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.
With 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.
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.
This 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'.
> 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.
> 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.
I remember as a child being interested in computers. I had watched hackers, the Matrix etc and was just drawn to that world. And of course the people I hung around with too were like minded.
As an adult I find it strange how nontechnical so many people are. I really am concerned for them in the future as AI and scams get so much better and much more complex.
> ...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.
I agree, but it's so much more than keyboards.
Things that irritated me for years about smartphones were irritations because I'd been able to do them on desktops and laptops but suddenly couldn't on a smartphone. I knew that the hardware qualified it as a general purpose computer, and that it was locked down into being a more limited appliance. Features were added back over the years, and there's even an argument that we normalized much better security practices on both iOS and Android/AOSP because of that development cadence but, for most people whose first computer was a phone, the concept of a general purpose computer is simply missing from their awareness and "computer" becomes merely a word meaning black-box, magical appliance. And they don't discover what the appliance truly could be---its full potential---because it now works well enough for its specific purpose that they can leave the black box closed.
It may be a historically inevitable closing of doors, in the same way that cars stopped being machines most people understood long before the advent of the microcomputer, but I feel a sense of loss for other people. My reading of human history is that when there's a rough technological parity (i.e. parity of understanding, access, and usefulness) between individuals and large institutions, you tend to see more freedom. When there isn't, you see less-to-none.
I unplugged the Alexa for about 6 months, that was a good reset, and we have a few tablets etc but no nonsense apps installed.
Although time is ticking and I be we'll soon have the influence from 'peer pressure' - we're getting our daughter prepped for secondary/high school next year so she's got an old iPhone to play around with but thankfully she has zero interest in tech as a distraction. She sends a message to her friends every now and then, she watches some tutorials on Youtube for the piano, and of course some cat videos. My bigger worry is that she is going to bankrupt me from books... she's reading a new one every other week and has a real attachment to them so I can't persuade her to go to the local library...
My cousin has had success with Apple Watches for her middle school aged kids. The Watches now function independently from phones IIRC and allow her kids to be "reachable" in the way that is now socially expected/enforced, but the screen is so small and the selection of "apps" so limited that they don't disrupt daily life with addictive software. However, you have to be in the Apple walled garden for that to work.
As for books, I've fallen in love with my Kobo Clara e-reader. It can run side-loaded software like Plato or KOReader, and I've loaded it with just about everything from https://standardebooks.org/. Maybe get your daughter an e-reader (Kobo or other model) for Christmas, paired with a monthly budget/stipend for books that she chooses how to spend?
An e-reader without a web browser, especially one in black and white, and a local library card can probably get her books loaned from the library without a large investment (and more importantly a device just for reading, rather than all the other distractions). The earlier Kindle, and whatever brand name Barnes & Noble e-readers have, would probably worth the investment compared to the cost of buying books regularly.
At the same age, I read a ton, and I unfortunately got into fiction in the Dungeons & Dragons universe. Those books were WAY too overpriced, simply for using the D&D properties in their naming and stories. The books I felt were excellent, but the authors could have replaced names with something generic, and they would have been just as captivating. Having an e-reader would have made those costs far less painful, and I probably would have read at least twice as many books. I imagine if the books aren't highly trademarked or being made into movies, now you could probably get 3 times the number of e-books for the cost of a physical book.
That attachment might be something to work on. I wouldn't mind stimulating my kid to build up their own library once they've reached the point of reading adult fiction and books can be reread by themselves after a few years, or enjoyed by others in the household. But at her age the library is perfect. Most of the books they read at that age are of transient value.
Alternatively, take her to second hand book fairs and stimulate bargain book hunting in charity shops.
I had a programmable calculator, a 8-bit computer (with few games but with built-in basic, assembly, and a debugger), then a PC, all before easy internet access. These were hyperstimuli all right.
> The generation below me (Gen-Z, Zoomers?) seem to be experts at using touchscreen devices and social networks.
Pet theory: This perception is largely from their confidence in messing around until something works, which has only a loose connection to the operator's competence.
