The Yoto Player puts kids in charge of story time
The Yoto Player puts kids in charge of story time
Audiobooks are a growing market – for kids and adults – both as an antidote to screen time and as a pleasure uniquely their own. In 2019, audiobook sales in the US were up 16%, according to the Audio Publishers Association - and that was before the pandemic hit. You’ll see this reflected at publishers across the board: HarperCollins’ digital sales were up 20% in 2020compared to the previous year, accounting for 23% of consumer revenues for the quarter (that includes e-books and audiobooks).
Kids are a natural audience for audiobooks since they're often being read to anyway. However, most of this content is played through a phone or laptop, devices that few parents want to hand over to unsupervised children. A new crop of kids audio readersis filling this void. They're designed to be used independently by children across a variety of ages. Some require an internet connection, but all of them are "walled gardens" that can only play a pre-selected menu of content.
The Yoto Player is one such device, although we would be vastly underselling it by simply calling it an audio reader for kids. There’s a lot packed into that cube of hard-to-destroy plastic (trust us, our kids have tried). When you have one, you wonder how you ever did without it.
Here’s what you need to know about the Yoto player and its many varied uses and functions.
Yoto Player: An overview
The premise of the Yoto Player is simple: It’s a connected, screen-free speaker for kids that they can easily control themselves. Kids of all ages can use Yoto, but it's designed primarily for ages 3 to 12.
Ben Drury and Filip Denker launched Yoto via Kickstarter in 2017. The pair, who are both dads, had backgrounds in tech and music and worked with design firm Pentagram on the ultimate design for the device. The initial Yoto debuted in the UK in 2018 and the current Yoto Player launched in the U.S. in June 2020.
Compared to other connected speakers for kids, the Yoto’s features make it appealing to kids for several years. We’ve tested several speakers for kids in the past several months and are impressed with the longevity of it: There’s really something for all ages to enjoy.
The Yoto is a sturdy white cube with orange knobs and a discreet power button located on the right side of the device. As you face it, twisting the left knob adjusts the volume. The right knob changes “channels” when you press it or skips chapters when you turn it. The Yoto comes with a magnetic charger that secures onto the base of the device. There's a nightlight at the back, plus a radio station.
Kids decide what to play by inserting content cardsinto the top of the device. Cards can contain music, audiobooks, meditations, or educational lessons. They can be purchased in a Yoto starter pack or bought on their own, via the website or app.
Set-up is straightforward: Download the Yoto app on your device to connect with your player. The instructions will walk you through the rest of the process. Kids don't need to use the app to play with the device. You can also use the Yoto as a Bluetooth speaker via your phone.
Yoto's new headphones have built-in volume limits. Credit: YOTO What's in the box?
The basic Yoto package includes the player, magnetic charger and a welcome card ($99.99). For an extra $10, you can get six stories included in a starter pack.
For a higher fee, ($24.99) you can buy a starter pack with the Phonics: Phase 1 Letters & Sounds set, or three Diary of a Wimpy Kidbook cards, narrated by author Jeff Kinney. For comparison, three Wimpy Kid audiobooks would cost roughly $30 from Apple Books. Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factorycosts $9.99 on Apple Books and $11.99 in the Yoto store.
Yoto recently released its own headphones ($29.99), which are adjustable, volume-limited to 85dB. They also have daisy chain capability so you can listen to two sets from one player. Our eldest has been using them for remote learning while schools are shut in London, and is impressed with how comfortable and noise-canceling they’ve been.
You can also buy card pouches and magnets to help the kids keep track of the cards, which undoubtedly will get lost. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’s gone missing in our house, causing quite a lot of stress, but the card is the size of a credit card. These accessories start at $8.99.
Losing cards is the Yoto's main flaw – handing mission-critical pieces to children is like lighting money on fire. However, the company' says that the Yoto app contains a library of all your purchased content, which can be played on the device using the app. They just can't do it without you (or rather your phone).
You must connect the Yoto to your WiFi via the app the first time you download a story, inputting your WiFi password. After that you can disconnect it and play the stories offline with the cards. The device has no microphones or cameras.
The Yoto's extra features
The Yoto Player offers various features that have made it an indispensable item in our household of four kids, ages 10, 8, 5 and 3. Somewhere between a toy and an educational tool, our older kids love escaping to their room just to turn it on and “relax” with it.
The back of the device lights up and works as a nightlight - one of the reasons this is well-suited to toddlers as well as older kids. Better yet, it’s customizable, so the color can change from pink to blue to yellow, depending on your child’s mood. The nightlight and wakeup/bedtime features can all be adjusted under the Player Settings feature in the Yoto app.
