Why not to get a kit
Retroreader is an experimental project built on hobbyist hardware. Please understand these limitations before spending money on a kit.
The software is in alpha
Features will change. Things will break, be fixed, and sometimes break again. Retroreader is not yet a dependable replacement for a commercial book player, and you should keep backups of everything on its microSD card.
No battery is included
The kit does not come with a battery, and finding a suitable one can be difficult. Batteries that appear physically compatible may have their positive and negative wires arranged differently. Connecting one with reversed polarity can damage the hardware. The small JST plug is also fiddly to handle if its wires need to be rearranged.
The reset button is easy to press
The back supplied with the kit leaves the reset button easy to press accidentally, particularly when putting the unit down or handling it against a surface. A modified or alternative case may be desirable.
Wi-Fi is 2.4 GHz only
The kit cannot connect to a network that provides only 5 GHz or 6 GHz Wi-Fi. Your router or access point must make a compatible 2.4 GHz network available.
Quiet headphone listening is imperfect
The audio output has a faint background noise that becomes more noticeable when listening through headphones at very low volume. Speech can therefore sound slightly hissy in quiet surroundings, even when the synthesizer itself is producing clean audio.
The hardware has strict limits
The ESP32-S3 is a very low-power processor with limited memory and processing capacity. Retroreader deliberately uses compact speech engines that suit those limits. Modern, natural-sounding voices are not coming to this hardware, and every proposed feature must fit within its modest performance and memory budget.
If none of that puts you off, see how to get a kit. Retroreader is best suited to people who enjoy testing, tinkering and helping an open-source accessibility project develop.