Younger generations have grown up with devices that are (A) more idiot-proofed and (B) cheaper and easier to replace and (C) less supervision when using it. This leads to a different way of approaching the problem, which may be more-effective but isn't necessarily more-knowledgeable.
In contrast, older generations who grew up with "never press these two buttons at the same time or it can explode" operate with an implicit assumption that those Kids These Days must know something their parents don't in order to mess around so casually.
I built my kids "the box", which had a similar concept. It was an upholstered box with a frosted acrylic top and a camera mounted inside facing up. You would put cards on top of the box and it would recognize the symbols and take an action, like play a song or read a word. I used large printouts of Data Matrix, as I found that faster and most accurate to decode. The front (up-facing) side would have a colorful design.
In the most advanced version I had it read letters to read a word aloud (eg, a spelling tool). All so I could reenact the scene from Sneakers where they rearrange Scrabble tiles from SETEC ASTRONOMY to TOO MANY SECRETS :)
I agree, and ultimately think it's also learned behavior, and seeing those at home interested in technology and getting a deeper meaning about things.
A lot of comments seem to think that millenials or younger don't have an interest in technology, but I think that's only because they see their older peers or family members perfectly fine with a dumbed down interface to get their needs taken care of.
As a 45 year old, that got started with computers at 2 years old watching and playing around with games my dad would write on an Atari 800XE/XL system, my 13 year old son gets all of the touch interfaces, but also picked up a serious interest in tech from watching me. I didn't want to push him into software, wanting him to find his own way with his interests, but in the last year he has shown an interest in figuring out what is behind all those touch interfaces and websites that just do things "automatically."
I had taking apart crystal radios and learning to put multiple viruses on the family computer to have them fight for the "ultimate" virus as my learning experience. I think curiosity is learned, and even encouraging things outside of technology can lead into technology or science/math/problem solving. Younger generations are just as hungry for knowledge, we just have hidden it away, and need to give them a peek behind the scenes.
I agree that there needs to be some kind of challenge and discovery to really pull kids into learning. Not so difficult that they can't pull it off, but just hard enough that there's a sense of accomplishment.
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.
Thanks 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!
Cool 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.
Love 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.
Seconded. 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.
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.
Or 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.
I 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.
Do 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.
This 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.
I 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!
I 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.
This 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.
I 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.
The regular https://open.spotify.com URL is registered to be handled by the Spotify app on iOS devices, so no bouncing from Safari - it opens straight away in Spotify. Nothing to play on a specific speaker, though - but my homepod mini is nearby so a tap to my poster then a tap to my speaker starts my listening session.
I have NFC Tools Pro from these guys, https://www.wakdev.com/en/ (but affiliated); I'm assuming you're referring to them. They're on Google Play store too.
I do the same for my CDs. I have them ripped on Plexamp and I place the NFC tags inside a corner of the booklet. So I tap the phone to the corner of a CD case instead. But my plan is to build a device like OP's so I don't even need the phone.
I'd love to do something similar for myself, but having never worked with NFC I see there are tons of different options.
Would you mind mentioning what tags you got?
I 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!
It 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.
for 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.
335 comments
[ 2.4 ms ] story [ 283 ms ] threadAnyway, I have to ask: Is it possible to make a similar project for Netflix and/or YouTube?
The Apple TV also supports deep links for other services. Here are examples for the biggest streaming services:
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.Not that bad of a ordeal though.
The annoying part is reprinting the sticker and attaching it to the card
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.
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'.
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.
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.
As an adult I find it strange how nontechnical so many people are. I really am concerned for them in the future as AI and scams get so much better and much more complex.
I agree, but it's so much more than keyboards.
Things that irritated me for years about smartphones were irritations because I'd been able to do them on desktops and laptops but suddenly couldn't on a smartphone. I knew that the hardware qualified it as a general purpose computer, and that it was locked down into being a more limited appliance. Features were added back over the years, and there's even an argument that we normalized much better security practices on both iOS and Android/AOSP because of that development cadence but, for most people whose first computer was a phone, the concept of a general purpose computer is simply missing from their awareness and "computer" becomes merely a word meaning black-box, magical appliance. And they don't discover what the appliance truly could be---its full potential---because it now works well enough for its specific purpose that they can leave the black box closed.
