The content stays yours
You put your own files in it. Your music, the stories you record, the ones you buy elsewhere.
Nothing forces you through a house catalogue, and nothing vanishes the day a catalogue shuts down.
Why we built it this way
An object that depends on nobody.
Connected things for children raise a simple question: who owns what you bought? The MusicBox is designed so the answer is you.
It works without us
The MusicBox plays its content on its own, with no server to reach and no account to revalidate. The day the project stops, it keeps playing.
That is not a figure of speech. In 2024, a children's audio player sold in Europe became useless overnight when its servers were switched off. The families who had bought one could do nothing about it. We design ours so that scenario cannot happen.
It is built to be repaired
Standard parts, chosen so they can be swapped. Nothing glued shut for good, nothing that forces you to buy the whole object again because one part gave up.
The one your eldest used should still serve the next one.
No screen, and that is the point
No screen, so no scrolling, no video queueing itself up, no notification.
Your child listens and imagines. They choose on their own, with a card, without being able to read and without having to call you.
Nothing watches you
No account to create, no profile, no advertising. This site does not follow you either: no cookie, no tracker, no ad network.
We do not know what your child listens to, and we do not need to know.
What we promise, and what we do not
We promise that the MusicBox works without us, that the content stays yours, and that the object can be repaired.
We do not promise to publish the plans. The software ships compiled and free of charge, with no usage lock, but it stays the property of its author. Better written down than left to guess.
Would you rather build it yourself?
The assembly guide, the parts list, and a community that helps out.
Build my ownMade by a parent, for parents.
My name is Jonathan. I started this project for my son, for lack of an object that ticked these boxes. I write up the build as it goes, dead ends included.
Read the workshop journal