We have a TonieBox that has been much loved by one kid, and now another. And even though everything in my being is telling me to hack it to make it do cool things (mostly because of all the “you just own a _license_ to content” stuff rubs me the wrong way), I wouldn’t dare. It’s a product so simply designed, a 1-year-old can use it. It’s not for me to mess with. This particular thing does not need hacking.
My brittle smart home setup is hanging on by a thread in the spousal approval department. I can’t handle the fury that will befall me if I fuck with the TonieBox.
We used to have a TonieBox but I found them incredibly restrictive.
Also I thought that the physical design was poor. Because the figures just sit on top of the box, you cant move it around whilst playing it or the figures just fall off and the audio stops. It was very frustrating watching my kid try to use it in the car on a long journery.
Scrapped that and invested in Yoto player, its pretty much the same thing but its so much better in every way. The cards push into a slot and so dont fall out, it has an app which enables full control of the player which Tonies didnt, and you dont have to hit it to change tracks (which we found incredibly violent). Also there are some nice extras like being able to tap the nfc cards against your phone to set the content.
I would encourage any prospective TonieBox buyer to check out Yoto before taking the plunge.
Yoto seems marketed towards older children. I don't think my one year old is able to put the cards in the Yoto by himself, but he can easily stand a figure on top of the TonieBox.
Wholeheartedly agree. We have 2x Gen 3 Yotos and 2x Yoto Mini, my children (3 and 5) use them every night and my 5yo in the day time, the Minis are stored for when we travel.
We were aware of Tonie before Yoto because our children's friends had them and we decided to go Yoto instead, they're amazingly simple, the app is great with well thought out features, and we've even convinced some of those families with Tonies to switch to Yoto and they've also been very happy.
There's a pretty good market for second hand Yoto cards too in the UK though don't expect much in the way of deals, many of them sell for RRP or higher, though we have found some cards our 5yo really wanted but are only available in the US by buying them second hand.
When my 5yo was about 3 we gave her a CD player and bought lots of CDs, funnily she grew to think that was the height of cutting edge technology and digital (virtual) audio was the old tech. Needless to say, the CDs didn't last in the hands of a 3yo, then followed by a little sibling, they ended up scratched to pieces and wouldn't play any more, the card based approach of Yoto is much more suitable for young children, and the kids are learning lots, they particularly love the audio adventures.
As much as I'd love to hack the thing, I feel the same way another commentor does, that it shouldn't be touched, though I did manage to grab the URL from my OPNSense for the night time radio so I can stream it in my office because it's pretty good.
I am a little cautious that the cards only contain a URL and we don't actually have copies of any of the audio for the cards we've bought (other than what's in the device's cache); we have somewhere in the region of 200+ cards now; which is quite an investment, and it's very much at the mercy of Yoto and their servers remaining active and accessible.
Like many others in threads like this, I initially felt repelled. It’s restrictive, it’s super expensive, and I dislike some (though not all) of the design choices.
But then I remind myself: it’s not a product made for me. I don’t have to like it. Clearly, the target group loves it. My kids have adored it for years. Even now, with my oldest having access to Spotify Kids, she still prefers her Toniebox in the evening before bed. The figurines aren’t just a medium, they’re toys in their own right. They’re shared, traded, and loved. And they really enjoy squeezing those silly ears.
Many other families in my circle tell the same story. Some tried similar products that launched soon after the original, often ones using cards (though not Yoto). But after a few weeks, their kids lost interest and asked for a Toniebox instead. (It reminds me of when my parents bought me a Sega Master System, even though all I wanted was a Super Nintendo.)
> But then I remind myself: it’s not a product made for me. I don’t have to like it.
That’s not the point of the article, though.
It never says it’s not a good product. The issue is not that, it’s that it is a disposable product : the day the company behind it closes or decides to unplug the wires, the toniebox instantly becomes a paperweight.
That’s at least an ecological issue, but also a moral issue. I think it’s wrong in 2025 to give objects to our kids that we know have no future.
Disclaimer : someone offered a toniebox to my son so we own one. I agree it’s a good product.
But there was an opportunity to make it working fully offline and they decided not to for money reasons. The figurines could have had some mb of embedded memory, it’s not like they were cheap to buy.
