Yoto vs. Toniebox. Which one is better?

Yoto Player and Toniebox are relatively new devices that are an excellent way for kids to enjoy listening to music or stories that don’t involve turning on the screen. But why would you need them if you could just play the same audio from a phone or a record player? There are a few reasons.

Designed with kids in mind

Both of these audio players are explicitly designed for small children. They are simple, have minimal functionality, are portable, and give kids independence. Children can insert chosen cards or figurines with various content, like music or stories, and switch tracks by themselves, starting as early as one year old. However, both Yoto and Tonie recommend user age is 3+ years, and the companies advise supervision for babies younger than that.

Finding the right content for our kids can be challenging, and we aren’t always able to verify its safety. Some parents choose not to let their children watch TV or tablets but might want to expose them to music. Yoto and Tonies companies offer parents an entire library of music, story-based, and educational content. With Yoto cards or Tonie figurines, parents can be 100% sure that the audio their child interacts with is age-appropriate and safe. No advertisements or games on these audio players also make them a great gift choice.

Exposure to music was our main reason for buying an audio player for our son. He loved listening to music since he was born, and he quickly developed a fierce personality and wanted to express his tastes and preferences. We didn’t want to hand over our phones to him so he could go through our YouTube or Spotify accounts, so this seemed like a perfect solution. Perhaps we could just play music for him, but he couldn’t interact with our turntable or other devices safely.

The comparison

I wouldn’t be myself if I hadn’t thoroughly compared the Yoto player vs. Toniebox, as these two products seem to dominate the market. The winner quickly emerged.

Yoto Player and Toniebox share the same price, similar size, and weight, Yoto being a bit smaller and lighter. The amount and type of content available are also similar, focused on music, stories, educational resources, and sounds for sleep and relaxation.

The main difference between them is the type of audio carrier. Yoto uses flat cards, which users must insert into the slot at the top of the device. Toniebox embeds its content into little character figurines that users place on top of the device.

Considering the differences and features of both, we chose the Yoto Player for our son. It best fits our parenting style, and we felt it was designed to suit our family’s needs better. Although the initial cost is similar, Yoto looks like a much cheaper option in the long run. Its design also seems to work for a wider age range, and among all the short-use toys, the more use we can get out of something we buy, the better.

The body

TONIES TONIEBOX AUDIO PLAYER

This cube-like device received a child-friendly padding, making it soft and durable. To play the content, a child needs to put a character figurine called Tonie on top of the box. They connect by using magnets. While most of these Tonies are large enough to not pose a choking hazard, some of them might be a risk, and should not be played with by kids under 36 months of age unsupervised.

Children can change volume by pinching the box’s ears and change chapters or songs by tapping its sides. To fast-forward or rewind, they need to tilt the device.

I wasn’t able to find any information about the type of materials the Toniebox is made of, or their sources. We can only assume it’s plastic and a type of polyester on the outside. The figurines are made of rubber and hand-painted. They are transitioning to a water-based paint. On Tonies website Sustainability page, they make vague statements about working on reducing the environmental impact. I would love to see more clarity here.

YOTO PLAYER 3RD GENERATION

The body of the Yoto Player device is made out of a rugged, soft-touch plastic. An additional adventure jacket can be bought to make the Yoto Player even more durable and portable. Unlike the Toniebox, the colored jacket can be changed in the future, if we want to re-gift it or hand-down to a younger sibling.

A Yoto card must be inserted into the slot at the top of the box to start playing. My 15 month-old son figured it out right away. To navigate the content, kids push the large orange buttons and twist them to adjust the volume. The front of the device features a digital, pixelated screen that displays weather, room temperature, time of day, or fun pixel icons assigned to songs or chapters.

The company’s sustainability approach and transparency regarding the type and source of materials used could also be improved. Their cards are made out of PETG plastic, which, while not great for the planet, is considered “food-safe.” The travel jacket is made out of silicone. However, the materials used to make the device itself are not specified.

