Welcome to late-stage capitalism! Where you expect anything and everything to spy on you! It's disturbing what a distopian world we already live in and it's getting worse every year but since we are being "slowly boiled" we don't even notice it.....
Normally - maybe you'd have a point. BUT this is a product for children and presence of microphones cameras etc. it's a altogether different legal story for a toy maker me thinks 🤔
Uh I don't know if more exposure is a good idea. Next up we'll just have other bands with silly names like Prince or Scorpions or something like that. And that's just ... silly 😁.
@@skylined5534Understandable! It's a neat little gizmo. I'm impressed by the outside-the-box approach. I'd have never thought to use NFC cards as triggers to download and play cloud music on a player.
The design of everything is fantastic. It's clear the creators put in a lot of care and thought into it all, which sadly is lacking in a lot of products these days.
Yoto should really look at bringing out a non-toy version of this, great for seniors, those worried about privacy, those wanting something more tangible in life. It really looks slick and well thought out. If there was a more grown up version of this, I would buy them.. quite a few of them'!
@@wisteela Exactly. My sister had a stroke and she really has trouble with technology devices. The fewer buttons available, the less chance of something going wrong.
@@happyundertaker6255 This is still a point but I think the level of strict control you have over what is streamed to the device and the fact that it can't do anything in the other direction is really important and gives you a lot of confidence. It's very...very expensive though. I suppose thats what you need to get something that carefully designed.
@@Fred_PJI think that would make it even more soft, I think this is a grid of discrete multi-color LED lights that are separated from each other with plastic to form each pixel, whereas the display on the mini is probably an actual OLED display. The frosted plastic on the larger one is likely what makes it soft.
@@nooneinpartYes. Almost certainly individually addressable LEDs. Though could be multiplexed. The smaller screen is probably actually higher resolution.
It's perfectly fine to call NFC RFID, because NFC is really just a protocol/standard on top of RFID. It's like calling a compact cassette a "tape", it's not wrong, just less specific.
I thought the difference between RFID and NFC (apart from range) was that RFID tags are active and NFC tags are passive. I did not realize that there are passive RFID tags. I learned something! Thank you for posting this comment! 👍
Thank you for stating this to Mat so clearly. I've wanted to comment this information, already back on an earlier video he made referencing RFID. Near Field Communication (NFC) rides on the Radio Frequency ID-entification protocol (RFID), so it is perfectly correct. Well at least it is according to what I learned years ago. Anyway, thanks for stating. I hope he reads your comment. Fred
@@canuckchuck8836the standalone tags are always passive, in that they have no onboard power but instead are powered by the reading coil. Presumably the ones sent out by a phone or watch can be actively powered by themselves, which would give a little more range, but they’re always set-up to be able to power a passive tag.
@@kaitlyn__L NFC tags are passive...the RFID tags that I worked with were all active. They were installed in the assets and location tracked using an antenna grid installed onsite. I have also used active RFID tags installed in returnable containers for automotive/manufacturing use so they can be tracked for asset management and product location.
Yeah, NFC is an application-layer standard for RFID. The physical layer is ISO/IEC 14443 (the same standard as contactless payment cards, among others) or Sony's FeliCa (PASMO, Suica, et al.). The unique part of the NFC spec is how to store and format data, e.g. URLs.
Have to say, I'm quite flabbergasted how well these products have been made, it appears a massive amount of care and attention has gone into them. They seem ridiculously simple to use not only from a very young child's POV but also from a parents, and seemingly with so many great features! I wish the company all the success in the world, what a fantastic job!👍 In fact, if Yoto were to make an adult version I'd be SERIOUSLY tempted!
Also a potential way for podcasters to make some money; sell yoto cards linked to their podcast, that of course isn't necessary to listen but it is a convenience that people might be willing to pay for
This and the other one that Techmoan covered a while back are very obviously aimed at conscientious, yuppie parents who can afford lots of niche gadgets but are also very concerned about their kids being unsafe on the open web-or just getting too much screen time.
We have one of the minis for our nearly 4 year old. She loves it! And it’s really easy for us to as visually impaired parents. The only issue we had was getting it set up, the pairing code on the screen was a bit of a pain, but, once we got past that stage, it was absolutely fine. really accessible interface on the app on iOS as well, only a couple of things I can’t work out how to do, but they’re not super important. My only recommendation for an update to the mini is to have some sort of magnetic charging lead rather than the USB, though that would probably charge slower. It would just make our little girl more independent with it. She loves having all her cards in a cheapo credit card holder as well. Really handy.
Great device. I remember seeing this on social media people getting outraged that 'fat bottomed girls' had been excluded from queen's greatest hits. I think pixel art of a fat bottom wouldn't necessarily be appropriate for three-year-old!
Oh, that's lovely! I'm visually impaired as well, and have a tween sister. She's much too old for this, but I'm still so glad they made the app accessible. That feels like finding the hay in the needle stack sometimes. If I ever do end up having a kid sometime, I would definitely be on the hunt for gadgets like this. Being in this day and age, I love stuff with real buttons/controls. Got the first washing machine in what feels like a decade that goes back to basics with some really nice tactile knobs. Ah... bliss. My sister has a boom box for now, which my parents and I were thrilled to find since we've grown up in very different eras with such different tech, with me born in the early 90s, my older brother mid-eighties, and her in the early 10s. To explain the huge age gap, little sis is biologically my niece, but ... life happens and I couldn't imagine her as anything but my little sis.
@@unruler Yet there are adults addicted to social media and pay to win games. Better to keep kids away from smartphones as long as possible, they're not good for their mental health.
@@carlosemilio5180 im trying to imagine what that would sound like, its like deathcore but instead of influence from regular metal, its goregrind. Im taking "beat" as referring to breakbeat because thats funny, so theres an amen break sample in there somewhere. The extra "gore" and the "blood" i take as just doublimg down on the brutality of the lyrics Killdrum is definitely like a ryosuke kiyasu sort of thing where the drummer breaks their drums over the course of the song so really short songs with fast tempos and very fast but broken up sounding riffs with a breakdown, amen break samples, lyrics that make carcass sound like christian rock and also the drummer has to play so aggressively that their drums break
The Yoto Player really is amazing. My niece (4) and nephew (2) share one and it reads some of their favourite bedtime stories. The device is really durable and they can even change the cards themselves!
I love how the Beatles titles are suitable for all ages, but to listen to Queen you must be at least 6 years old. Why I remember it like it was only yesterday; that coming-of-age summer when I turned 6 and suddenly felt the weight and responsability of the world. 😂
This is a super neat idea. An alarm with a modern gimmick that doesn't suck. If they ever release a non child focused version, I'd probably pick it up.
@@Amias89 By that logic, why go to the cinema or watch TV on anything else when your phone has a screen? lol Not everything needs to be on a phone. Separate dedicated devices are neat.
Yeah, if they gave this an adult mode it would be an ideal alarm clock, hardware is already pretty much fine as is for that purpose. Also ideal for old folk.
this is a seriously cool looking little box. the display looks lovely, and the pictures for each song are such a lovely touch. i have absolutely no need for it and have no children, but im nonetheless very interested in getting one!
@@christo930 well no the device downloads the albums via the cloud. after that they are on the built in storage. he litterally said this in the video. also how long do you think the CDs will last in the hands of a 3 year old. they will throw it on the ground and stomp on it. also what channels would again a 3 year old enjoy listening to that they would tune into.
So many people have missed out on the physical media era of music, living their teenage years in the streaming era, it would be super cool to have a system where you can associate cards with playlists on one of the services, like the card with the cassette sticker on it, so one could just pick up a card from a pile of them next to the speaker system and plug it in to change playlists or give a friend a "mix tape" on one of these cards that pulls up a playlist you've created.