I just bought a Yoto Mini for my one year old daughter, she loves it already. I prefer the format of cards over small figurines, and it seems doable to use standard NFC cards and associate them with content I own.
I'd vastly prefer being able to load an SD card in it instead of having it connect to the wifi, though.
Our daughter absolutely loves her Yoto Mini. We have a hundred or so cards, half of them were blank cards that we print and tape pictures on based on the content.
This is probably the best purchase we made for long car rides and flights or just a lazy afternoon on the couch.
> and it seems doable to use standard NFC cards and associate them with content I own
It's not, I've tried.
When you buy their blank cards (~£2 each last I checked) they come with a unique URI pre-flashed, that contains a form of unique identifier, what you're buying when you buy their blank cards is a licence (to the online storage, 500MB I think), when you scan it, it activates on your account and you now have a physical card linked to a virtual card/allowance; though you can also link existing digital cards (already scanned on your phone) to a physical card (still has to be one of theirs), in which case you don't benefit from the storage.
I ripped one of my daughter's favourite CDs and uploaded it through the app to link to a blank card I bought from Yoto.
This is not my experience. I purchased blank NFC cards and made myself this guide to get them working just fine:
1. Use NXP TagWriter to format card to NDEF format.
2. Use Smart NFC tools app to copy from existing MyYo card to new one.
3. Using the Yoto app, Play the playlist on the target Yoto. This will trigger the tracks to download onto the YoTo.
4. Make sure all tracks are downloaded onto Yoto before inserting new card.
After a few years now with two kids using Yoto, however, I think it is a little overkill to go this route and the reduced friction of using Yoto’s own cards makes it worth it, despite the cost. But this may help others who use them differently than we do!
This unlocked something very special for us. We have a card for each parent, grandparent and many others reading books to our 3 year old. It's very easy to link a blank nfc card to a playlist that corresponds to the reader. He loves picking a family member after we finish books to read more while he falls asleep.
Are you sure of that? One of the replies you got matches what I had found on Reddit before buying. Both could be right I guess, all the standard blank cards made from the same Yoto blank use the same 500MB storage chunk.
I'm surprised no one has mentioned the Tonuino project yet. For those looking for a DIY alternative to the Toniebox: it's an open-source project based on an Arduino, MP3s, and an RFID reader, allowing you to build your own custom music and audiobook player for kids.
My children absolutely adore their Tonuino box, and the community around the project is fantastic, constantly sharing creative and impressive builds. If you're a bit handy and enjoy a good DIY project, I highly recommend checking it out. https://www.voss.earth/tonuino/
A similar product which hasn’t been mentioned yet is the Tigerbox. This works with cards similar to Yoto, but also offers a full library subscription, like a kids music and audioplay flatrate. Our kids love it. They also have an app as an alternative player, which is super useful on long carrides. And you can store music for offline usage on the box as well.
Yes, it’s not selfhosted and autonomous. But it’s a pretty neat service.
Sony Minidiscs works great with little kids as well, especially when used with a non portable "Salon" player which you slot the minidisc on. They are large enough that you can print stickers on them for easy recognition and the media has an arrow drawing that tells people in which direction to slot it in. Any kid learns quite quickly how to use the triangle play button and the square stop one.
This is what we are doing as well. Can absolutely recommend! Kids are really happy with it and enjoy random Checker Tobi episodes every afternoon.
This is what I'm using: https://github.com/alexhartm/tonie-podcast-sync
While I hate the TonieBox using DRM like everyone else, I feel like it's still one of the best options. (And one of my best purchases.)
Just like Nintendo Switch cartridges, kids can borrow the figures to each other. And here in northern Germany, we even have a public library where you can borrow a selection of figures for free (up to 2 at a time, up to 2 weeks). That means apart from the pricey initial purchase, you can get a wide variety of content legally for free, if you're willing to accept the slight inconvenience of renting/returning the figures in person. Plus no spyware, no notifications, no ads, no subscription. It's superior to YouTube kids in every way.
> The Toniebox needing an active internet connection also means that the company behind the Toniebox – Tonies SE – can theoretically track anything and everything my kids are doing with the box.
