My daughter had an iPad and would listen to it at night. Eyes glued to a screen at bedtime drove my wife and me crazy. It would also just keep playing indefinitely unless I remembered to go in and turn it off, along with having to manually manage her Yoto alarm on holidays and school breaks. We wanted her to be more independent and listen to music WITHOUT a tablet in bed.
I ended up building my own because I couldn't find anything on the market without microphones that also had a Spotify controller. This has been going strong in her room for ~1 month now. Features include, alarm sync'd with her school district days off, weather (and alerts), Spotify, Hue, Sleep timer, parent dashboard, and much more.
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[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 20.1 ms ] threadI ended up building my own because I couldn't find anything on the market without microphones that also had a Spotify controller. This has been going strong in her room for ~1 month now. Features include, alarm sync'd with her school district days off, weather (and alerts), Spotify, Hue, Sleep timer, parent dashboard, and much more.
https://www.health.harvard.edu/healthy-aging-and-longevity/b...
You can also get a classic green or color display and use a custom backlight color (https://www.adafruit.com/product/398)
No kid needs an iPad.
Man are you kidding me?
"Let's build a digital clock", part 1, Aug 2026
Don't waste your time.
Did the daughter get involved in the design/build process at all?
It seems like a great opportunity to engage the daughter in some way. Better than buying off Amazon, better than just having AI do it.
Maybe I'm wrong or missed it in the blog, but I didn't see any reference to the daughters involvement at all.