I have a friend who has a six year old who’s birthday is coming up, as it is the six year old is constantly asking the mother for her phone to use to plays spotify songs or whatever. So they are looking for some/any easy to use alternatives, and he (the father) doesn’t want to get his son sucked into any eco system (I don’t believe he even agrees with him having access to her phone, but that’s another story), if he can avoid it, as he is also slowly working on his own opt out project.
Are there any relatively cheap devices alternative to the amazon dot echo that may be more applicable to a child than home-assistant?
The child has a lenovo tablet (I don’t know anything else about the tablet), but I guess too bulky to use as a carry around option or like echo dot type device (which they seem set on).
Even if there are any kid/privacy safe devices in existence?
TIA.
The most private seems like a small media player. It would make music more personal, but that also may not be ideal in this situation.
I’d probably just get an old phone that can run LineageOS, strip it of any apps I don’t want the kid having access to and put a simple launcher on it so they only have the apps I want them to have access to. Bam, cheap locked down music streamer. If the kid asks why it can run Spotify but not access the internet, I’d say it’s because it’s a music player not a phone, or something of that nature.
That’s not a bad idea, I will suggest that to him, although I doubt that he will be able to put lineageOS on it and he is in another country from me, so might be able to help him strip it down anyway.
in lineageOS, with ‘app pinning’, the old phone can easily become a simple pod
I will try and get him on to the lineageOS option.