Awhile back, Joel wrote about his Inoassis Y1 which is a little iPod-like thing that you can buy to play music. As with most things in life, I aspire to be Joel, so I bought one too. (Seriously, Joel is cool and has tons of ideas, so he gets me into a ton of bad habits like fountain pens. I should probably stop following his blog, I spend too much money as is).

The Y1 is a cool little piece of kit if you’re looking for a dedicated music player. It works a lot like the iPod Classic of yesteryear, sounds great, and is astonishingly cheap.

Now, my initial impressions were poor, but only because out of the box the Y1 doesn’t support high quality flac files. This caused the device to sit in my junk drawer for a long while. But then I put Rockbox on it, and that problem was solved.

The issue is, I still don’t use it.

I love the idea behind a dedicated music player, but it just isn’t something that really fits in with the way I listen to music. My phone comes with me everywhere I go, and while that’s probably not the most healthy thing in the world, I’ve made my peace with it. I do try to spend time off the phone, but that just means not unlocking it. I can still use it to play music through my AirPods. I don’t see that as cheating.

With my phone with me all the time, and access to my Navidrome server, I have all of my 3TB of music with me at all times. I can listen to whatever I want, wherever I want. I’m not limited to whatever I loaded up on the Y1 the last time I hooked it up to my computer. I also don’t have another device to carry around, something just begging to be left behind at the library or cafe.

It may seem to go against the idea of minimalism, but I’ve come down on the idea that one device is better than many, even if I have to use willpower to avoid phone addiction. I like watching videos of people who have successfully de-smartphoned their life, but it is just never going to be something I can or even want to do.

I’m a nerd, so the Y1 wasn’t really a waste of money. I liked playing with it, I enjoyed setting it up and installing RockBox on it. But it’s going to sit in my junk drawer until I find someone to sell or give it to. Because it is just not needed.

Do you see the benefits of a dedicated audio player? If so let me know on the fediverse.