Portability

Both devices are portable and are easy for a toddler to carry around the house. But they are a bit bulky for travel. I would maybe take them on a car trip, but never while traveling by plane. However, Yoto offers a much smaller Yoto Mini, which can be a good choice for kids who want to take their audio player with them.

In addition, Yoto cards are flat, so they can be stacked or packed in a flat organizer, making them much more portable than voluminous Tonies. Just the thought of owning 40 Tonie figurines at home makes me feel overwhelmed. Tonies company even sells shelves (an extra $80-$100) for them, which seems like a bit much to me. I only wanted my child to listen to some music, not redecorate his room. Meanwhile, 40 flat Yoto cards are not a big deal to store at all.

How long we can enjoy listening to the device makes a big difference too. The newest generation Yoto claims its battery lasts up to 24 hours, leaving Toniebox 7 hours far behind. While the battery longevity depends on the content and modes used, I would like to see Tonie doing better than that.

Type of content

One of the biggest things that influenced our decision-making was reviewing the type of content offered by both companies. While Toniebox provides some limited original content, they primarily focus on their licensed Tonies. We’re not interested in those, at least not yet. Yoto Player also offers licensed content (Disney, Harry Potter, etc.), but it also has a robust library of original and creative cards by lesser-known artists, including various classical music cards. And we love that.

We are mainly a no-screen time family. While my son might occasionally watch cartoons or music videos, now, at 2 years old, he doesn’t know any Disney characters or popular shows like Bluey or Paw Patrol. And that is intentional. For now, we don’t want to expose him to any large corporation marketing geared towards very young children.

We look forward to watching the classic movies with him when he’s older. For now, though, we’d like to keep things simple and minimal.

I find it a bit contradictory that these devices are marketed as a screen-time alternative or screen-free learning and play. But Toniebox heavily bases a majority of its content on characters that children need to be familiar with by watching TV in the first place. And if not, they will naturally want to because of this exposure.

While I’m not naïve enough to think both companies are not there to make money, the original content quality and quantity offered by Yoto make much more sense for a no-screen philosophy. Their less expensive and more open custom creation system solidifies my opinion.

Is it for Bilingual families?

As a bilingual (or trilingual) family, we are not actively teaching my son English at home. My husband and I speak English with each other, so he hears it every day, and I teach my son a bit of English at the playground so he can interact with other kids. However, for the most part, we speak to him in our respective languages. We believe teaching him those is a gift that will allow him to connect with our cultures and families overseas and help with brain development. And he will eventually learn English when he goes to school.

Both Yoto’s and Tonie’s content is primarily available in English, with few options in Spanish or French. Unfortunately, those are not the languages we use. The story-based content isn’t of much interest to us. We read to my son a lot, and neither my husband nor I are fans of audiobooks in general.

But we all love music, regardless of the language it’s made in. Our son has used his Yoto almost daily since he was 15 months old. We created custom cards for him with music from our cultures, like nostalgic songs from our childhoods, playlists for Christmas etc. Thanks to Yoto, we enjoyed the endless hours of my son’s adorable toddler dancing. We plan to record our families (like grandmas on two different continents) reading books to him to expose him to our languages further.

My son loves listening to any music, including classical music, lullabies, pop culture classics, and American music for kids. In my experience, it has been a fun tool in helping us raise a bi- or trilingual child.

Custom content creation

Any family, bilingual or not, will be interested in custom content possibilities. These allow us to create our own music playlists and recordings of parents, family, or friends reading our children’s favorite books, sweet messages, etc. Both companies offer an option to do so. Yoto sells a Make Your Own Card pack with 10 cards for $24.99 (and the setup card it comes with can also be turned into one). You can store up to 100 tracks/500MB of audio content on each Make Your Own Card, and edit them as many times as you like. Additionally, those cards can be used to replace the lost card content from a previously purchased original card, which is neat.

Toniebox sells Creative Tonie figurines. One figurine costs $9.99 and can store up to 90 minutes of custom content. Depending on the audio quality, 90 minutes of audio would typically take up around 90 MB to 180 MB of storage space. It turns out to be a much more expensive choice. Once the Tonie figurine (any Tonie, original or custom) is lost, the content can’t be recovered, which can often happen since kids like to play with them.

