Retro Audio Player with Modern Functionality

Maximilian Kern was looking for a way to play audiobooks for a family member who isn't great with touchscreens. This sounds simple enough, but he found there aren’t many options with a button interface that are also easy to use. He instead set out to make one himself.

What he came up with resembles a 1980s-era cassette recorder. Drawing on inspiration from the Philips 113 portable record player from the 1970s, plus a bit of Teenage Engineering flair, his design is spruced up with a nice yellow 3D-printed enclosure. Keyboard-style play/pause, forward, reverse buttons, and a volume knob provide a non-touchscreen user interface. Media is stored on a microSD card, and can be played on either a built-in speaker or via a headphone jack.

Inside, an ESP32 module powers the device, which connects to the other components via a custom PCB, along with wires for the unit's 2.8” IPS display. The display is capable of showing the song or audiobook currently playing, and indicates its status by moving an on-screen reel-to-reel playback device, which is quite pleasant and easy to recognize.

The player automatically detects if headphones are plugged in, and while a stereo amplifier would have been preferable for headphone use, per the component shortage a mono Maxim MAX98357A amplifier was selected. While not ideal for music, this was acceptable as it's primarily an audio book player.

The device runs on four AA batteries, which fit in nicely with its retro theme, and largely dictated its size. This gives it eight hours of playtime normally, or 20 with the display’s backlight turned off. You can see it in action in the video below.

Code and board files for the build are found on GitHub, and print files are on Thingiverse if you’d like to create your own!