There are cute, light-up graphics on the side of the Yoto that switch to a sun in the morning and moon at night. They also change to reflect the images from whatever stories you’re listening to.
The Yoto is wonderfully portable. We haven’t gone anywhere with it in the pandemic, but it’s easy to move from room to room in the house, and I can see it being useful on family trips.
There’s also a Yoto Club for UK users (it’s due to roll out in the US, but the date is still TBD), a subscription feature where kids benefit from monthly deliveries of new audio content and product discounts for a monthly fee. This is divided into two age groups: choose from content for ages 3-5 or, 5-8. Each month, subscribers receive a pack including some combination of new stories, mindfulness cards, lullabies and more - items that aren’t yet available on the Yoto card store.
The back of the Yoto has a night light. Credit: YOTO The Yoto cards
The Yoto Player mostly operates with cards: Slot one into the top of the player to access a special story, songs, or a phonics lesson.
We are impressed with the range of options available on the Yoto Card Store- there are over 150 cards available, and you can filter content by age, type (stories, music, etc.), new arrivals, authors and more.
You’ll also find multi-card packs from your favorite authors like Jeff Kinney, Roald Dahl, A.A. Milne, Julia Donaldson and more. Choose from cards with stories introducing kids to school life, animal sounds and music, like Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf. There are alsomindfulness cards with stories and sounds to help kids unwind and relax. Best-sellers in the U.S. include Winnie-the-Pooh – The Complete BBC Collection by A.A. Milne, Classic Fairy Stories and the BBC’s The Wheels on the Bus.
There’s also educational content for the Yoto, including phonics cards, from sounds to tongue-twisters. Our younger two are really enjoying these cards for screen-free teaching moments. We’ve also spotted some math cards with addition and subtraction and science facts.
Some cards are specifically designed to encourage sweet dreams: Look for the Yoto x LifeScore Dream Cards, which feature immersive musical scores. Podcasts and radio cards are available, too. These start at $2.99. More premium card packs can cost as much as $99.99, for the complete collection of Roald Dahl’s works.
You can also make your own story cards. This is fun for kids so they can listen to recordings of family members reading their favorite stories or singing them songs, or you can curate playlists of stories and songs you love for a special child in your life. One card can hold 100 tracks (that’s one hour of playing time, with 100MB maximum file size for a single track and a 600MB total file size per card).
Yoto Player: Free features
There’s plenty to do on the Yoto without spending a ton of extra money on additional cards, like the Yoto Daily podcast feature (press the right button once) and Yoto Radio (press the right button twice). These are both free with the device and beyond being connected to Wifi don’t require any additional cards to enjoy.
The podcast and radio are two of the top features of the Yoto Player, according to our two older kids, aged eight and 10, who have been listening to the Yoto nightly for several months. They love the riddles, facts and playing trivia games on the podcast hosted by Jake Harris, as well as the Friday jokes.
The older kids also love the independence of being able to listen to their own music, in their own time. In the daylight hours, Yoto Radio plays everything from pop songs to Mary Poppins; in the evening, the music switches to relaxing tunes to help encourage sleep.
The Yoto also conveniently works as a bluetooth speaker that a parent can control from their own phone (just enable the Bluetooth pairing feature in the Yoto app). This allows parents to play audio content from their phone directly to the Yoto device.
Yoto Player: Our kids’ verdict
In addition to enjoying the radio tunes, riddles and facts they’re learning each day, our kids have become obsessed with Roald Dahl’s Matilda(read by Kate Winslet), which they listen to nightly. In fact, the eight-year-old, who is less of a reader, was inspired to pick up the Matildabook we had lying around and read it herself after listening to the audio story for a few days. Score! They not only act out the different characters - yes, they’ve memorized most of the chapters - but have begged me not to take the Yoto out of their room to play it for their younger siblings, because they’re so worried they won’t get it back.
Another bonus I’ve noticed is how much the Yoto has helped with a bedtime routine and sleep. The kids like to have a story on as they go to bed, so “Why can’t I stay up later tonight?” is a refrain heard far less frequently in our household these days. The book (or music) playing in their room helps them drift off to sleep without argument. These days, I'll take a win anywhere I can get it.
UPDATE: March 10, 2021, 3:27 p.m. EST This story has been updated to correct the Yoto's intended age range, which is 3 to 12, and clarify when it was launched in the UK and the U.S. The co-founder is Filip Denker, not Filipp.