PP here who uses an MP3 player.

I like the cheapie MP3 players best. At first I had a sandisk expensive one, and it fried after about four years. What I didn't like about the sandisk one is that in order to hit pause on my story, it was a whole process -- slide this button, then this button, then this button. Blargh.

So then I bought a cheapie $30 MP3 player. It lasted about a year before it fried. But at least the pause button was easy to find. I perhaps should mention that I listen to one or two ten hour long audiobooks a week, so I felt like I got my money's worth out of the cheapie MP3 player.
I am currently on my third MP3 player, which is another cheapie. It has been about 18 months since I bought it and it is working fine so far. The brand is agptek.

32 GB in memory is plenty enough memory for downloading audiobooks. From what I can tell, I think I could download about 80 hours worth of audiobooks and still have memory left.

I listen to audiobooks on an MP3 player. Here is how I make the audiobooks go from the library website to my MP3 Player:

I installed overdrive on my desktop computer. My library has the overdrive program available for downloading for free.

I go to the library website, log on with my library card number, go to my library's overdrive /libby section, find an audiobook I want, and download it to my desktop. Then I log off from the library website and go to the overdrive program on my computer.
I hit the "open" button. Then there is the audiobook. Then I download it to overdrive.
Then I plug in my MP3 Player to my desktop computer.
Then I hit the "Transfer" button on the overdrive program. It then transfers it to my MP3 player.
Then I close the overdrive program.
Then I open the drive for my MP3 Player. Then I hit the "rename" button for each section of the audiobook that is on my MP3 player. And I rename each chapter with 1-, 2-, 3-, etc.
All I change in the whole "rename" process is that I add sequential numbers at the beginning of the title for each section.
I rename each section because otherwise the sections play out of sequence.
Each section of the audiobook is about an hour long.
Actually, if the book is really long, like ten hours or more, my MP3 player still likes to go from chapter one to chapter ten. Then on to chapter two, three, etc. But I can overcome this obstacle because i can see the numbers that I renamed each section while I am listening and go to the section I want if that happens.

Then I close everything up and unplug my MP3 player and start listening.

The MP3 player doesn't need WIFI to play the audiobooks. The audiobooks stay on my MP3 Player as long as I want. The audiobooks disappear off my desktop computer after one week.

Usually I listen to the audiobooks with headphones, but sometimes I use a little $10 bluetooth speaker I bought at Walmart to listen to them.

Also, most libraries have a decent collection of books on CD , no wait times for holds on those. DC library auto renews check outs too for CDs and physical books.

Anonymous wrote:I am not familiar with iOS, but in Android you could set it so that after a certain time of day (or always) that they cannot use any app on the device except for Libby.

https://families.google.com/familylink/

This may be similar from iOS: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201304

Anonymous wrote:We have kid’s iPad screen time set with downtime, but then you can set a specific app to ”always allow” or you could give an hour for the specific app.

If this is something you want to do, I think the above is the correct answer. I would also recommend an e-reader for reading if you can afford to do both.

Anonymous wrote:Hm. So no devices specifically for book reading + listening. That’s kind of what I could gather from googling around also.

No interest in Alexa and our HomePod mini has not been a real success. We have it in a common area and can barely get it to do much more than serve as an alarm or give weather / date info and play music with a lot of hoop jumping. It also likes to play randomly just one specific song. So either we have a dud, fail as semi-tech competent, or it’s a nt that useful. Might be all three ☺️

Maybe we can scrounge up some old lockable iPhones and try that. If new ideas are out there, please share.

It appears that a select number of kobo readers will play audiobooks, but it requires a Bluetooth speaker or headphones for playback.

https://help.kobo.com/hc/en-us/articles/4406292712471

But that does not appear to interact with overdrive (Libby).

We have kid’s iPad screen time set with downtime, but then you can set a specific app to ”always allow” or you could give an hour for the specific app.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just do not connect it to your WiFi. You can do it just to download for them.

Libby books can't be downloaded. You have to be connected to the internet for them to work.

This is incorrect, I use Libby regularly on a flight or without Wi-Fi on my iPad.

Hm. So no devices specifically for book reading + listening. That’s kind of what I could gather from googling around also.

No interest in Alexa and our HomePod mini has not been a real success. We have it in a common area and can barely get it to do much more than serve as an alarm or give weather / date info and play music with a lot of hoop jumping. It also likes to play randomly just one specific song. So either we have a dud, fail as semi-tech competent, or it’s a nt that useful. Might be all three ☺️

Maybe we can scrounge up some old lockable iPhones and try that. If new ideas are out there, please share.

You can run it through a tablet or computer and play it on a Bluetooth enabled speaker.

Anonymous wrote:Just do not connect it to your WiFi. You can do it just to download for them.

Libby books can't be downloaded. You have to be connected to the internet for them to work.

We have Libby on an old cell phone that's wi-fi only that DS doesn't have the passcode to. You can pause and play and rewind and fast forward with the screen locked, and he can't open the phone to do anything else. The only annoying thing is we have to unlock the phone to get him a new audiobook.

I am not familiar with iOS, but in Android you could set it so that after a certain time of day (or always) that they cannot use any app on the device except for Libby.

https://families.google.com/familylink/

This may be similar from iOS: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201304

Just do not connect it to your WiFi. You can do it just to download for them.

Can you use Libby on a smart speaker like Alexa?

My kids love audiobooks at bedtime, but we don’t want devices with internet browsing, etc. We also would prefer to use Libby for library audiobooks (not Audible or similar pay services). The only other function that might be nice is e-reader for library books.

This mythical device doesn’t seem to exist. Anyone know of such a thing? Thanks!