I have a disabled family friend who loves watching some specific comfort shows/movies. He can generally communicate what he wants to watch, but cannot navigate the aging Amazon TV/DVD player his family uses to play things for him. He gets frustrated when his family can’t understand him or isn’t as fast as he would like. I want to give him an easy way to play what he wants at any time.

I’d like to get him a setup where if he pushes a clearly labeled button (with pictures because he can’t read well) it will start playing automatically. I’ll download all of his stuff locally of course (will probably save them some cash on subscriptions…). I have an old laptop running Linux I can donate to the cause as well.

Can a stream deck be used for what I’m envisioning? Or would putting some stickers on a small macro keyboard be easier? For reference, I’ve done very basic programming in the past (C++ mostly), so I’m not totally helpless if this requires some tinkering, but I’m rusty. Happy to dive in and learn to make this work though.

Edit: For clarity he is not able to navigate a UI. Using the directional buttons on a remote isn’t something he can do developmentally at the moment. He can identify a button and press it, though, which is why I was thinking about a stream deck/macro keyboard solution.