The problem is that the music is not stored on the cards. They could have added storage to them like SD cards, if they did that then what you are saying would make sense. Also what do mean by missed out on physical media? You can still buy CDs, records even taps sometimes, they just aren't used on mass like they used to be sadly. It would be more effective to just buy a CD player for a kid than this thing. With that you could share "mix tapes" with other kids by just burning CDs, Assuming that the person you give them to has a CD player but you could just tell them to buy on as they aren't crazy expensive like crappy smartphones. Overall I agree with what you are saying I just wish that they implemented it better.
Love these devices. The fact that you can make your own really appeals to me. If you can buy the cards in a shop, I imagine they would be hanging at the checkouts behind the cashier and not within easy reach
There is also the possibility that the NFC can be activated at the register by scanning the tag and the store updating a database owned by yoto that the card with that ID has been sold.
@@stepheng8779I remember cassettes and discs usually having some big plastic thing on them that had to be removed at the register when you bought them
People seem to be misunderstanding how this product works. It is not strictly a streaming device. Once you listen to a card once the content downloads on to 32 gigs of memory on the box and you can take the box and your cards with you anywhere with no internet required to play them.
I guess I feel a little better about it then, my concern is that these sort of web based devices have a nasty tendency to get turned into bricks if the company running the servers goes under...or doesn't feel like supporting legacy devices. What would make me actually fully approve is if there was a way to locally manage the library and the possibility to point the device to a private server instance to secure functionality in case of the company going bankrupt/device deprecation.
@@nickp1987 Totally! The device is very well designed and made. It's a smart system, but until I have no option (literally) I will avoid "cloud-mandatory" devices.
@@nickp1987unfortunately i think if the app went away youd lose a lot of functionality, the cards would still play anything in the internal 32gb memory, but not sure youd be able to use it like a Bluetooth with out app, and wouldnt be able to use new cards or make any of your own.
@@nickp1987 normally I would be worried about that happening as well. But Yoto has been going strong for several years…I don’t see them going away anytime soon, and if they do go bankrupt I expect they more than likely will be bought out by another company instantly given how popular the player is…
I'm 47 and have no kids but I have had the mini player for over a year now, I just buy the make your own cards and load audio books from Audible using Epubor software, I also have the Tonies device but the yoto cards hold 5 times more audio so can hold a complete book on one card compared to 5 figures for the tonies. this device would be great for older people either with dementia or with issues picking up small items.
I'm quite surprised at the lack (I can't see any) of comments about how this kind of format would be ideal for older people with dimentia, poor eyesight, or just general lack of ability to use things like smart phones or computers. I'd have definitely got one of these for my gran if I had known about it with a massive stack of blank cards then I could make cards with loads of her type of music (one for country, one for rat pack, one for easy listening etc) and different cards for different radio stations. Then you could use different colour pens to colour code them or have big writing and all the user would have to do would be to find one the right colour, slot it in and have it play.
I don't know where you live, but here the visually impaired already get a free player and free e-books on CDs from the institute for the visually impaired, as well as all manner of magnifying machines if they want to read proper books.
I have an amazon tablet with the time and date site (on it's charging stand) in the big format on it. I see it easily with my poor eyesight.@@Cyromantik
@@Cyromantik There are so many speaking clocks on market, old ones reviewed by Techmoan, Technology Connections, VWestlife, there are also smart speakers such as Alexa, or Apple HomePod, you can ask anything you want not only time, weather even news.
I hope we get to a point soon where we can store the music on NFC cards themselves instead of pretty much just storing a key on them that lets you download the tunes from their server. Because, frankly, even if the server remains up and compatible with these players and the cards in perpetuity, I do not trust the music industry to let them keep the rights for the songs, even if the people behind Yoto were willing to pay.
It's a fair point, well made. But I'm unsure such a state of affairs could exist without outright communism/dictatorship. Not exactly _down with either_ tbh. I am open to the idea though. There are 'a lot of moving parts' is all I'm saying. Ie; Copyright, Infringement, Ownership and just LAW are 'things', they kind of _exist._ (with teams of VERY intelligent lawyers advocating for them)! 🤣 TLDR, IMO Your _vision_ could exist in a totalitarian state ((no thanks) or is extremely unlikely even in a 'close to' democratic state. Having said ALL THAT, I still do have a _slight pain_ knowing I have to pay some company called 'Spotify' 10 quid a month so I can hear Parklife by Blur from an album _and single (double)_ I bought 29yrs ago! 🤣🤣🤣
I'd have to pass on this device for that same reason 🖐 I don't like music formats where I don't "own" a physical copy of the album. This device will only continue to function if the servers are kept online. But I don't have a lot of confidence that the servers will still be online even 10 years from now 🤷♂️ There's something to be said about physical formats such as Records, Tapes, and Compact Discs... Once you buy it, you own it! 😁👏 Doesn't matter if the album gets banned or the rights get bought up by some other entity. Your old copy will continue to play just fine regardless. And it will never be remastered or altered in any way
@@kanrakucheese The largest QR code stores 2953 bytes of data. Using Codec 2 at 700 bits/s, that would only store 33 seconds of very robotic sounding speech. It would take a whole book full of QR codes to store one song at a decent quality.
Nice little device , but seeing as it's all linked to a online platform, when it inevitably goes belly up it will be nothing more than a nice paper weight or desk ornament ....
This could also be good for seniors. I know some older folks have issues with tech. But if you could use those cards for streaming radio, you can simply put a picture on the card, and they can drop it in the slot. All they have to do is adjust the volume. You could do the same for music they like etc. If you could use cards to set timers, or reminders for medications in the machine, that too would help. Definitely something to consider.
I’m almost 25 but I listened to both Queen’s Greatest Hits and ABBA Gold on CD a lot when I was a small child, so there is probably is some merit to this.
It also gives some more value to parents themselves; sure, it's not "serious", but they can poke at the nifty gadget they got without having to listen to kid songs, and there's some educational merit too since you get to explain what that is, and what their kids can "expect" from grown-up music in the future.
I think it’s due to our parents’ tendency to shove the music they’re familiar with down our throats when we were young. I listened to a lot of Cliff Richard and Lobo in my childhood days because my dad absolutely love those guys.
Yeah, as someone who already has a family UA-cam premium subscription, I don't understand at all why I would want to invest in this. At least UA-cam has a track record of being around and isn't likely to go under with no notice.
Honestly I am very surprised by the price for these, these are really reasonably priced, especially for the build quality and feature list. A genuinely great product.
Isn't is just a cheap plastic toy for streaming low quality audio streams, I assume, stored on the company's servers? So if this company goes bust then the devices become completely useless?
No. It is an extremely durable player with local storage, intuitive UI, good sound quality and well curated library of quality programs. Internet is only needed to download the audio one time.
@@johnmickey5017 will that still be the case if servers go offline and you need to use the app to adjust settings? Eventually you're not going to be able to install the software and you'll have a brick
I had one of these, but as soon as I put in The Beatles cards they stopped working. I had a look at the box and it was apparently a bootleg "Yoko" device.
Wow, what an amazingly well thought out piece of kit! Ten years ago I would definitely have got one of these for my children. It's great to see companies producing stuff for kids that isn't crap!
That's a really neat device, it's quite simple and safe so it looks perfect to just leave with a child with no worries, but I also think it could fill a niche of people who miss the physicality of the old formats of music players but don't want to deal with securing old cassettes or cds, popping a card with a full album to listen could really scratch that itch
If you check the storage before and after scanning a tag, it will be easy to calculate the bitrate. It's probably lower for the audiobooks than the music.
I'm certainly curious how it handles the "make your own". Is it transcoding your content then storing it in their cloud storage? Obviously the radios must play natively. Its funny I was thinking 32GB is not very much, then I remembered my first MP3 player was 32MB not GB and my entire music collection is 118.5GB of which most are lossless and I only listen to a fraction of it on regular basis. ;) So maybe it doesn't transcode your own stuff at all, though where it stores it is still curious given it will cost them money if they're doing it.
