While the Jooki is awesome and is a great concept, we are disappointed by the control buttons on it. They are difficult to use/ to turn when choosing/skipping a song. Such an expensive item should be easy-to-use for the child who uses it, but it is even difficult for an adult to use. The button needs to be turned A LOT to skip a song and the tokens on the Jooki can get in the way. A different system should be used to skip the songs.

Although the cards might not be as cute and collectible as the tonies characters, they are around half the price per story as well as being easier to store. Press the button twice for Yoto Radio, their in-house music station playing all sorts of music from the 70s and 80s right up to date. You can be sure that it is all fun, safe, advert-free curated content. I’ve been listening to it myself actually, writing this and singing along to everything from Huey Lewis and the News and Smash Mouth to Lewis Capaldi. Is the Yoto Club any good? Similar to the tonies Toniebox, the Yoto Player is a box-shaped speaker system which plays audio content from pre-loaded cards. So what did we think, and which one would we recommend? Read on! Jooki is the only high-quality speaker that gives kids safe, screen-free access to streaming audio content. Suggestion to jooki. Please really improve on the connection method of this product. I'm not exactly illiterate (I'm an IT engineer) and I didn't find it user friendly at all.Press once for the daily podcast. It’s is only a few minutes long but it’s a nice touch and the kids enjoy listening to the riddles and child-friendly content which changes every day. the strange part is where you will have to register and give some of your data to them. Without this you can't use the product at all. It gets worse. Then you need to give location permissions and only then you can configure the wifi on the product.. Yes the wifi. The Yoto Player is extremely easy for children to use as there are just three buttons; an on/off button on the side, and two on the top which you use to adjust the volume and move between chapters. Portable Children’s audio players are rising in popularity, giving kids a screen-free option for entertainment which is popular with parents who are concerned about screentime. But which are the best portable children’s audio players?

then...you need to connect with your phone to the same wifi network where the jooki box is and only then you are allowed to interact with the product. Jooki is the only high-quality music and stories player that gives kids safe, screen-free access to streaming audio content. The reason it get a 2 star instead of a one star is the fact that once you get it working properly, and you're able to send the MP3 files (you can also use spotify, which I didn't want) it's really easy to use and the sound quality is not so bad.The son took to it immediately(once the parents had easily set up some music associations to the tokens via the phone app), loving that he can switch out music on command in such an easy and fun way(for a 2-3 year old it is extremely accessible). The parents loved it...so much the father commandeered one of the tokens just for his favorite podcast! Their nanny was head over heels about it, so much so that she was telling all her other clients about it. Everyone really liked that it came with five tokens and not just two or three(the tokens are such cute figurines!). Also a big hit was that it was so flexible about music sources. That you could load up a micro-sd card so that you didn't need wifi, but also it could play online playlists and podcasts from Spotify and not some proprietary service.

The Yoto Player can be used whilst charging and once fully charged the battery will last approximately eight hours. Jooki is the favorite 3-to-9 years old educational toy that fosters their imagination with music & storytelling, and helps build​​ the core foundation for their future. to get to the 3 star at this point everything must be fully ok...it's not. the orange buttons only work if you rotate them fully. for this you need a certain strength and dexterity. so my 3 year old son is completely frustrated and sad because he keeps rotating the knob but never enough for it to work. One of my favourite features, unique to the Yoto Player, is the additional free content. The daily podcast and Yoto Radio can be accessed by one or two presses of the right hand button when the card slot is empty. (You can change how this is access via the app).

The verdict: Kids’ audio players

You access the Bluetooth speaker by changing the settings in the Yoto Player app to allow bluetooth pairing and following the instructions (press left hand button in for three seconds to pair).

It’s soft and comes in a range of fun colours. The characters are appealing to children and the audioplayer is really simple and easy to use even for younger children. Jooki made the TIME Best Inventions of 2022 list (Toys & Play) and was ranked 3 in the 2022 USA TODAY Readers Choice Award (Best Gifts for Families). Jooki won the CES 2022 Innovation Award (best personal audio), the 2022 Edtech Cool Tool Finalist Award (arts, music and creative solutions) and the 2022 Creative Child Magazine Awards as Product of the Year. We’ve had it for a few days now, and my daughter LOVES it. She carries it everywhere with her. The sound quality is good, it seems durable and able to withstand the daily use of a three and five-year old. Recently there has been an explosion of intuitive, screen-free audio players for children on the market. We have reviewed several of these; the tonies Toniebox, the Jooki and the Timio. The latest is the Yoto Player. Jooki is the favorite educational toy for 3yo+, fostering their imagination with music and storytelling.

The best kids’ audio players for 2023:

The TIMIO is worthy of a mention. Aimed at slightly younger children (aged 3-8 years) the TIMIO comes with pre-loaded ‘discs’ with a selection of songs, stories and words for vocabulary building which can be played in English, Spanish, French, German, Chinese and Dutch.