BookPlayer: RFID book cases let a nearly blind grandfather start audiobooks by touch

When Willem van der Jagt visited home in Holland, his 93-year-old grandfather had gone almost completely blind over the previous months and now sat in a chair all day. He refused audiobooks — 'for sad old people' — until he heard a well-performed recording, and then the real problem surfaced: iPods and other audio devices need sight for their tiny controls, while players built for the blind assume a user with a whole lifetime to learn specific assistive technology.

The designer's answer was to make the interface physical again. Each audiobook became a DVD-sized case with the title printed in very large letters and an RFID card inside. Placing a case on the top of the box starts that book; four large, brightly coloured buttons pause, rewind 20 seconds and control volume; and the player remembers the position across power loss. A Raspberry Pi running MPD reads the cards over its GPIO serial pins, and a brother ten minutes from their grandparents acts as librarian, refilling books when the player visits his router.

Almost a year after delivery the grandfather still used the player daily, showed it proudly to visitors and began requesting music, missing the machine whenever it went to his brother's house. The gist explaining the build reached 287 points and 43 comments on Hacker News and carries 183 stars, and commenters kept adapting the idea for children and elderly relatives of their own.