The radio station #1 you linked... That was Cold Storage (Bandcamp) I just ordered their CD, which I technically already have as a PC game called Wipeout. Most people played it on PlayStation 1... Anyhow, great choice
Thank you for the review. I have never seen this before (live in Canada ). If I had a younger child I think this would be a wonderful alternative to give them an iPhone. I think you are correct in that the small form factor is more useful. Thank you again for your detailed look into some of the devices we may not see across the pond. Cheers, Christopher
Products like this are really quite interesting - although limited, they seem really well thought through, and neatly executed. Incidentally, I bought the Tonies system for my godson following that previous video you did, and I’ve been really impressed by it (he adores it!)
The players and the whole eco system are really well designed! Some very cool features there. I'm pleasantly surprised by a toy, that is really much more than that. Thanks for making me aware of it.
The 8-bit art is really neat! Reasonably priced too. I wonder if it will continue to work when they inevitably abandon the service. Only time will tell. Thanks for sharing!
The fact that you can copy owned albums to blank cards really does seem rather old school compared to modern DRM. I can imagine going to Barnes and Noble, scanning a shelf of cards, then buying 2 blank packs and running of duplicates like the old days lol. The biggest difference is that I assume the duplicates are locked to a machine.
You are 100% correct to call it RFID, these are simply 13.56mhz Mifare Access Cards that give an ID that is referenced to its associated content via the cloud. This doesnt cound as NFC, NFC by definition is 2 way communication.
That display is extremely pleasant, I've seen the same idea many times but they really nailed the diffusion layer. I'm half tempted to get one just to use as an alarm clock; if they made a big kids version that's the exact same hardware but with firmware and app more geared as a general purpose clock/netradio I'd probably have already bought it.
Well the look is great and the interface is delightfully simple I must admit all enthusiasm I had for this went out the window of the moment it was mentioned that the cards are just redemptions for streaming content. I was half-heartedly hoping the cards had some kind of flash memory in them 7:51
The box has 32 gigs of memory. It’s not a strictly streaming device. Once you listen to a card once it downloads to the box and you no longer need internet access.
Yeah, And I bet most people likely have some 'old' phone or tablet that could easily be configured to do the EXACT same thing, just without the silly cards to confirm ownership of the content?
@@StreetPreacherr this device is not meant for you. It’s meant for the children of parent’s who are concerned about the potential downside of screen time and want to give their kids access to music and stories with a durable device that offers a simple interface. My two year old has one and we all (me, wife, kid) value it immensely.
Honestly if this player is available in my country, I'm buying one for our bedroom. A small player with a simple whimsical design, 24-hour display and no distractions just sounds perfect.
My 13mo uses the Mini version - he can swap cards and jump to the tracks he wants. Build quality is there with the original GameBoy in terms of durability. The web interface is great for managing custom content. I love the predictability and ease of use.
I think the 600mb/6hrs on the cassette sticker gives you a hint to the kind of bit rates they are using, I imagine they just use variable MP3 or OGG for the music and are using similar for the voice content, it's definitely not basic audiobook quality (64k or LESS) though which is really nice. Anything over 128k is going to be good enough for most people and I think that's about where that runtime/capacity lands you. (closer to 160k, which makes sense for variable MP3 on a medium preset)
Yoto's website shows the 5 pack of cards for sale @ 500MB per card or 100 tracks. Considering that 128kbps CBR MP3 is roughly a megabyte a minute, 500 minutes/megs would equal out to about 8 2/3 hours. 192kbps wold be near 5 3/4 hours. I doubt they would use anywhere near that quality on those small speakers. Don't know why they would put 600MB/6hours on their sticker.
I might be wrong, but as far as I understand the card itself doesn't contain any music at all. Just links to Yoto's cloud service and maybe some sort of table of contents at best. So any quality or data volume restraints are most probably artificially imposed by Yoto or perhaps by technical limitations of their device / service streaming bandwidth (unlikely, but who knows) or a combination of the two.
The Beatles and Queen might seem to some like an odd choice for a kids toy, but then again, I listened to Jefferson Airplane, Jimi Hendrix, and Iron Butterfly on a Fisher-Price record player as a kid.
My toddlers absolutely adore the player. The only thing I hope to change is the reliance to wifi to access music. I know it will download from cloud but who knows how long the server would last. The one thing I want to happen is twenty years from now the girls dig the player up from the dusty loft the music is still in there to bring back their memories.
This is an interesting product it's like a modern take on some Fisher Price cassette player for child story tapes. We're going full circle appealing to the human interest in owning something small physical, and "holds" audio. I actually really like the idea.
The data (music and artwork) could easily be on a flash format inside the cards and not need internet connectivity... Why does everything need internet connectivity?!
@@TassieLorenzoIf I had to guess, manufacturing costs and resilience. Repeatedly yanking and half-seating an NFC tag isn't going to give it much trouble, but flash memory that needs to perform a stable data transfer and power supplied to it sounds a lot more likely to fail in a kid's toy. At least it saves it all locally after the first time you slot it in, until the storage is full presumably.
Nice as it seems... we'd be a bit leery about buying something that depends on its manufacturer maintaining a website for the lifespan of the product...
Honestly not quite sure why there are so many naysayers. I’ve got 2 of these and know multiple parents who have them too, and my kids absolutely love them and use them everyday without fail. It purposely doesn’t have camera/ Mic etc to get your kids from watching UA-cam constantly. I wouldn’t personally buy The Beatles or Queen on it as I have the albums on mp3 already and can use a ‘make your own’ card for that. In our house it’s used for kids audio book content, of which there is a pretty decent selection. Not sure what my kids did just before bedtime without this, highly recommend.
I wish they had the actual concept albums... As a kid, what drew me into music was listening to an album front to back and being immersed in it. Just having compilations seems more like a move to have boring adults hear more of the songs they recognize 😔
You an upload whatever the heck you want and associate it with a card. It’s very easy to use music you already own if you’d rather give your kid a full album.
Heard about this device a while ago. Great video Mat, interesting that they've left Fat Bottomed Girls off the Queen Greatest Hits album. Possibly due the nature of the song. Can't have toddlers singing about big fat Fanny! 😂
My guess as to why those albums are the ones that were released for this device probably had to do with them being UMG releases. My guess is that UMG invested in Yoto and are using those compilation albums as a test to see if there’s demand for them. If it ends up being successful, then we’ll probably see UMG release more albums for Yoto. (Well, at least stuff that is appropriate to play around kids. Obviously you’re not going to see something like a Drake album released for Yoto)
I've 6 kids and I think this is class. My children go to bed listening to audiobooks on an old phone. I'd love if they started releasing audiobooks so the smallest (3) could just pick up the card with the story he wanted and put it in. Brilliant
what a neat product! if I ever see one of the minis for cheap, I wouldn't mind using one for my own music and audiobook collection - I may still use an old phone for this purpose, but there's something about the cute little dials and the 16bit screen that's incredibly appealing to me... I blame the fact that my first music player was a Kid Tuff Fisher Price cassette player, lol if they were to ever offer a way to locally host/serve your files without their app, as a way to future proof against any potential company closure, I would even buy full price. the prospect of designing a custom card, alongside matching pixel art, sounds like good fun - if they'd allow these cards/playlists to be shared, I can see people releasing mixtapes and exclusive albums through the medium, a happy medium between those new cassette releases and digital ones, a fun way to have something physical from artists for those who'd rather collect trading cards than use cassettes and cds
This would also be suitable for an elderly family member if they had a larger collection of audio that isn't directory targeted at children. It's a pretty fun device and not horrifically priced (especially on the Black Friday sales), but the content cards could quickly add up.
When I heard about the Yoto about a month ago, it caught my attention. I like the concept, and there's a good chance that I may end up buying one for myself, specifically the full size Yoto. Thanks for the review of both the Yoto and Yoto Mini.
Cuba Baion from the Tefifon now on Yoto card... Believe it or not, I was more thrilled to hear its intro than those of the previous Beatles and Queen song, though I'm a great fan of both those groups. Great review, as usual !
