Yoto Player: Screen Free Audiobook Players

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I hopped on board getting a Yoto player when I first heard about them in 2021. I really wanted a screen free audiobook player, it reminded me so much of the books on tapes and CDs we had in the 90s. When I first got ours there was only the big ones available.

They can be on the pricey side, so choosing which one will work for your family can be helpful. We have two minis and a big player and all three are used every day.

Pro’s for the Mini’s- Cheaper, Smaller, Great for Individual Listeners

Pro’s for the Big Player- Better for listening as a family, Longer Battery Life, Easier for young kids.

We’ve had them for years and they’ve survived being dropped lots of times and traveled with us on long car rides. I think investing in the jackets for each one doesn’t just help tell them apart but helps them not break.

If you’re not very familiar with how these work. They are screen free audiobook players, the cards are made of a thick hard plastic material and can’t be ripped but are easily put into the player by even young children without help.

Things Yoto Players Can do:

-They can be controlled by the card you put in physically or the app. Only your app can control the player as you will in the beginning link all your players in your app.

-You can play any card you bought or made from the app on your phone or any player. This is handy when two children want to listen to the same card. You can also use a make your own card and scan a card onto that. No need to buy two of the same card.

-Each player comes with a welcome card that can be erased and used as a make your own card to put whatever audiobook or podcast on it (and erase it and put a new one on over and over again)

-You can put podcasts that have an RSS feed on any MYO card.

-It’s got great safety features, like keeping the player completely offline, controlling volume limits from the app and a separate headphone volume limit you choose too. There is a sleep radio and nightlight option among other bonus features you can turn on and off.

-All cards automatically get added to your library when you purchase from Yoto directly so you can listen to them instantly.

-It can be used as a bluetooth speaker but I’ve never felt the need to turn this on and have run into no issues.

-Great customer service. Two of my cords have stopped charging, they sent a new one free and right away.

Cons:

-It can be pricey not just the players but the cards too so extra budget friendly is getting the MYO cards and just reusing those.

-Yoto Daily can be turned off so it’s not a huge con, I loved it at first for years but recently I’ve heard a few things I don’t care for and it’s become a more worldview type of podcast. I miss the old ones that told jokes on Fridays (they do but it’s a bit different) and kept it simple and kid friendly and wished children all over the world happy birthday it was just simpler before and I’m not a fan of the changes.

Some great places to find cheap books are Libro.fm sales, any audiobook CDs you have, Yoto Space has free books and so does LibriVox lots of old books in the public domain great for homeschooling!

Yoto Club:

I use to use this club to help me save money as you’d get two cards for $10 a month (I’d cancel so I’d only pay for one month at a time whenever I needed to buy cards) and 10% off anything you purchased that month + free shipping. They have since changed their membership options and it costs $7 more to get the credits you use to get but they’ve included lots of digital extras but these don’t appeal to me since you can’t keep them.

Storing Yoto Cards:

I bought a card holder off Amazon to keep all the cards in and in one place. We keep this in a basket and kiddos can check out cards (after we lost one card I put this in place) but we can play any card we lose from the app or add it to a MYO card if we wanted.

Headphones:

I looked for ones with a rope cord and were easily adjusted, these are what we have and these.