The toniebox can be put into an offline mode, plus I'm blocking the Mac address on my router. The box works fine, you can download new content (for which, of course, you must temporarily remove the above restrictions) and all my kids are doing with the box is put a tonie on top.
I'm all for privacy, especially wrt. to my kids, but I find this box less intrusive than their grandmother with her WhatsApp account.
I decided to go for Yoto over Tonie because it explicitly encourages "Make Your Own" cards which you can put any MP3 files of your own or RSS links to podcast.
What imo doesn’t get mentioned enough about the music on the (German, can’t speak for English) Tonies is the recordings themselves: They are recorded with real musicians and natural postproduction, not like most kids songs found on YouTube nowadays which are heavily compressed and edited. My kids love using the Toniebox and I am happy they do. For me the quality of content outweighs the negative aspects.
We have a TonieBox that has been much loved by one kid, and now another. And even though everything in my being is telling me to hack it to make it do cool things (mostly because of all the “you just own a _license_ to content” stuff rubs me the wrong way), I wouldn’t dare. It’s a product so simply designed, a 1-year-old can use it. It’s not for me to mess with. This particular thing does not need hacking.
My brittle smart home setup is hanging on by a thread in the spousal approval department. I can’t handle the fury that will befall me if I fuck with the TonieBox.
We used to have a TonieBox but I found them incredibly restrictive.
Also I thought that the physical design was poor. Because the figures just sit on top of the box, you cant move it around whilst playing it or the figures just fall off and the audio stops. It was very frustrating watching my kid try to use it in the car on a long journery.
Scrapped that and invested in Yoto player, its pretty much the same thing but its so much better in every way. The cards push into a slot and so dont fall out, it has an app which enables full control of the player which Tonies didnt, and you dont have to hit it to change tracks (which we found incredibly violent). Also there are some nice extras like being able to tap the nfc cards against your phone to set the content.
I would encourage any prospective TonieBox buyer to check out Yoto before taking the plunge.
Yoto seems marketed towards older children. I don't think my one year old is able to put the cards in the Yoto by himself, but he can easily stand a figure on top of the TonieBox.
Wholeheartedly agree. We have 2x Gen 3 Yotos and 2x Yoto Mini, my children (3 and 5) use them every night and my 5yo in the day time, the Minis are stored for when we travel.
We were aware of Tonie before Yoto because our children's friends had them and we decided to go Yoto instead, they're amazingly simple, the app is great with well thought out features, and we've even convinced some of those families with Tonies to switch to Yoto and they've also been very happy.
There's a pretty good market for second hand Yoto cards too in the UK though don't expect much in the way of deals, many of them sell for RRP or higher, though we have found some cards our 5yo really wanted but are only available in the US by buying them second hand.
When my 5yo was about 3 we gave her a CD player and bought lots of CDs, funnily she grew to think that was the height of cutting edge technology and digital (virtual) audio was the old tech. Needless to say, the CDs didn't last in the hands of a 3yo, then followed by a little sibling, they ended up scratched to pieces and wouldn't play any more, the card based approach of Yoto is much more suitable for young children, and the kids are learning lots, they particularly love the audio adventures.
As much as I'd love to hack the thing, I feel the same way another commentor does, that it shouldn't be touched, though I did manage to grab the URL from my OPNSense for the night time radio so I can stream it in my office because it's pretty good.
I am a little cautious that the cards only contain a URL and we don't actually have copies of any of the audio for the cards we've bought (other than what's in the device's cache); we have somewhere in the region of 200+ cards now; which is quite an investment, and it's very much at the mercy of Yoto and their servers remaining active and accessible.
> Also I thought that the physical design was poor.
Really? Huh, that's interesting because I find them exceptionally well designed and very sturdy (i.e., kids-ready).
> Because the figures just sit on top of the box, you cant move it around whilst playing it or the figures just fall off and the audio stops.
The figures are magnetic and stay on the box when you move it.
> It was very frustrating watching my kid try to use it in the car on a long journery.
Do you have a different version, perhaps, than me?
If you’re interested there’s a home assistant plugin for Yoto.
Like many others in threads like this, I initially felt repelled. It’s restrictive, it’s super expensive, and I dislike some (though not all) of the design choices.