I like the idea presented here... only thing that would make it better is if Yoto made a home Server for this in the event they either loose distribution rights or go out of business so their product has a longer outreach. I think it's a neat little bit of tech. And I do believe they need to make a more Adult version maybe in the style of a boom box or a stereo radio. I like the Idea I just need to carry a few of these NFC cards and can slip them in my wallet and bobs your uncle.
This is a fascinating little device. Were my (much younger) sister about a third to half her current age, I'd probably snap it up. Being a mid-generation millennial, 1991, and her a fairly early alpha, 2012, it's been a learning curve regarding the appropriateness of many modern devices. She's not allowed a phone, or smart speaker, after years of trial and error, so her best option for music is a bit old school. I see that as a bonus, at least she knows what a CD is. She got a Sony boom box for her tenth birthday last year, and she is getting a nice little collection of Cds. However, I've been brainstorming how to step things up for her to listen to her music more on the go. Unfortunately, portable CD players just aren't the same as when I was her age 20 plus years ago. I saw this and discarded it for it being a bit young. However, I am probably buying her a little Sandisk MP3 player for Christmas that will work with her bluetooth headphones. Although she's not quite young enough for a player like this, I loved your very well-done video about it and the features it comes with it. I find the little NFC cards fascinating and a neat way to do things. However, in looking for a player for her, I specifically want to get her one that has no online connection. Anyway, you explained and demonstrated things perfectly. Then again, I expected nothing less from you. From your chocolate record to prison tech, flip clocks, and everything in between your content is stellar. Thank you for your time.
I have to say, this thing looks like a lot of fun - I'd imagine I would've loved it as a kid. Its got a lot of charm to it. I also really like the use of the little onscreen graphics to represent the tracks. Also, I think the design of the main unit is really sharp. It looks like a nice alarm clock... which I suppose makes sense, since that's one of its purposes. To go with a really specific, obscure comparison, it reminds me a lot of the Sony ICF-C180 Dream Machine clock - although that could just be because I keep that particular clock at my bedside and see it every morning to the point where it's design is burnt into my brain.
This is a great product! I’m used to expecting pure snake oil from new audio devices nowadays, but this thing is very well made and I can imagine a kid would love it. In all honesty I would probably buy one of these if it was less child focused and there were more cards available
Technically it’s duplicating anyone’s mp3s you load onto the cloud. There’s probably gray legal footing for that. Even if you bought the mp3 via iTunes, you may not have the license to put it on the cloud to play it on this thing. (They’ll argue it’s not “streaming” since it downloads to your own device…)
Mat, technically RFID is a subset of NFC, and really I'd say it is ok to use it as a synonym - what else is an RFID tag than a form of near-field communication? So I wouldn't feel too silly there...
Had a good play with the app whilst watching this. Pretty slick. I want an adult version for my bedside table. Audio quality is not an issue. Great post.
i always love to watch Mat's video no matters the product interest me or not, it's like watching the old top gear trio, no matters what show they make will be interesting
Sounds kind of like a last gasp of hardware enabled DRM mixed with streaming, all in a convenient kid-friendly package. Interesting but in a "here's some lovely Kool-Aid," fashion. What happens when the system fails and they shut off their servers? Doesn't matter to me, I'll still have my mp3 collection.
To think that _absence_ of camera, microphone, and ads would be a box-worthy marketing pitch... What a time we live in.
Welcome to late-stage capitalism! Where you expect anything and everything to spy on you!
It's disturbing what a distopian world we already live in and it's getting worse every year but since we are being "slowly boiled" we don't even notice it.....
Normally - maybe you'd have a point. BUT this is a product for children and presence of microphones cameras etc. it's a altogether different legal story for a toy maker me thinks 🤔
I dunno it's pretty okay time actually
but a required wi-fi connection which kinda undermines those other things
Maybe - but it still needs to be connected to the internet to work. Total no-brainer of a not in a thousand years would I buy this category for me.
It’s good to see these two groups are getting some exposure, might help their success a bit.
Uh I don't know if more exposure is a good idea. Next up we'll just have other bands with silly names like Prince or Scorpions or something like that. And that's just ... silly 😁.
@@LuiWallentinGttler I really hope nobody will take "The Rolling Stones" before my Band finds success.
@@Soonjai The Who? "The Rolling Stones"? That's just silly, man. Please show yourself out The Doors. 😉
Good luck to them in the Hit Parade this week
@@Demonboy362 With band names that silly, they might as well rename the Hit Parade to something stupid like "Top of the Pops" or so.
I have no use whatsoever for a Yoto, but I am very impressed as to how well thought out the system is
Same here. I have no need for one and yet I quite want one!
@@skylined5534Understandable! It's a neat little gizmo. I'm impressed by the outside-the-box approach. I'd have never thought to use NFC cards as triggers to download and play cloud music on a player.
The design of everything is fantastic. It's clear the creators put in a lot of care and thought into it all, which sadly is lacking in a lot of products these days.
Getting this for my 3 year old she will love it, you can create your own cards by buying blanks and fill them with music or stories
Yoto should really look at bringing out a non-toy version of this, great for seniors, those worried about privacy, those wanting something more tangible in life. It really looks slick and well thought out. If there was a more grown up version of this, I would buy them.. quite a few of them'!
Honestly it's less childish than it could be. If I saw one of them in the corner of a living room I wouldn't immediately think it was a child's toy.
But it still needs the internet to stream the content.
And for audio books for the visually impaired.
@@wisteela Exactly. My sister had a stroke and she really has trouble with technology devices. The fewer buttons available, the less chance of something going wrong.
@@happyundertaker6255 This is still a point but I think the level of strict control you have over what is streamed to the device and the fact that it can't do anything in the other direction is really important and gives you a lot of confidence. It's very...very expensive though. I suppose thats what you need to get something that carefully designed.
Have you considered replacing the caps & belts inside to see if that helps with the fuzzy pixelated screen at all?
Maybe regrease the thingamajig
My bet is that the screen on the large one is probably projected from a small internal display, making the edges soft.
Needs a full recap as well
@@Fred_PJI think that would make it even more soft, I think this is a grid of discrete multi-color LED lights that are separated from each other with plastic to form each pixel, whereas the display on the mini is probably an actual OLED display.
The frosted plastic on the larger one is likely what makes it soft.
@@nooneinpartYes. Almost certainly individually addressable LEDs. Though could be multiplexed. The smaller screen is probably actually higher resolution.
It's perfectly fine to call NFC RFID, because NFC is really just a protocol/standard on top of RFID. It's like calling a compact cassette a "tape", it's not wrong, just less specific.
I thought the difference between RFID and NFC (apart from range) was that RFID tags are active and NFC tags are passive. I did not realize that there are passive RFID tags. I learned something! Thank you for posting this comment! 👍
Thank you for stating this to Mat so clearly. I've wanted to comment this information, already back on an earlier video he made referencing RFID. Near Field Communication (NFC) rides on the Radio Frequency ID-entification protocol (RFID), so it is perfectly correct. Well at least it is according to what I learned years ago. Anyway, thanks for stating. I hope he reads your comment. Fred
@@canuckchuck8836the standalone tags are always passive, in that they have no onboard power but instead are powered by the reading coil. Presumably the ones sent out by a phone or watch can be actively powered by themselves, which would give a little more range, but they’re always set-up to be able to power a passive tag.
@@kaitlyn__L NFC tags are passive...the RFID tags that I worked with were all active. They were installed in the assets and location tracked using an antenna grid installed onsite. I have also used active RFID tags installed in returnable containers for automotive/manufacturing use so they can be tracked for asset management and product location.
Yeah, NFC is an application-layer standard for RFID. The physical layer is ISO/IEC 14443 (the same standard as contactless payment cards, among others) or Sony's FeliCa (PASMO, Suica, et al.). The unique part of the NFC spec is how to store and format data, e.g. URLs.
