When it comes to supporting children’s learning and development while keeping them entertained, many parents find technologies like televisions and smartphones a great help. Others, however, are less enthusiastic about their kids constantly sitting in front of a screen.
If you’re looking for ways to educate and entertain your children while reducing screen time, this review of the Yoto Player might be of interest to you.
Yoto is a brand specializing in entertaining and educational audio content for children aged 0 to 12. This content is available worldwide in a safe and user-friendly format: the Yoto Player.
Although the brand is relatively new, the Yoto Player is already generating a lot of buzz. Yoto has built a considerable following of 227,000 on Instagram.
Overview of the Yoto Player:
In 2015, Ben Drury and Filip Denker founded Yoto out of concern for their children’s development in a screen-dominated society. In their view, screens can be addictive, lead to sleep disorders, and potentially impair fine motor skills.
Drury and Denker are by no means against screens—after all, they met via video chat—but they fear overuse and wanted to offer children an alternative to screen-based entertainment.
Through attending a Montessori kindergarten, Drury became acquainted with Montessori pedagogy, which focuses on learning and playing with physical rather than digital objects and promotes children’s independence.
Highlights:
- Access to family-friendly radio and children’s podcasts
- Reduces screen time
- Safe access to an audio library with over 300 books, music tracks, and movie retellings for children ages 0 to 10
- Create your own audio content
- Promotes fine motor skills in children ages 3 to 12
- Worldwide shipping
- Excellent customer reviews
- Free shipping within the US (mainland) on orders over $40
Yoto Player Review:
If you’re concerned about excessive screen time or want to ensure your children don’t accidentally stumble upon—let’s say—questionable websites, while still offering them choices and play options, the Yoto Player is for you.
The Yoto Player is a small device with a simple display, a built-in speaker, rotary controls, and a card slot.
It’s incredibly easy to use:
Simply insert the desired audio card. The player will download the file directly from the Yoto server. The rotary knobs let you control playback, adjust the volume, skip tracks, and much more. Have fun! It’s incredibly easy to use. There are two knobs: one for volume and another that lets you, for example, rewind a chapter in the current book.
Yoto Club Review:
The Yoto Player uses audio cards, similar to cassettes or CDs. To help your children build a diverse Yoto audio library, the Yoto Player offers the Yoto Club—a subscription service that sends you new cards monthly.
A Yoto audio card costs on average between $3 and $12 (in some cases up to $25, as we discovered during our research for this Yoto Player review).
The Yoto catalog is extensive and constantly growing, so the selection can be a bit overwhelming for some parents and children.
If you want to save money and receive great recommendations, the Yoto Club subscription is perfect for you. Each month you will receive two exclusive, pre-selected cards or can exchange them for two cards from a rotating list of ten favorites.
If your children are curious and love stories or music, the Yoto Player is a great way to satisfy that interest without breaking the bank.
Who is the Yoto Player suitable for?
My review of the Yoto Player showed that this brand is ideal for parents who want their children to learn or be entertained without screens.
They have access to a wide variety of audio content, providing a welcome change from visual stimuli, promoting their learning, and offering them a different form of interaction.
The Yoto Player also allows children to control their own media consumption and browse content independently, without compromising their safety or online security, as can happen when watching YouTube videos or other internet content.
The Yoto Player is also an excellent choice for parents of children with visual impairments or blindness. The simple, tactile rotary knobs are easier for some children to use than the touch controls of a smartphone, which can sometimes be difficult to see and provide no audible or haptic feedback.
Yoto Player customers review:
According to this Yoto Player review, the brand is just as popular with parents and children today as it was when its Kickstarter campaign launched in 2017. Customer feedback is overwhelmingly positive, and most complaints have been resolved by the manufacturer.
The ease of use, which allows children to develop their independence and motor skills, is definitely a major plus.
On Trustpilot, where the brand has a 4.3 out of 5-star rating, one of the over 37,000 Yoto Player reviews states: “It’s very easy to use – our son operates the player independently and loves choosing his favorite card in the evening.”
Is the Yoto Player legit?
This review clearly recommends the brand. There’s a wide selection of tailored and original content for the whole family, and it’s easy to see how this device fosters children’s curiosity and independence while reducing excessive screen time.
The player is simple and intuitive to use, and thanks to the brand’s integrated app, adults also have access to all the necessary features.
Furthermore, the subscription service and additional discounts (see below) make it easy to save on your purchase, while the accessories simplify the transport and storage of your player and card collection.
Contact Yoto Player:
Do you have any questions after reading this Yoto Player review? You can reach Yoto customer service by email at hello@yotoplay.com.
Frequently Asked Questions about Yoto Player:
Who owns Yoto Player?
Co-founders Ben Drury and Filip Denker remain the owners of the brand. Drury is currently the company’s CEO.
Does Yoto Player ship internationally?
The brand offers several websites for the UK, Europe, Canada, and the US through which you can order a Yoto Player. At the time of our Yoto Player review, the Yoto Club is only available in the UK and the US.