids whilst the author spent all the time researching and building!
- supportengineer 2y agoImagine the benefit to the child if their parent was sitting next to them reading, or building something together out of blocks
- nthState 2y agoI'd buy this
- bilekas 2y agoThis is really cool, it actually reminds me of how people thought the future would be in the past. "Ah you'll just scan a punch card of course and it will play a movie." You're the hipster Dad now.
- jollyllama 2y agoVery interesting that it's NFC is the most bang-for-your buck interface. Feels like a failure of software and hardware (button kit) alternatives.
- ellisv 2y agoI really like the vinyl stickers for the NFC cards. I recently got some blank white NFC cards and have been trying to figure out how to decorate them.
- ThinkBeat 2y agoThis is a cool and nerdy project, and I support that. From a functional perspective would it not be simpler to simply burn dvd / blu-rays and if they are old enough use that system? (Given that kids are not exactly careful with physical media burning copies takes away the worry) I dont get a feel for how many movies you have printed cards for, but it doesn't look that many. Something like a Streamdeck with buttons for each movie could work but then you do lose part of the physical media feeling.
- hermannj314 2y agoI discovered how cheap NFC tags and readers were a few years ago and now I have completed several hobby projects based on that concept. When we buy books for our younger nieces and nephews we buy companion stuffed animals and then sew an NFC tag (the small quarter size ones) into them with the YouTube read-along url encoded on it.
- seltzered_ 2y agoIt's funny to think that 20 years ago at an IBM austin office there was a demo of a similar thing (early 2000s) - before streaming was a thing yet, before YouTube, where Home Theatre PCs were around but more of a homebrew niche.
- Piko 2y agoOh man, I read "NFT movie library" and was super confused because these cards are very much fungible... But a very cool project!
- loeg 2y agoWe bought an off-the-shelf product like this (though, audio only) for our toddler. "Yoto Player." She can self-serve some stories or songs using cards to select a collection and it works great.
- supportengineer 2y agoAn incredible amount of effort was made to avoid spending quality time with their children. Is this something to celebrate?
- Sakos 2y agoI love this and I've thought about making something similar just for myself, because I miss fucking around with DVD cases, but I also don't want to own a large library of DVDs and blurays that takes up too much space. I need to do this finally.
- Royshiloh 2y agothis is so sweet!
- rickcarlino 2y agoThis technology could be used to benefit people with developmental disabilities like Alzheimer’s disease. TVs and streaming services have become increasingly complex compared to 30 years ago and it makes it harder for people who have cognitive issues. Wish I had something like this for my mom, who struggles to change channels on our UI heavy smart TV.
- westcort 2y agoSimpler than this is just switching to DVDs. Not only do I not have extra bandwidth strain on my home internet, but there are no recurring fees, no worries about legality, and lots of extra features and games that kids enjoy. DVDs are Blu Ray are the best format for movies that currently exist, and arguably the best way to actually own a movie legally. A good TV antenna serves for watching news in my area. As a consumer, I try follow the reverse of William Painter's advice to King Camp Gillette before he invented the famous razor, "invent something people use and throw away" and arrive at "buy things you can actually own and use repeatedly."
- theshrike79 2y agoHave you ever actually seen kids under 10 manhandle optical media? It's not a pretty sight.
- StimDeck 2y agoThis is basically video Yoto (kids audio book player) which has an ESP32 and a battery and speakers. Awesome!