I want an adult version of this, with proper weather on display and access to my audiobook and podcast library :)
Amazon Echo Show is available. The only caveat is it comes with a camera, ads and tracking.
It’s called your retired (or backup) mobile phone
@iMadrid11 I like the simplified concept of the screen on this thing, but then it probably doesn't have night dimming so it might be useless.
@@iMadrid11Echo Show seems to be discontinued :D
A…computer??
People are ridiculous.
Compared to the Hit Clips I had as a child this thing is absolutely wonderful
Have to say, I'm quite flabbergasted how well these products have been made, it appears a massive amount of care and attention has gone into them. They seem ridiculously simple to use not only from a very young child's POV but also from a parents, and seemingly with so many great features! I wish the company all the success in the world, what a fantastic job!👍
In fact, if Yoto were to make an adult version I'd be SERIOUSLY tempted!
Also a potential way for podcasters to make some money; sell yoto cards linked to their podcast, that of course isn't necessary to listen but it is a convenience that people might be willing to pay for
@@TheNugettinage Fantastic idea.
This and the other one that Techmoan covered a while back are very obviously aimed at conscientious, yuppie parents who can afford lots of niche gadgets but are also very concerned about their kids being unsafe on the open web-or just getting too much screen time.
There was an adult version circa 2009-2012 called Chumby. If you get a Chumby or Sony Dash the service has been revived.
Shame those Beatles cards weren't released with the first-generation player; they could've called it the "Yoto Uno."
...I'll see myself out.
They tried that but the card split.
That’s a better joke than the one I was going to post!
😂😂😂
@@ericpode6095 of Croydon?
😂
We have one of the minis for our nearly 4 year old. She loves it! And it’s really easy for us to as visually impaired parents. The only issue we had was getting it set up, the pairing code on the screen was a bit of a pain, but, once we got past that stage, it was absolutely fine. really accessible interface on the app on iOS as well, only a couple of things I can’t work out how to do, but they’re not super important. My only recommendation for an update to the mini is to have some sort of magnetic charging lead rather than the USB, though that would probably charge slower. It would just make our little girl more independent with it. She loves having all her cards in a cheapo credit card holder as well. Really handy.
Great device. I remember seeing this on social media people getting outraged that 'fat bottomed girls' had been excluded from queen's greatest hits. I think pixel art of a fat bottom wouldn't necessarily be appropriate for three-year-old!
Oh, that's lovely!
I'm visually impaired as well, and have a tween sister. She's much too old for this, but I'm still so glad they made the app accessible. That feels like finding the hay in the needle stack sometimes. If I ever do end up having a kid sometime, I would definitely be on the hunt for gadgets like this.
Being in this day and age, I love stuff with real buttons/controls. Got the first washing machine in what feels like a decade that goes back to basics with some really nice tactile knobs. Ah... bliss. My sister has a boom box for now, which my parents and I were thrilled to find since we've grown up in very different eras with such different tech, with me born in the early 90s, my older brother mid-eighties, and her in the early 10s.
To explain the huge age gap, little sis is biologically my niece, but ... life happens and I couldn't imagine her as anything but my little sis.
We have a Yoto for our 4 & 7 year old. They absolutely love it and use it daily.
10:15 yep, they do that daily
Of course they do, because they don't know any better.
@@unrulerCongratulations you are the edgiest
@@unruler Yet there are adults addicted to social media and pay to win games. Better to keep kids away from smartphones as long as possible, they're not good for their mental health.
@@unruler what is better? Giving a 3 year old a smart phone or a tablet? Your kids will have tik tok brain rot before they turn 4. Congrats.
I'd love to see this become a super-niche format, with Faroese whalecore bands and ambient kitchen appliance artists releasing cards.
I'm sure DOOM will be ported over within the week
Mincecore and goregrind
@@HermanBelmerone day there will be a genre called "KILLDRUMGOREBEATBLOODGORECORE"
@@carlosemilio5180 im trying to imagine what that would sound like, its like deathcore but instead of influence from regular metal, its goregrind.
Im taking "beat" as referring to breakbeat because thats funny, so theres an amen break sample in there somewhere.
The extra "gore" and the "blood" i take as just doublimg down on the brutality of the lyrics
Killdrum is definitely like a ryosuke kiyasu sort of thing where the drummer breaks their drums over the course of the song
so really short songs with fast tempos and very fast but broken up sounding riffs with a breakdown, amen break samples, lyrics that make carcass sound like christian rock and also the drummer has to play so aggressively that their drums break
Of course ABBA Gold will inevitably be released on it
The Yoto Player really is amazing. My niece (4) and nephew (2) share one and it reads some of their favourite bedtime stories. The device is really durable and they can even change the cards themselves!
I love how the Beatles titles are suitable for all ages, but to listen to Queen you must be at least 6 years old. Why I remember it like it was only yesterday; that coming-of-age summer when I turned 6 and suddenly felt the weight and responsability of the world. 😂
I think six is old enough to start singing along to _Fat Bottomed Girls_
@@gravityissues5210 They do make the rockin' world go 'round after all.
Did you not catch the furore over Fat Bottomed Girls being left off the album? (It was.)
The screen image from your personal created card is my definite favorite.
Commenting 4 days early, I see.
@@Laki2 I'm a Patreon supporter, and saw the video early.
This is a super neat idea. An alarm with a modern gimmick that doesn't suck.
If they ever release a non child focused version, I'd probably pick it up.
It's called your phone...
@@Amias89 By that logic, why go to the cinema or watch TV on anything else when your phone has a screen? lol
Not everything needs to be on a phone.
Separate dedicated devices are neat.
Yeah, if they gave this an adult mode it would be an ideal alarm clock, hardware is already pretty much fine as is for that purpose. Also ideal for old folk.
this is a seriously cool looking little box. the display looks lovely, and the pictures for each song are such a lovely touch. i have absolutely no need for it and have no children, but im nonetheless very interested in getting one!
You will get a child only so you can get it this box?
Average apple customers mindset, I'm sure you will enjoy owning it.
@@christo930 sounds like a lack of imagination on your part tbh
My daughter has had one for a couple of years. Loves it. Audiobooks, daily podcast, a radio station with no ads.
It's genius.
@@christo930 well no the device downloads the albums via the cloud. after that they are on the built in storage. he litterally said this in the video. also how long do you think the CDs will last in the hands of a 3 year old. they will throw it on the ground and stomp on it. also what channels would again a 3 year old enjoy listening to that they would tune into.
We've reached that stage where companies are now creating formats just for Mat to make videos about.
Our kid has absolutely loved his Yoto player for years now. The design is simple and elegant and the content is fantastic.
That device looks surprisingly good! I didn't expect those images that illustrate individual tracks :)
A very neat little touch!
It's a truly dystopian world when the features of a product include no camera, no microphone, and no ads
So many people have missed out on the physical media era of music, living their teenage years in the streaming era, it would be super cool to have a system where you can associate cards with playlists on one of the services, like the card with the cassette sticker on it, so one could just pick up a card from a pile of them next to the speaker system and plug it in to change playlists or give a friend a "mix tape" on one of these cards that pulls up a playlist you've created.
The problem is that the music is not stored on the cards. They could have added storage to them like SD cards, if they did that then what you are saying would make sense. Also what do mean by missed out on physical media? You can still buy CDs, records even taps sometimes, they just aren't used on mass like they used to be sadly. It would be more effective to just buy a CD player for a kid than this thing. With that you could share "mix tapes" with other kids by just burning CDs, Assuming that the person you give them to has a CD player but you could just tell them to buy on as they aren't crazy expensive like crappy smartphones. Overall I agree with what you are saying I just wish that they implemented it better.
Love these devices. The fact that you can make your own really appeals to me. If you can buy the cards in a shop, I imagine they would be hanging at the checkouts behind the cashier and not within easy reach
Never heard of cassettes or minidiscs?
