Reading to Ruth › Advice for families
The same idea, for the other end of lifeIs there a Yoto for adults?
If you have children, you may have watched a four-year-old work a Yoto on their own and thought of your mother or your grandfather. A player simple enough for a small child, filled by someone else: it is exactly what many older people need.
Can an older person use a Yoto?
Some families do. A Yoto is a small audio player for children that has no screen to navigate: you push in a card and the story plays. The cards sold by Yoto are mostly children's stories and music, but Yoto also sells blank Make Your Own cards. Using the Yoto app, you link a card to audio files of your own, and you can change what a card plays as often as you like. At the time of writing, a pack of ten blank cards is £19.99 on Yoto's UK site, and each card holds up to 100 tracks or 500MB.
Where it works well
- The person has no tablet or smartphone, and would rather have a physical object.
- They can see and handle the cards, and remember which is which.
- Someone in the family is happy to find audio files and load them onto cards.
Where it falls short
- It is designed for children, in its looks as well as its stories.
- Cards are small, and for someone with little sight they are hard to tell apart.
- Most modern audiobooks can't simply be bought and put onto a card. You need the book as a file you are free to copy.
- A long novel can be bigger than one card will hold.
The same idea, built for a grandparent
My grandmother Ruth is 101, almost completely blind and hard of hearing. I wanted for her what a Yoto gives a child: something she could work on her own, kept full by the family. So I built Reading to Ruth.
- One big Play button on a tablet, phone or laptop they already have. On the simplest player the whole screen is the button, so there is nothing to find and nothing to hold.
- The family fill it from their own phones, wherever they live. Nobody has to be in the room.
- Grown-up books. A free library of classics is included. For anything else, find the book on your family page, see the price and press Buy, and we put it on the shelf, usually the same day, at the normal shop price.
- Your voices. Record a message and it plays before their story. Paste in an article or a poem and it is read aloud.
- It keeps the place in every book and says each title aloud.
| A Yoto with Make Your Own cards | Reading to Ruth | |
|---|---|---|
| What they use | A small player and a set of cards | One big button on a tablet, phone or laptop they already have |
| Made for | Children | Older people, and people who are blind or hard of hearing |
| Adding a book | You find the audio file and link it to a card in the Yoto app | You choose it on the family page; we do the rest |
| Family voices | Your own recordings, linked to a card | Voice messages from any relative's phone, played before the story |
| Needs | The player and cards, bought from Yoto | A device they already have, and wi-fi |
Reading to Ruth is not connected with Yoto. Yoto is a trade mark of its owner, and its prices and features may have changed since this was written; check Yoto's own site.
Like the player the children love, made for Granny.
One big button for them. Books and voice messages from the whole family, sent from your own phones.
Price from 1 January: £74.99 Founding price now: £49.99 once
Founding price until 31 December 2026. One payment for the whole family. No subscription.
Get started — £49.99Try the player first
60-day money-back guarantee, from the day they first use it.
Questions people ask
Is there a Yoto for adults?
Yoto makes its players for children, though some families use one for an older relative with Make Your Own cards. Reading to Ruth is built on the same idea for older people: a player with one big button, filled by the family from their phones.
Can you put adult audiobooks on a Yoto?
Only audio files that you have and are free to copy can be linked to a Make Your Own card. Books bought inside apps such as Audible stay inside those apps.
What is the simplest audiobook player for a grandparent?
One with a single button that keeps the place and needs no sign-in, and that someone else can fill from elsewhere. There is more in our guide to audiobook players for older people.