It may be a historically inevitable closing of doors, in the same way that cars stopped being machines most people understood long before the advent of the microcomputer, but I feel a sense of loss for other people. My reading of human history is that when there's a rough technological parity (i.e. parity of understanding, access, and usefulness) between individuals and large institutions, you tend to see more freedom. When there isn't, you see less-to-none.
Although time is ticking and I be we'll soon have the influence from 'peer pressure' - we're getting our daughter prepped for secondary/high school next year so she's got an old iPhone to play around with but thankfully she has zero interest in tech as a distraction. She sends a message to her friends every now and then, she watches some tutorials on Youtube for the piano, and of course some cat videos. My bigger worry is that she is going to bankrupt me from books... she's reading a new one every other week and has a real attachment to them so I can't persuade her to go to the local library...
As for books, I've fallen in love with my Kobo Clara e-reader. It can run side-loaded software like Plato or KOReader, and I've loaded it with just about everything from https://standardebooks.org/. Maybe get your daughter an e-reader (Kobo or other model) for Christmas, paired with a monthly budget/stipend for books that she chooses how to spend?
At the same age, I read a ton, and I unfortunately got into fiction in the Dungeons & Dragons universe. Those books were WAY too overpriced, simply for using the D&D properties in their naming and stories. The books I felt were excellent, but the authors could have replaced names with something generic, and they would have been just as captivating. Having an e-reader would have made those costs far less painful, and I probably would have read at least twice as many books. I imagine if the books aren't highly trademarked or being made into movies, now you could probably get 3 times the number of e-books for the cost of a physical book.
Alternatively, take her to second hand book fairs and stimulate bargain book hunting in charity shops.
Pet theory: This perception is largely from their confidence in messing around until something works, which has only a loose connection to the operator's competence.
Younger generations have grown up with devices that are (A) more idiot-proofed and (B) cheaper and easier to replace and (C) less supervision when using it. This leads to a different way of approaching the problem, which may be more-effective but isn't necessarily more-knowledgeable.
In contrast, older generations who grew up with "never press these two buttons at the same time or it can explode" operate with an implicit assumption that those Kids These Days must know something their parents don't in order to mess around so casually.
In the most advanced version I had it read letters to read a word aloud (eg, a spelling tool). All so I could reenact the scene from Sneakers where they rearrange Scrabble tiles from SETEC ASTRONOMY to TOO MANY SECRETS :)
A lot of comments seem to think that millenials or younger don't have an interest in technology, but I think that's only because they see their older peers or family members perfectly fine with a dumbed down interface to get their needs taken care of.
As a 45 year old, that got started with computers at 2 years old watching and playing around with games my dad would write on an Atari 800XE/XL system, my 13 year old son gets all of the touch interfaces, but also picked up a serious interest in tech from watching me. I didn't want to push him into software, wanting him to find his own way with his interests, but in the last year he has shown an interest in figuring out what is behind all those touch interfaces and websites that just do things "automatically."
I had taking apart crystal radios and learning to put multiple viruses on the family computer to have them fight for the "ultimate" virus as my learning experience. I think curiosity is learned, and even encouraging things outside of technology can lead into technology or science/math/problem solving. Younger generations are just as hungry for knowledge, we just have hidden it away, and need to give them a peek behind the scenes.
After this post, perhaps tech for kids need to be difficult to encourage learning.
Reminds me of this Raspberry Pi + SONOS project from a few years back:
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.
Looking for link
EDIT - not the one I remembered but here’s one implementation https://andreasjr.com/blog/interactive-wall-of-album-art/
But why not just have them handle the blu rays directly? Unless - you ripped them to your Plex and resold them…
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?
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.
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!
At least it’s not screen time?
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.
It’s digital-only but I have folders of records on my phone Home Screen. They’re shortcuts that play the album, and the album art is the icon.
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.
https://github.com/TapToCommunity/tapto
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73Kx3jwyk0U
Thank you and congrats! Enjoy the ride!