But then I remind myself: it’s not a product made for me. I don’t have to like it. Clearly, the target group loves it. My kids have adored it for years. Even now, with my oldest having access to Spotify Kids, she still prefers her Toniebox in the evening before bed. The figurines aren’t just a medium, they’re toys in their own right. They’re shared, traded, and loved. And they really enjoy squeezing those silly ears.
Many other families in my circle tell the same story. Some tried similar products that launched soon after the original, often ones using cards (though not Yoto). But after a few weeks, their kids lost interest and asked for a Toniebox instead. (It reminds me of when my parents bought me a Sega Master System, even though all I wanted was a Super Nintendo.)
> But then I remind myself: it’s not a product made for me. I don’t have to like it.
That’s not the point of the article, though.
It never says it’s not a good product. The issue is not that, it’s that it is a disposable product : the day the company behind it closes or decides to unplug the wires, the toniebox instantly becomes a paperweight.
That’s at least an ecological issue, but also a moral issue. I think it’s wrong in 2025 to give objects to our kids that we know have no future.
Disclaimer : someone offered a toniebox to my son so we own one. I agree it’s a good product.
But there was an opportunity to make it working fully offline and they decided not to for money reasons. The figurines could have had some mb of embedded memory, it’s not like they were cheap to buy.
> The figurines could have had some mb of embedded memory, it’s not like they were cheap to buy.
Unfortunately, all memory degrades over time, especially the "modern" multi-level flash chips.
The fact these things work at all is a miracle of engineering and binning.
I just bought a Yoto Mini for my one year old daughter, she loves it already. I prefer the format of cards over small figurines, and it seems doable to use standard NFC cards and associate them with content I own.
I'd vastly prefer being able to load an SD card in it instead of having it connect to the wifi, though.
Our daughter absolutely loves her Yoto Mini. We have a hundred or so cards, half of them were blank cards that we print and tape pictures on based on the content. This is probably the best purchase we made for long car rides and flights or just a lazy afternoon on the couch.
My kids love to go to new libraries and find old audiobooks to add to their yoto.
I'm also in the process of trying to get my extended family to record something about their life for sort of an oral family history yoto card.
Similarly we use the borrow box library website to download the mp3s to the cards.
> and it seems doable to use standard NFC cards and associate them with content I own
It's not, I've tried.
When you buy their blank cards (~£2 each last I checked) they come with a unique URI pre-flashed, that contains a form of unique identifier, what you're buying when you buy their blank cards is a licence (to the online storage, 500MB I think), when you scan it, it activates on your account and you now have a physical card linked to a virtual card/allowance; though you can also link existing digital cards (already scanned on your phone) to a physical card (still has to be one of theirs), in which case you don't benefit from the storage.
I ripped one of my daughter's favourite CDs and uploaded it through the app to link to a blank card I bought from Yoto.
This is not my experience. I purchased blank NFC cards and made myself this guide to get them working just fine:
1. Use NXP TagWriter to format card to NDEF format. 2. Use Smart NFC tools app to copy from existing MyYo card to new one. 3. Using the Yoto app, Play the playlist on the target Yoto. This will trigger the tracks to download onto the YoTo. 4. Make sure all tracks are downloaded onto Yoto before inserting new card.
Smart NFC tools: https://apps.apple.com/ca/app/smart-nfc-tools-read-write/id1...
NXP Tag writer: https://apps.apple.com/ca/app/nfc-tagwriter-by-nxp/id1246143...
After a few years now with two kids using Yoto, however, I think it is a little overkill to go this route and the reduced friction of using Yoto’s own cards makes it worth it, despite the cost. But this may help others who use them differently than we do!
This unlocked something very special for us. We have a card for each parent, grandparent and many others reading books to our 3 year old. It's very easy to link a blank nfc card to a playlist that corresponds to the reader. He loves picking a family member after we finish books to read more while he falls asleep.
https://www.reddit.com/r/YotoPlayer/s/YZq49FRFys
You can also purchase NFC stickers. I recently did a slightly similar project: https://chrisbergeron.com/2022/01/08/time-tracking-with-a-di...
Are you sure of that? One of the replies you got matches what I had found on Reddit before buying. Both could be right I guess, all the standard blank cards made from the same Yoto blank use the same 500MB storage chunk.