There is also the possibility that the NFC can be activated at the register by scanning the tag and the store updating a database owned by yoto that the card with that ID has been sold.
@@CryptoTonight9393and without some sort of activation when sold, it would be really easy to shoplift.
I'd guess if the Beatles are on it there's some kind of DRM. If you give the card to someone else, does your account lose access to it?
@@stepheng8779I remember cassettes and discs usually having some big plastic thing on them that had to be removed at the register when you bought them
This looks like something I would've loved as a kid. A rarity to see in this age of generic phones, tablets and Bluetooth speakers
It was called a cassette player. We all had one.
@@NeungView but cassettes are bigger than cards 😅
People seem to be misunderstanding how this product works. It is not strictly a streaming device. Once you listen to a card once the content downloads on to 32 gigs of memory on the box and you can take the box and your cards with you anywhere with no internet required to play them.
I guess I feel a little better about it then, my concern is that these sort of web based devices have a nasty tendency to get turned into bricks if the company running the servers goes under...or doesn't feel like supporting legacy devices. What would make me actually fully approve is if there was a way to locally manage the library and the possibility to point the device to a private server instance to secure functionality in case of the company going bankrupt/device deprecation.
@@nickp1987 Totally! The device is very well designed and made. It's a smart system, but until I have no option (literally) I will avoid "cloud-mandatory" devices.
@@nickp1987unfortunately i think if the app went away youd lose a lot of functionality, the cards would still play anything in the internal 32gb memory, but not sure youd be able to use it like a Bluetooth with out app, and wouldnt be able to use new cards or make any of your own.
@@GYTCommntsand yet, here you are. On a service that only exists in the cloud. On a phone that is a cloud-mandatory device.
@@nickp1987 normally I would be worried about that happening as well. But Yoto has been going strong for several years…I don’t see them going away anytime soon, and if they do go bankrupt I expect they more than likely will be bought out by another company instantly given how popular the player is…
I'm 47 and have no kids but I have had the mini player for over a year now, I just buy the make your own cards and load audio books from Audible using Epubor software, I also have the Tonies device but the yoto cards hold 5 times more audio so can hold a complete book on one card compared to 5 figures for the tonies. this device would be great for older people either with dementia or with issues picking up small items.
I love how delightfully whimsical this system is, and I want one for myself. I'm 35. lol. It's so well thought out!
Never too young to expose the kids to The Beatles and Queen. My parents exposed me to the great hits of the 1960's when I was little.
I'm quite surprised at the lack (I can't see any) of comments about how this kind of format would be ideal for older people with dimentia, poor eyesight, or just general lack of ability to use things like smart phones or computers. I'd have definitely got one of these for my gran if I had known about it with a massive stack of blank cards then I could make cards with loads of her type of music (one for country, one for rat pack, one for easy listening etc) and different cards for different radio stations. Then you could use different colour pens to colour code them or have big writing and all the user would have to do would be to find one the right colour, slot it in and have it play.
I don't know where you live, but here the visually impaired already get a free player and free e-books on CDs from the institute for the visually impaired, as well as all manner of magnifying machines if they want to read proper books.
Hell, I'm merely nearsighted, but it would be really cool to glance over at my alarm clock and read the time before fumbling for my glasses.
I have an amazon tablet with the time and date site (on it's charging stand) in the big format on it. I see it easily with my poor eyesight.@@Cyromantik
@@Cyromantik There are so many speaking clocks on market, old ones reviewed by Techmoan, Technology Connections, VWestlife, there are also smart speakers such as Alexa, or Apple HomePod, you can ask anything you want not only time, weather even news.
And then when you want to have her move about, you just put on the radio station that's forcing you to wave at it.
I hope i wasn't the only one who waved and gave thumbs up to the jolly fellow in the box.
It is so important that physical media continues to exist so I’m delighted to see this
Showing thematic pictures to go along with the tracks is a nice touch. It probably helps a lot if you struggle to remember track names or numbers.
I hope we get to a point soon where we can store the music on NFC cards themselves instead of pretty much just storing a key on them that lets you download the tunes from their server.
Because, frankly, even if the server remains up and compatible with these players and the cards in perpetuity, I do not trust the music industry to let them keep the rights for the songs, even if the people behind Yoto were willing to pay.
It's a fair point, well made. But I'm unsure such a state of affairs could exist without outright communism/dictatorship. Not exactly _down with either_ tbh.
I am open to the idea though. There are 'a lot of moving parts' is all I'm saying. Ie;
Copyright, Infringement, Ownership and just LAW are 'things', they kind of _exist._ (with teams of VERY intelligent lawyers advocating for them)! 🤣
TLDR, IMO Your _vision_ could exist in a totalitarian state ((no thanks) or is extremely unlikely even in a 'close to' democratic state.
Having said ALL THAT, I still do have a _slight pain_ knowing I have to pay some company called 'Spotify' 10 quid a month so I can hear Parklife by Blur from an album _and single (double)_ I bought 29yrs ago! 🤣🤣🤣
I think a series of QR codes could already fit *A* song
I'd have to pass on this device for that same reason 🖐 I don't like music formats where I don't "own" a physical copy of the album. This device will only continue to function if the servers are kept online. But I don't have a lot of confidence that the servers will still be online even 10 years from now 🤷♂️
There's something to be said about physical formats such as Records, Tapes, and Compact Discs... Once you buy it, you own it! 😁👏 Doesn't matter if the album gets banned or the rights get bought up by some other entity. Your old copy will continue to play just fine regardless. And it will never be remastered or altered in any way
Given the size of a microSD card, I see no reason why flash memory couldn't be included on these album/topic cards!
@@kanrakucheese The largest QR code stores 2953 bytes of data. Using Codec 2 at 700 bits/s, that would only store 33 seconds of very robotic sounding speech.
It would take a whole book full of QR codes to store one song at a decent quality.
Nice little device , but seeing as it's all linked to a online platform, when it inevitably goes belly up it will be nothing more than a nice paper weight or desk ornament ....
but likely it’ll be very hackable.
Correct. Another “device” that sells you something you don’t really own.
@@laustinspeissA: Doubtful, and #2, who would bother?
@@RocketboyX a: likely - forget the sellers firmware.
b: any hacker that wants the display/audio on a WLAN device.
@@laustinspeiss Do you really believe that regular consumers would bother modding it, instead of just binning it?
This could also be good for seniors. I know some older folks have issues with tech. But if you could use those cards for streaming radio, you can simply put a picture on the card, and they can drop it in the slot. All they have to do is adjust the volume. You could do the same for music they like etc. If you could use cards to set timers, or reminders for medications in the machine, that too would help. Definitely something to consider.
I’m almost 25 but I listened to both Queen’s Greatest Hits and ABBA Gold on CD a lot when I was a small child, so there is probably is some merit to this.
It also gives some more value to parents themselves; sure, it's not "serious", but they can poke at the nifty gadget they got without having to listen to kid songs, and there's some educational merit too since you get to explain what that is, and what their kids can "expect" from grown-up music in the future.
I think it’s due to our parents’ tendency to shove the music they’re familiar with down our throats when we were young. I listened to a lot of Cliff Richard and Lobo in my childhood days because my dad absolutely love those guys.
Imagine if you could still buy CDs and players.
Same here except im 23 years old
it's a shame its another product that will stop working when the cloud or internet is not present
Yeah, as someone who already has a family UA-cam premium subscription, I don't understand at all why I would want to invest in this. At least UA-cam has a track record of being around and isn't likely to go under with no notice.
Honestly I am very surprised by the price for these, these are really reasonably priced, especially for the build quality and feature list. A genuinely great product.
Isn't is just a cheap plastic toy for streaming low quality audio streams, I assume, stored on the company's servers? So if this company goes bust then the devices become completely useless?
@@StreetPreacherrIt's a child's toy
No. It is an extremely durable player with local storage, intuitive UI, good sound quality and well curated library of quality programs.
