A similar product which hasn’t been mentioned yet is the Tigerbox. This works with cards similar to Yoto, but also offers a full library subscription, like a kids music and audioplay flatrate. Our kids love it. They also have an app as an alternative player, which is super useful on long carrides. And you can store music for offline usage on the box as well.

Yes, it’s not selfhosted and autonomous. But it’s a pretty neat service.

I would compare it with the move from HDDs to SSDs — a night and day difference.

That took a lot longer really as well... I remember seeing SATA SSDs around 2009, paying a massive amount for my 64gb Intel drive (that ate itself just over a year later)... I hated moving/symlinking so much... but, fortunately by the time it died, I could go to 256gb or 512gb (don't quite remember which) for not too much more.

Even then, I was still seeing most Desktops sold with spinning rust for several years later.

I can second Hackmanit from my own experience. We had them come on site some years ago to train our team. This was incredibly helpful as they also focused on what we use in house in a separate chapter.

Can anyone recommend a (currently market available) USB drive that produces good results? Back in the good old times I had a Yamaha CRW F1 which many still say was the best for accurate rips, as it supported many advanced modes required to read even scratched CDs better than others.

From the dBpoweramp CD Ripper forums, "CD Drive Accuracy 2019": https://forum.dbpoweramp.com/showthread.php?43786-CD-Drive-A...

Also mentioned elsewhere in this thread: https://pilabor.com/blog/2022/10/audio-cd-ripping-hardware/

We built our house with KNX this year. While our electrician did all the wiring, I did the programming myself. It has a steep learning curve, but if you're in IT, you'll probably get the hang of it pretty quickly. The system is very robust and offers a lot of flexibility. Almost all our componenents are from MDT (https://www.mdt.de/EN_Start.html). They build really great products and are quite affordable. Compared with components from other manufacturers we use (Theben, Weinzierl, Steinel) I think their applications and manuals are also far superior.

I have since connected the system to my home assistant installation, and enjoy the added flexiblity.

Would that be deducted from their allowance? I guess this would rather alienate my kids from me, as they'd try to save money.