Rotary Phones Are Perfect for Memorializing Audio
Would you like to “display” sentimental audio files like you do framed photos? Travis DeRose found a clever way to do just that.
We have many ways to preserve, display, and relive visual experiences. If you lose a loved one, you can put a photo of them on the wall and get a nice reminder of them every time you see it. If you have kids, you can watch old home movies and reminiscence about their younger years. But we, as a society, seem to have largely ignored the potential for similar audio-only experiences. That’s why Travis DeRose turned a vintage rotary telephone into a custom audio message player to remember his mom’s voice.
DeRose sadly lost his mother, but was lucky enough to have many audio messages and voicemails from her. He wanted a way to listen to those and remember her, but didn’t want to simply play the files on his smartphone or computer. He was looking for something more akin to a framed photo on a wall — a dedicated memorial to a particular moment in time. Through an abstract lens, a rotary telephone mounted on a wall is the perfect auditory corollary to a photo, when its sole purpose is to play a selection of sentimental audio files.
The exact model isn’t very important (most rotary phones work in a similar manner), but DeRose tried this with 500 and 554 models of rotary phones from Western Electric. Those are both extremely common, so you can find them easily at affordable prices.
The key component inside is an Adafruit Audio FX Mini Sound Board with 16MB of flash storage. That replaces most of the original electronics, with the primary exception being the switch that detects when the handset is on the hanger.
DeRose set this up so that lifting the handset resets the Audio FX board. It then automatically plays a random audio file. All DeRose had to do was load the board up with files of his mother’s voice and now whenever he grabs the handset from the wall, he can hear her speaking.
And there are many ways that users could customize this to alter the functionality a bit. For example, it would be possible to play a specific audio file based on the number dialed by the user. But the beauty here is in the simplicity of the idea and how it makes “displaying” audio possible.