8 year old wants music in bedroom

[OverInfestedBadger]

DS would like to listen to music in his bedroom. We don’t really have any CDs anymore, so a CD player would be pointless. And I could get him a radio but he would like some things on demand of his choice. I have family Spotify but don’t want him to have a PC or similar in there.
What are the options available?

what about an Amazon dot? we have them through the house and an echo in lounge.

DD has a Google Home Mini and is on our Google Play family service. It does have some parental controls and I can view her music listening history. It's obviously not a fail safe and to be honest I'd prefer a CD player and CDs.

However, we use it to cast story CDs loaded onto my laptop, DD can set her own alarms and reminders and she even checks the weather in the morning to decide if she wants to wear tights and a vest!!

Hmm yes maybe I don’t want him to have access to all that Spotify holds! Especially since they are so poor on radio edits IME.

If you get amazon music on the dot you can set it so that explicit lyrics are not allowed. Not sure if you can do the same with Spotify

Just checked, yes there is a setting. So does anyone know if you can play Spotify on the Dot?

I think when I tried to add it I couldn't unless I bought Spotify Premium so if you have that then it should be fine but if you're using the free version it won't work. Amazon music is quite good if you have Prime?

You can! But in my experience it's hard to get it to play what you want through voice recognition. I usually set up whatever I want to listen to on the Spotify app on my phone then tell Alexa to play Spotify, which is probably not what you're after.

Oh yes, and it only works with Premium.

My daughter has a dot and we build her playlist on Spotify and she can just ask Alexa to play her name playlist on Spotify and of it goes. Good for party’s too as you can have your party music playlist.

Buy him a second hand iPod, one that doesn't have a screen or connect to the internet

Sonos? Would need a mobile or tablet to control it though.

My 8 year old has an echo dot, you can only play Spotify premium on it.

Mine all have Echo's they are worth every penny

Haha, mine have my old CD player (from the mid 1990s) and a bunch of CDs I got them at Christmas/birthdays. We Luddites don't have a Dot or Echo etc.

Retro, old skool

I would use an old smartphone and give him a bluetooth speaker. Then if you want to be in control you just take the phone out.

We have a Wonderboom which is great

At 7 or 8 I got mine a cd/radio thingy with a connector for an old I pod.
You can get Cds pretty cheap, and he listens to the radio loads. I gave him my old I pod shuffle. It's a good system I think.
I don't even properly understand things like Amazon dot, and think they are malevolently watching us. .
Personally I have a newer I pod, Spotify and lots of vinyl!

I second Wonderboom - they are so portable and the sound quality is really good. My DD is obsessed with using the dot though which is in my room. Not sure how many more years of Little Mix I can stand. 😩

Mine both have portable CD players so that they can listed to audio CDs (no TVs in bedrooms) and we put music on USB sticks for them to listen to. Reading this though I am very tempted to get a couple of Echo Dots, they look great!