We have a yoto for our son, and its a great experience, but be prepared for pricing of content to match what we used to page for cds/tapes. e.g., the pout-pout fish card is $8 USD for 10 minutes of content [1].

I think that's ok, as he actually would get a lot more than 10 minutes of use out of it, and its great to pay the creators while not having to worry about ads manipulating my kid. But it highlights how expectations for the pricing of audio/video content has changed (probably for the worse)... for me at least.

1. https://us.yotoplay.com/products/the-pout-pout-fish

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mirashii 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Like some others, I built my own too: https://rdeaton.space/posts/screenless-digital-jukebox/

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neutronicus 13 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

We have a Yoto here as well, for our six-year-old.

The concept is great - RFID as a replacement for cassette audiobooks (with fewer storage limitations!).

I do wish it integrated better with sources of free audiobooks. The Libby app gets us access to a lot of audiobooks through the public library, many of which are not even available for purchase through the Yoto player. We can only use it to play them for him as a Bluetooth speaker from our phones, which removes a lot of the utility of the player (he can't navigate chapters, we can't set a sleep timer, we can't use our phones for other things).

The concept is great though and the specific product, walled content garden notwithstanding, has been a net win for us.

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fredley 13 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The Yoto system actively encourages you to buy 'blank' cards to fill with your own content, and the process is relatively simple. Simply remove the DRM from the borrowed media, (convert to an appropriate format if required), then upload to the card. Wipe your card whenever you borrow a new audio book from the libarary for a clear conscience. yt-dlp is also a great source of content.

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neutronicus 11 hours ago | parent | next [-]

This is true - we've taken advantage of it somewhat (my wife ripped Harry Potter this way, and we recorded ourselves narrating some favorites).

Mainly (shamefully) "Simply remove the DRM" is doing some work in your sentence. We just, uh, haven't gotten together the executive function to figure out how to do it with the Libby app on the iPhone. As a Hacker News poster I want to be the type of person who figures this out. But, I have not.

	▲	fredley 9 hours ago \| parent [-]
		That's fair, library systems can be very variable, where we are we can access audiobooks on a desktop, so there's access to the raw files, I can see how if you're doing it with an iPhone app it's considerably harder!

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arscan 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

TIL about the blank cards! Really glad I bothered to post about my experience with the Yoto.

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eigencoder 12 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

The make your own cards are really nice for this. We bought a bunch of them and you can add any mp3s you want onto them. We even print stickers to put on the front.

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morsch 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Tonie boxes are extremely widespread in Germany, and while the media are similarly priced, there's a huge used market and public libraries have them as well. Nothing is tied to a specific account or box, so there are no restrictions on resale or lending. Almost shocking in this day and age.

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jimbobjim 13 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The blank cards they sell are great. We borrow audio books from the library and I rip them to a card, you can reuse them as well so don’t need to buy too many. I also put radio streams on them, like classical stations for when my sons going to bed.

	▲	crazybonkersai 7 hours ago \| parent [-]
		You can use third party cards which are sold for a fraction of a price too. There are a bit of hassle to setup (you need to link an original card and then clone it to a cheap card), but when done they work flawlessly

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dtech 13 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

They have blank cards. They're a minor pain to set up in their UI, you have to get the audio files from somewhere, and you have to print a sticker so it's a bit of work but very doable.

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conception 12 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

People already mentioned the blank cards, but the Yoto club subscription is actually a pretty great deal. You get a ton of credits that you can just apply to books and the value works out pretty well.

You do have to watch out for Short content, but if you were buying audiobooks on Audible, you’d have the same issue .