Mario Zechner has designed an audiobook player, called Boxie, for his young son as a replacement for the Toniebox, which required internet connectivity and had a limited selection of books on offer, as well as unreliable controls.
Boxie plays audiobooks stored on microSD cards, with the cards being easily changeable by even a toddler via a standard microSD card interface on the player’s PCB.
The player’s housing is 3D printed and robust, making it suitable for small hands, and an ESP32-S3 microcontroller lives inside the unit, controlling the player’s functions.
Challenges faced included designing a battery-charging circuit and building a board to support charging NiMH batteries, along with developing the ESP32-S3 controller.
All design files and source code are available on GitHub for anybody who would like to attempt to build their own Boxie.