OT but maybe fun to know: the domain name translates as “sheep are glorified lawnmowers” ;)
I'm surprised no one has mentioned the Tonuino project yet. For those looking for a DIY alternative to the Toniebox: it's an open-source project based on an Arduino, MP3s, and an RFID reader, allowing you to build your own custom music and audiobook player for kids.
My children absolutely adore their Tonuino box, and the community around the project is fantastic, constantly sharing creative and impressive builds. If you're a bit handy and enjoy a good DIY project, I highly recommend checking it out. https://www.voss.earth/tonuino/
A similar product which hasn’t been mentioned yet is the Tigerbox. This works with cards similar to Yoto, but also offers a full library subscription, like a kids music and audioplay flatrate. Our kids love it. They also have an app as an alternative player, which is super useful on long carrides. And you can store music for offline usage on the box as well.
Yes, it’s not selfhosted and autonomous. But it’s a pretty neat service.
Sony Minidiscs works great with little kids as well, especially when used with a non portable "Salon" player which you slot the minidisc on. They are large enough that you can print stickers on them for easy recognition and the media has an arrow drawing that tells people in which direction to slot it in. Any kid learns quite quickly how to use the triangle play button and the square stop one.
A different hack I do for my son’s Toniebox is download podcasts using this tool I wrote and add them to his Creative Tonie https://github.com/harryscholes/podcast-downloader
This is what we are doing as well. Can absolutely recommend! Kids are really happy with it and enjoy random Checker Tobi episodes every afternoon. This is what I'm using: https://github.com/alexhartm/tonie-podcast-sync
Thanks for sharing! I will try this out. Sounds like something my kids would love.
We really liked the idea of our kids being able to select what music they want to listen to, without having to look at a screen.
So we bought them a cassette/CD player from Sony for €100.
The idea that you’d buy a speaker with super expensive and proprietary figurines is a bit crazy to me.
While I hate the TonieBox using DRM like everyone else, I feel like it's still one of the best options. (And one of my best purchases.)
Just like Nintendo Switch cartridges, kids can borrow the figures to each other. And here in northern Germany, we even have a public library where you can borrow a selection of figures for free (up to 2 at a time, up to 2 weeks). That means apart from the pricey initial purchase, you can get a wide variety of content legally for free, if you're willing to accept the slight inconvenience of renting/returning the figures in person. Plus no spyware, no notifications, no ads, no subscription. It's superior to YouTube kids in every way.
> The Toniebox needing an active internet connection also means that the company behind the Toniebox – Tonies SE – can theoretically track anything and everything my kids are doing with the box.
The toniebox can be put into an offline mode, plus I'm blocking the Mac address on my router. The box works fine, you can download new content (for which, of course, you must temporarily remove the above restrictions) and all my kids are doing with the box is put a tonie on top.
I'm all for privacy, especially wrt. to my kids, but I find this box less intrusive than their grandmother with her WhatsApp account.
There is an OS alternative: https://github.com/MiczFlor/RPi-Jukebox-RFID
Built one for my niece. She liked it.
I decided to go for Yoto over Tonie because it explicitly encourages "Make Your Own" cards which you can put any MP3 files of your own or RSS links to podcast.
You can do custom MP3s with the "Custom Tonies"
If anybody here is looking for an audio player definitely go with the Yoto.
Making your own cards is awesome and the players themselves are very repairable and sound great.
Same. It's much more customisable out of the box and has a lot of nice features.
What imo doesn’t get mentioned enough about the music on the (German, can’t speak for English) Tonies is the recordings themselves: They are recorded with real musicians and natural postproduction, not like most kids songs found on YouTube nowadays which are heavily compressed and edited. My kids love using the Toniebox and I am happy they do. For me the quality of content outweighs the negative aspects.
Related talk at the Chaos Computer Club congress https://media.ccc.de/v/37c3-11993-toniebox_reverse_engineeri...
For anyone interested there is a forum dedicated to tonie box hacking: https://forum.revvox.de
Makes me want to buy and not buy a toniebox for my kid. I have a Yoto that’s probably equally tracky.
Just in case anyone is here for this. IMO Yoto >> toniebox
Jake (Yoto daily podcast guy) is a legend in our house.