Quick (girl) math comparing the creative content-making cost for Yoto vs. Tonies tells me that $1 gives me 200MB with MYO Yoto cards and only 9 – 18MB using Creative Tonie. It’s a big difference.

Tonies are more expensive long-term, with users somewhat locked into the brand’s ecosystem. On the other hand, Yoto users grew a large online DIY community of parents (like the one on Reddit) with hundreds of free resources and inspirations available. I mean, that’s pretty cool!

Additional features

Yoto offers a few additional features that Toniebox doesn’t or they need to be purchased separately.

One of them is night light, which the Yoto Player has built into the device’s body. All you need to do is flip it onto its front. We can change the light colors through the app or set it up as an OK-to-wake clock. Additionally, Yoto offers a free app with Sleep Sounds, white noise options, and a night radio.

You can turn Toniebox into a night light, but you need to purchase a Night Light figurine for an extra $39.99 (!). That’s more than half the price of the Hatch.

Yoto even has a built-in room thermometer, which can help to determine how to dress the child to sleep.

Besides the Sleep Station, Yoto mode can be switched to free Yoto Radio and Fun Kids Radio. These stations are add-free, carefully curated, and regularly refreshed.

While both companies offer kids’ headphones, only Yoto has a wireless option. However, you can use any brand of headphones for both.

*As a side note, it’s best to wait to use headphones until kids are over 3 years old.

Tonie figurines vs. yoto cards

Some say the Tonie figurines are easier for little kids to handle and place. But my 15-month-old son immediately knew what to do with the Yoto card, where to place it, and how to switch them. He also quickly figured out the button functions. And the cards are durable enough that he hasn’t broken any, even though he’s still a notorious board-book destroyer.

Kids love the little Tonies and like to play with them. Yes, they are adorable and eye-catching. But because of the childish design, kids might not want to play with them as long as with the age-neutral Yoto cards. Because kids use Tonies as toys, they are likely to get lost or misplaced. Some of them are choking hazards for children under 3 years old. And once lost, content can’t be recovered.

Clear purpose

One counterintuitive characteristic (at least to me) of Tonies is that kids can’t simultaneously play with the figurine and listen to its content. If they remove the character from the Toniebox, the content stops playing. But the little characters look like toys that children want to play with. For example, if a child plays the music from Frozen, they cannot remove Elsa and play-dance with her figurine.

Flat, colorful Yoto cards are easy to store and handle. I like that their purpose is designated and clear, even for a toddler. It’s a physical audio carrier, like an old-school cassette or CD. Yes, as a millennial, I made mixtapes as a child, recording my favorite songs from the radio. It is a fun memory, and it taught me to appreciate the music and develop my own tastes.

A little fun pixelated icon is assigned to each track on a Yoto card, and it is then displayed on an “analog” screen. My son loves to look at them and figure out what they are, and they help him navigate his way through the playlist, like finding a favorite song. He does not know that the “song” he likes is Four Seasons by Vivaldi, but he remembers it’s the one with the green leaf. These little icons can also be assigned to songs on the custom cards through the app, enhancing the fun experience.

If the card gets lost or destroyed, the content is still available digitally to play or download on a MYO card. We basically own it forever.

The cost

Each Tonie figurine costs around $17.99, which can quickly add up. Yoto card prices vary based on the content, ranging from $6.99 to $44.99, most of them costing around $10. They also offer digital cards for $3.99, which then can be downloaded on previously mentioned Make Your Own Cards.

Summary

Both Yoto Player and Toniebox are fun, minimalist audio devices for kids. While Toniebox’s main advantage is its toy-like figurine style that appeals to younger children, I think Yoto is designed better overall. It has smart features, flexible solutions, an open ecosystem, a true no-screen content library, and a parent-friendly philosophy. Kids will use it for many years, and it is less expensive in the long run.

In my opinion, Yoto Player is one of the best gifts for 2-year-olds. You can check out my other recommendations here.