Internet is only needed to download the audio one time.
@@johnmickey5017 will that still be the case if servers go offline and you need to use the app to adjust settings? Eventually you're not going to be able to install the software and you'll have a brick
I had one of these, but as soon as I put in The Beatles cards they stopped working. I had a look at the box and it was apparently a bootleg "Yoko" device.
Wow, what an amazingly well thought out piece of kit! Ten years ago I would definitely have got one of these for my children. It's great to see companies producing stuff for kids that isn't crap!
That screen peeling always cracks me up😅😅Brilliant as always👍🏻
That's a really neat device, it's quite simple and safe so it looks perfect to just leave with a child with no worries, but I also think it could fill a niche of people who miss the physicality of the old formats of music players but don't want to deal with securing old cassettes or cds, popping a card with a full album to listen could really scratch that itch
If you check the storage before and after scanning a tag, it will be easy to calculate the bitrate. It's probably lower for the audiobooks than the music.
I'm certainly curious how it handles the "make your own". Is it transcoding your content then storing it in their cloud storage? Obviously the radios must play natively.
Its funny I was thinking 32GB is not very much, then I remembered my first MP3 player was 32MB not GB and my entire music collection is 118.5GB of which most are lossless and I only listen to a fraction of it on regular basis. ;) So maybe it doesn't transcode your own stuff at all, though where it stores it is still curious given it will cost them money if they're doing it.
The radio station #1 you linked... That was Cold Storage (Bandcamp) I just ordered their CD, which I technically already have as a PC game called Wipeout. Most people played it on PlayStation 1... Anyhow, great choice
Was searching for this comment... name of the track is Messij or one of it's variants
Surprisingly impressive little devices. I was expecting these to be hopeless tat, but actually they seem well designed and well made.
Thank you for the review. I have never seen this before (live in Canada ). If I had a younger child I think this would be a wonderful alternative to give them an iPhone. I think you are correct in that the small form factor is more useful.
Thank you again for your detailed look into some of the devices we may not see across the pond.
Cheers, Christopher
Products like this are really quite interesting - although limited, they seem really well thought through, and neatly executed. Incidentally, I bought the Tonies system for my godson following that previous video you did, and I’ve been really impressed by it (he adores it!)
The players and the whole eco system are really well designed! Some very cool features there. I'm pleasantly surprised by a toy, that is really much more than that. Thanks for making me aware of it.
The 8-bit art is really neat! Reasonably priced too. I wonder if it will continue to work when they inevitably abandon the service. Only time will tell.
Thanks for sharing!
What I learned. Techmoans bedtime is 19:30.
The fact that you can copy owned albums to blank cards really does seem rather old school compared to modern DRM. I can imagine going to Barnes and Noble, scanning a shelf of cards, then buying 2 blank packs and running of duplicates like the old days lol. The biggest difference is that I assume the duplicates are locked to a machine.
You are 100% correct to call it RFID, these are simply 13.56mhz Mifare Access Cards that give an ID that is referenced to its associated content via the cloud. This doesnt cound as NFC, NFC by definition is 2 way communication.
That display is extremely pleasant, I've seen the same idea many times but they really nailed the diffusion layer. I'm half tempted to get one just to use as an alarm clock; if they made a big kids version that's the exact same hardware but with firmware and app more geared as a general purpose clock/netradio I'd probably have already bought it.
This is a very cute little machine. I know I would've loved this if I had it as a young girl!
...and you know the Beatles collectors are eyeing a future, prized item.
If there's ever an SI unit for overratedness they should name it the 'Beatle'.
Nice to see something well made and innovative for kids
The recordable cards and the feature rich app is phenomenal. Great design to. If I was a kid I would have loved this.
Well the look is great and the interface is delightfully simple I must admit all enthusiasm I had for this went out the window of the moment it was mentioned that the cards are just redemptions for streaming content. I was half-heartedly hoping the cards had some kind of flash memory in them 7:51
The box has 32 gigs of memory. It’s not a strictly streaming device. Once you listen to a card once it downloads to the box and you no longer need internet access.
Yeah, And I bet most people likely have some 'old' phone or tablet that could easily be configured to do the EXACT same thing, just without the silly cards to confirm ownership of the content?
@@StreetPreacherr this device is not meant for you. It’s meant for the children of parent’s who are concerned about the potential downside of screen time and want to give their kids access to music and stories with a durable device that offers a simple interface. My two year old has one and we all (me, wife, kid) value it immensely.
Honestly if this player is available in my country, I'm buying one for our bedroom. A small player with a simple whimsical design, 24-hour display and no distractions just sounds perfect.
My 13mo uses the Mini version - he can swap cards and jump to the tracks he wants.
Build quality is there with the original GameBoy in terms of durability. The web interface is great for managing custom content. I love the predictability and ease of use.
So the licence lasts as long as the unknown cloud streaming server is maintained,
I think the 600mb/6hrs on the cassette sticker gives you a hint to the kind of bit rates they are using, I imagine they just use variable MP3 or OGG for the music and are using similar for the voice content, it's definitely not basic audiobook quality (64k or LESS) though which is really nice. Anything over 128k is going to be good enough for most people and I think that's about where that runtime/capacity lands you. (closer to 160k, which makes sense for variable MP3 on a medium preset)
Makes me wonder if they have a limit on how many of your own cards you can make, given it will have an ongoing cost to cache those tracks.
Yoto's website shows the 5 pack of cards for sale @ 500MB per card or 100 tracks. Considering that 128kbps CBR MP3 is roughly a megabyte a minute, 500 minutes/megs would equal out to about 8 2/3 hours. 192kbps wold be near 5 3/4 hours. I doubt they would use anywhere near that quality on those small speakers. Don't know why they would put 600MB/6hours on their sticker.
I might be wrong, but as far as I understand the card itself doesn't contain any music at all. Just links to Yoto's cloud service and maybe some sort of table of contents at best. So any quality or data volume restraints are most probably artificially imposed by Yoto or perhaps by technical limitations of their device / service streaming bandwidth (unlikely, but who knows) or a combination of the two.
I love the pixel art, that is a good novelty for adults as you said. They should embrace it. I'd love to see bowie pixel art.
What a nice little device, seems like a kids product that actually has a lot of thought and care put into it.
The Beatles and Queen might seem to some like an odd choice for a kids toy, but then again, I listened to Jefferson Airplane, Jimi Hendrix, and Iron Butterfly on a Fisher-Price record player as a kid.
Wow, you listened to all that anti-establishment music and you still turned out OK. Living proof that rock music DOES NOT rot your brain.
My toddlers absolutely adore the player. The only thing I hope to change is the reliance to wifi to access music. I know it will download from cloud but who knows how long the server would last. The one thing I want to happen is twenty years from now the girls dig the player up from the dusty loft the music is still in there to bring back their memories.
This is an interesting product it's like a modern take on some Fisher Price cassette player for child story tapes. We're going full circle appealing to the human interest in owning something small physical, and "holds" audio. I actually really like the idea.
I was thinking the same thing. It's a modern interpretation of the Fisher Price tape player.
The data (music and artwork) could easily be on a flash format inside the cards and not need internet connectivity... Why does everything need internet connectivity?!
@@TassieLorenzoIf I had to guess, manufacturing costs and resilience. Repeatedly yanking and half-seating an NFC tag isn't going to give it much trouble, but flash memory that needs to perform a stable data transfer and power supplied to it sounds a lot more likely to fail in a kid's toy. At least it saves it all locally after the first time you slot it in, until the storage is full presumably.
Love the Techmoan Puppet Icon Playing Cuba Baion
they must activate the cards at the till, as they do with prepayment and gift cards, so it is safe to leave them unattended.
Even though it's just NFC cards, the idea of having physical interactions with the device to change content is kinda fun.
Nice as it seems... we'd be a bit leery about buying something that depends on its manufacturer maintaining a website for the lifespan of the product...
