You add the stories. They just press Play.

Not if they already have a tablet, smartphone or laptop. Reading to Ruth is a website, so it runs on iPads, Android and Amazon Fire tablets, phones and laptops, including many older devices; Ruth's is a ten-year-old iPad. If they have nothing, a basic Amazon Fire tablet, about £100, works well. A simple stand and a charger are the only other things worth buying.

Nothing to install, nothing to update, no app store. When we improve something, it's simply there the next time the page is opened. A carer can add it to the home screen so it opens like an app.

You pay, and within minutes an email arrives with your two private links and a four-digit PIN. Open the first on the listener's device and add it to the home screen; open the second on your phone and enter the PIN. There is no account to create, no app to download, and nothing to install. Allow ten to fifteen minutes, once. If you'd like a hand, reply to the email and we'll do it with you on a video call.

The player lives at your family's own web address, so a new device just means typing the address in again: the same books and messages are waiting. The place in each book is kept on the device itself, so on a new one a book starts from the beginning; the listening diary shows which part they had reached. If the email with the addresses is lost, reply to your receipt and we'll send it again.

Yes, the books play over the home's or the care home's wi-fi, the same as a radio app. The player remembers the place in every book on the device itself, so if the connection drops, it picks up exactly where it was when the wi-fi returns.

On the standard player there are only three, and none of them can get lost. On the simplest player there is just one: the whole screen is Play. Play pauses and resumes, always stepping back twenty seconds so the thread is never lost. Go Back a Bit rewinds half a minute. Next Book moves to the next story and keeps the place in the one it left, so nothing is ever abandoned by mistake.

It plays through the device's own speaker, a plug-in speaker, headphones, or a hearing loop if the room has one. The announcement voices are clear British voices at an unhurried pace, and volume is set once by the family or a carer.

Yes: the set-up guide walks through every device (iPad, Android, Amazon Fire, laptop), how to stop it locking, how to lock it into the player, and how to connect speakers or hearing aids. You don't need to have paid to read it.

Tell us the book and we'll do the rest. Find it on the family page, see the price and press Buy; it's on their shelf, usually the same day. You pay the normal audiobook price, typically £10–£25, with nothing added, and it's yours to keep. If you already own audiobook files, or have your own recordings, you can drop them straight onto the shelf yourself.

Not really. Once it's on the home screen the player fills the whole screen: no address bar, no menus, no links, nothing to tap into by mistake. If a device is restarted or the page is closed, opening it again brings everything back exactly as it was. The only settings are behind a small corner the family or a carer knows about.

You do. The ready-made library is public domain, and anything you buy is yours, from a shop that lets you keep it. If you ever leave, we hand your files back. Nothing is rented.

Yes. One family account, unlimited relatives, from any phone or computer, anywhere in the world. Voice messages say who they're from, so a grandchild in Sydney and a daughter in Leeds can both leave one the same day.

Yes. Paste an article, a letter or a poem into the family page and it's read aloud in a natural voice, then delivered like a voice message: "First, a reading from Tom." Two hours are included; a poem takes two minutes, a long feature about ten, so that is about sixty poems or a dozen long articles. If you ever use them up, another hour is £9.99, paid once. Voice messages in your own voice are always free.

The family page is protected by a PIN you choose. Voice messages and readings are stored for your listener alone, never shared or used for anything else, and there are no advertisements anywhere. The listening diary is visible only to the family. Our privacy notice sets out exactly what we keep and who helps us run it.

Your own recordings play in any language: family voices, prayers, songs, music, or audiobook files you already own. The player's own announcements are in English, and the bookshop is a UK English one.

Alexa still relies on voice commands, and audiobook apps can be difficult to navigate if sight, hearing or dexterity are limited. Books bought through services such as Audible also stay inside their own apps. Reading to Ruth is different: the family handles the technology, while the listener gets a simple player with no menus and no voice commands, and books that are theirs. More about Alexa and Audible

Yes. Instead of paying once you can pay £6.99 a month, with everything the same, and cancel any time from the family page. If you stop, nothing is taken away: the player keeps playing every book and message already on it, and only adding new ones pauses. Paying once works out cheaper if you'll use it for more than about a year.

Tell us within 60 days of the day they first use it and we refund the £49.99 in full, so a present opened on Christmas Day is covered well into February. We'll ask what got in the way, because we would like to fix it, but the refund doesn't depend on the answer. Any books you bought are yours to keep.

If you paid once, there's nothing to cancel. On the monthly plan, cancel from the Family tab of the family page and the player keeps playing what's on it. Whenever you're ready, tell us and we'll quietly take the player down, send the family the voice messages and any books they bought, and delete the rest. It should feel like closing a book, not ending a contract.

Yes. It works on the home's tablets, and carers can adjust the screen without a login. Families add the books and messages from their own phones, so staff only need to keep the tablet charged. If you run a home and would like it for several residents, see the section for care homes.