What is a Yoto Player?

What exactly is a Yoto player? The Yoto is a screen-free audio player for kids. It is a fun way for them to listen to audio books, kid-friendly podcasts, music, and so much more. It is customizable, meaning you can make any kind of audio file available for your little ones to listen to. The possibilities with the Yoto Player really are endless. It’s recommended for kids ages 3 and up. My two oldest (ages 7 and 4) each have their own Yoto Mini and they listen to them EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. We have had our Yoto Players for about a year and a half now and have absolutely loved them!

As a parent, one of my favorite things about the Yoto is the fact that it does not have free access to the internet. It does connect to wifi for some of the streaming services listed below, but there is no way for kids to surf the internet or get into content that is not appropriate for them. It is ad-free and safe listening. I really wanted something that my kids could use and have fun with, but not have to worry about what they are getting exposed to on the internet. So I was so excited when I heard about the Yoto player! They love the feeling of being in control of what they’re listening to, and I love the safety that comes along with that freedom for them.

Our Yotos have been a staple in our daily routine. We implement quiet time in our home, and each of the kids go to their separate rooms and listen to their favorite books for an hour each day. These have also been a lifesaver on long car rides. The Yoto Players have essentially replaced the DVD player in our van, which helps the kids to enjoy using their imaginations more.

How To Use the Yoto Player

The Yoto player is super simple to use. We have the Yoto Player minis, which have just three buttons. A power button on the side, a volume control button, and a chapter skip button. Our son was 3 years old when he first got his, and he had it all figured out in no time. Your Yoto will also come with a Welcome Card, which you can put in to the player and it will teach you all of the features available to you and how to use them.

You’ll need to use wifi when you first set up your Yoto Player. You can learn all about the setup process here. It is very easy to set up, and ours were up and running in a matter of minutes. After going through this quick process, using your Yoto is as simple as putting in a card and pressing play.

You can use the audio players with or without headphones. They also have a Bluetooth option as well!

The Yoto Player also has a rechargeable battery, utilizing a USB-C port. We’ve found the battery life on them to be excellent, averaging about 30 hours of playing time before needing to recharge.

Yoto Cards

The Yoto cards are what you’ll put into the Yoto to play the audio books. You can buy the cards or make your own using the Make Your Own cards. You can link any mp3 file to the MYO cards to create your own custom card. You can even record yourself or a loved one reading a story and connect it to the cards. We have a sweet 88 year-old neighbor, and our kids absolutely love to read with her. We have recorded her reading some of the kids’ favorite books and turned these into Yoto Cards.

Something that I did to build up our collection was joining the Yoto Club. It’s $10 a month and you get to pick 2 cards + get free shipping. The one downside to this was that not every Yoto Card was part of the Yoto Club. But we did get a lot of fun books that the kids enjoy. So I think it was worth it for a few months to get more cards for cheaper!

These cards are a great thing to ask for for birthdays and holidays though! It’s a simple and perfect gift that your kids will love to get!

Card-Free Listening

There are also a couple of options to listen to your Yoto Player without using a card. There are two built-in features called Yoto Daily and Yoto Radio, which do require a wifi connection to use. You can also use the Yoto App for card-free listening, which I will explain in the next section.

Yoto Daily is a short daily podcast that has fun facts, jokes, games, and other fun activities. We love listening to Jake on here! To access Yoto Daily just press down the orange button on the right side once.

Yoto Radio is a curated family-friendly music station, which is constantly being refreshed and updated. This station plays a variety of fun songs, nursery rhymes, classic Disney songs, Holiday music, and much more. To give you a good idea, Yoto has a feature on its website here that will show you the most recent songs that have been played on the radio station. To access Yoto Radio, press down the orange button on the right twice.

Yoto App

The Yoto App gets downloaded to your phone and has some really cool features!

Card Storage/Card-Free Listening: The app will store all of your cards that you have purchased, allowing you to be able to use the Yoto Player card-free. My kids have misplaced a Yoto card on more than one occasion, and the Yoto App really saved us in those situations. If you ever misplace a card, you can stream it from your phone directly onto the Yoto Player without a card.
Volume Limits: You can also control the maximum volume limit of the players for both day and night time. During the day, I have ours set to be able to play a bit louder. But at night, I turn it down a few extra notches. My 4 year old often listens to his at bedtime when he’s having a hard time falling asleep, so I let him listen to it quietly in his room. To access the volume control, just go to ‘players’ and then ‘settings’.
Sound machine: The Yoto also doubles as a sound machine! You can listen to the sleep radio, white noise, or other natural sounds. You can even link these free audios onto a Make Your Own Card so that you don’t have to stream it from your phone!
Podcasts: There are lots of different kids podcasts available to listen to. We’ve honestly never used this feature(except the Yoto Daily), but there may be some podcasts that your kids will enjoy! You can find these within My Library when you swipe over to the right.
Seasonal/Promotional Offers: During the month of December you will find the 24 Days of Yoto. From now until Christmas, you’ll have access to listen to some fun free Christmas audio and activities. Open the app and go to ‘My Library’ and then swipe over to ‘Discover’ section. I think they do something like this for every holiday!

What to Buy

There are different accessories for the Yoto Player, but here are a few things that we’ve really loved.

First, the adventure jacket. This is a must-have to give some added protection to your Yoto Player. I didn’t buy it in my first order and quickly realized we needed them! The adventure jacket is made of silicone and fits nicely around the Yoto Player. On top of protection, it also offers a better grip for the kids to hang on to, and helps keep the Yoto clean, as it easily wipes clean if it gets dirty.

Next, a card holder. We bought the travel case which holds the Yoto Player, cards, charger, and headphones. I would say to get that or the card case so that you can keep all the cards together. It has really helped our kids a lot to have an organized place for them to store their Yotos.

Headphones are also a good idea if you want them. My kids used their headphones more in the beginning, but prefer to listen to them without now. Any headphones you have will work!

Lastly, your favorite Yoto cards! My 7 year old loves The Boxcar Children cards and my 4 year old has been loving the 5 Minute Mickey Mouse stories. There are so many great options!

That’s a quick rundown of what the Yoto is and how to use it. Honestly my kids can probably explain it all better than I can! Haha they love these things and it has been such a good investment for us.

Comment any questions you have below! I’d love to chat more with you about them.

What is a Yoto Player + How to Use it