Me, looking at My SONY Dash in dissapointment.
Honestly not quite sure why there are so many naysayers. I’ve got 2 of these and know multiple parents who have them too, and my kids absolutely love them and use them everyday without fail. It purposely doesn’t have camera/ Mic etc to get your kids from watching UA-cam constantly.
I wouldn’t personally buy The Beatles or Queen on it as I have the albums on mp3 already and can use a ‘make your own’ card for that. In our house it’s used for kids audio book content, of which there is a pretty decent selection.
Not sure what my kids did just before bedtime without this, highly recommend.
Yes, an adult version of this is a trick that shouldn't be missed. A long time ago I had a Chumby, and I loved it. But this has a lot more features.
Chumby ... forgot about them ...
Well, I've been wondering what to buy my daughter for Christmas and I think this is it. She's a young 36, so perfect!!
I wish they had the actual concept albums... As a kid, what drew me into music was listening to an album front to back and being immersed in it. Just having compilations seems more like a move to have boring adults hear more of the songs they recognize 😔
You an upload whatever the heck you want and associate it with a card. It’s very easy to use music you already own if you’d rather give your kid a full album.
My daughters have a Yoto and they love it. The sound quality is surprisingly good.
Heard about this device a while ago. Great video Mat, interesting that they've left Fat Bottomed Girls off the Queen Greatest Hits album. Possibly due the nature of the song. Can't have toddlers singing about big fat Fanny! 😂
If they do decide to grab the grown ups market, definitely need to release the actual albums. Not the neutered shit.
What a neat little thing! It looks nice, very designer. I love that you can create your own cards and even link the cards up to live radio streams.
My guess as to why those albums are the ones that were released for this device probably had to do with them being UMG releases. My guess is that UMG invested in Yoto and are using those compilation albums as a test to see if there’s demand for them. If it ends up being successful, then we’ll probably see UMG release more albums for Yoto. (Well, at least stuff that is appropriate to play around kids. Obviously you’re not going to see something like a Drake album released for Yoto)
I've 6 kids and I think this is class. My children go to bed listening to audiobooks on an old phone. I'd love if they started releasing audiobooks so the smallest (3) could just pick up the card with the story he wanted and put it in. Brilliant
I even think this would be a nice way to send personal messages and stories to older grandparents in the post
If all the card does is enable download of the tracks into the players, is there anything preventing cards being used on multiple players?
what a neat product! if I ever see one of the minis for cheap, I wouldn't mind using one for my own music and audiobook collection - I may still use an old phone for this purpose, but there's something about the cute little dials and the 16bit screen that's incredibly appealing to me... I blame the fact that my first music player was a Kid Tuff Fisher Price cassette player, lol
if they were to ever offer a way to locally host/serve your files without their app, as a way to future proof against any potential company closure, I would even buy full price. the prospect of designing a custom card, alongside matching pixel art, sounds like good fun - if they'd allow these cards/playlists to be shared, I can see people releasing mixtapes and exclusive albums through the medium, a happy medium between those new cassette releases and digital ones, a fun way to have something physical from artists for those who'd rather collect trading cards than use cassettes and cds
This would also be suitable for an elderly family member if they had a larger collection of audio that isn't directory targeted at children. It's a pretty fun device and not horrifically priced (especially on the Black Friday sales), but the content cards could quickly add up.
You can upload your own MP3s and assign to blank cards. But it's time consuming.
When I heard about the Yoto about a month ago, it caught my attention. I like the concept, and there's a good chance that I may end up buying one for myself, specifically the full size Yoto. Thanks for the review of both the Yoto and Yoto Mini.
I wish there was a bigger demand for this as a proper form of music - I'd love a box of nice artwork trading cards that I can pop into a player.
Cuba Baion from the Tefifon now on Yoto card... Believe it or not, I was more thrilled to hear its intro than those of the previous Beatles and Queen song, though I'm a great fan of both those groups.
Great review, as usual !
Yes. I immediately jumped with joy when I heard the Tefifon track. Peak Techmoan moment.
I like the idea presented here... only thing that would make it better is if Yoto made a home Server for this in the event they either loose distribution rights or go out of business so their product has a longer outreach. I think it's a neat little bit of tech. And I do believe they need to make a more Adult version maybe in the style of a boom box or a stereo radio. I like the Idea I just need to carry a few of these NFC cards and can slip them in my wallet and bobs your uncle.
This is a fascinating little device. Were my (much younger) sister about a third to half her current age, I'd probably snap it up. Being a mid-generation millennial, 1991, and her a fairly early alpha, 2012, it's been a learning curve regarding the appropriateness of many modern devices. She's not allowed a phone, or smart speaker, after years of trial and error, so her best option for music is a bit old school. I see that as a bonus, at least she knows what a CD is. She got a Sony boom box for her tenth birthday last year, and she is getting a nice little collection of Cds. However, I've been brainstorming how to step things up for her to listen to her music more on the go. Unfortunately, portable CD players just aren't the same as when I was her age 20 plus years ago. I saw this and discarded it for it being a bit young. However, I am probably buying her a little Sandisk MP3 player for Christmas that will work with her bluetooth headphones.
Although she's not quite young enough for a player like this, I loved your very well-done video about it and the features it comes with it. I find the little NFC cards fascinating and a neat way to do things. However, in looking for a player for her, I specifically want to get her one that has no online connection. Anyway, you explained and demonstrated things perfectly. Then again, I expected nothing less from you. From your chocolate record to prison tech, flip clocks, and everything in between your content is stellar. Thank you for your time.
I have to say, this thing looks like a lot of fun - I'd imagine I would've loved it as a kid. Its got a lot of charm to it. I also really like the use of the little onscreen graphics to represent the tracks.
Also, I think the design of the main unit is really sharp. It looks like a nice alarm clock... which I suppose makes sense, since that's one of its purposes. To go with a really specific, obscure comparison, it reminds me a lot of the Sony ICF-C180 Dream Machine clock - although that could just be because I keep that particular clock at my bedside and see it every morning to the point where it's design is burnt into my brain.
❤
This is a great product! I’m used to expecting pure snake oil from new audio devices nowadays, but this thing is very well made and I can imagine a kid would love it. In all honesty I would probably buy one of these if it was less child focused and there were more cards available
Pretty sure Yoto was the reason for the beakles’ disbandment
who are the Beakles?
I'm glad you reviewed this device because I recently started seeing a lot of ads for it on the NYC subway and was very curious what it actually was
Technically it’s duplicating anyone’s mp3s you load onto the cloud. There’s probably gray legal footing for that. Even if you bought the mp3 via iTunes, you may not have the license to put it on the cloud to play it on this thing. (They’ll argue it’s not “streaming” since it downloads to your own device…)
Then there's the privacy implications, say you put a recording of a family member on it.
Yup - I was thinking exactly the same - this will be a useful product if the company running the servers gets shutdown...
Wish you saw the smile you put on my face when I heard Tim Wright's music!
Mat, technically RFID is a subset of NFC, and really I'd say it is ok to use it as a synonym - what else is an RFID tag than a form of near-field communication? So I wouldn't feel too silly there...
Had a good play with the app whilst watching this. Pretty slick. I want an adult version for my bedside table. Audio quality is not an issue. Great post.
i always love to watch Mat's video no matters the product interest me or not, it's like watching the old top gear trio, no matters what show they make will be interesting
Mat is the Jeremy Clarkson of stereo gear!
@@ebx100 sometimes james may 🤣
13:27 The pixel art makes it look more like "We Won A Participation Trophy"
Sounds kind of like a last gasp of hardware enabled DRM mixed with streaming, all in a convenient kid-friendly package. Interesting but in a "here's some lovely Kool-Aid," fashion. What happens when the system fails and they shut off their servers? Doesn't matter to me, I'll still have my mp3 collection.
It has 32 GB storage on the device, most things rely on servers nowadays and kids will age out of the device anyway