Yoto

The Yoto integrationIntegrations connect and integrate Home Assistant with your devices, services, and more. [Learn more] lets you control your Yoto audio players from Home Assistant. You can play and pause cards, change the volume, skip tracks, seek within a track, see what is currently playing, and browse your card library to start a specific card, chapter, or track. You can also monitor each player’s battery level, what is loaded in the card slot, and its current day or night mode.

The integration talks to the official Yoto cloud over OAuth2 and receives playback updates over MQTT, so changes that happen on a player, including when it goes online or offline, show up in Home Assistant almost immediately.

With your players connected, you can fold them into your everyday routines. For example, you can start a calming card at bedtime or pause playback automatically when everyone leaves the house. You can also get a notification when a player’s battery is running low.

Supported devices

Any Yoto player that is linked to your Yoto family in the Yoto app is supported.

Prerequisites

To use the integration, you need a Yoto account with at least one player linked in the Yoto app.

Configuration

To add the Yoto hub to your Home Assistant instance, use this My button:

Yoto can be auto-discovered by Home Assistant. If an instance was found, it will be shown as Discovered. You can then set it up right away.

During setup, Home Assistant opens the Yoto authorization page so you can grant access. After you approve, Home Assistant creates one deviceA device is a model representing a physical or logical unit that contains entities. for every Yoto player in your family, each with its media player, sensors, and other entitiesAn entity represents a sensor, actor, or function in Home Assistant. Entities are used to monitor physical properties or to control other entities. An entity is usually part of a device or a service. [Learn more].

Supported functionality

Media player

The integration provides one media player entity per Yoto player. Each entity supports:

• Play, pause, and stop
• Skip to the previous or next track
• Seek to a position within the current track
• Set the volume directly, or step up and down in the 16 hardware steps the player uses
• Show the currently playing track title, the card title and author, and the card cover art as media artwork
• Browse your Yoto card library and start playback of a card, chapter, or track

Yoto players cannot be powered on or woken remotely. While a player is offline, its media player, sensors, and binary sensors show as unavailable. The day and night mode settings stay available, because they come from the Yoto cloud rather than the player.

To browse your Yoto card library, open the more-info dialog of the Yoto player and select the browse media button. From there, you can select a card, chapter, or track to start playback.

To start playback from a script or automation, call the media_player.play_media action with media_content_type: music and a yoto:// URI:

• yoto://card/<card_id> plays the card, honoring its own resume setting.
• yoto://card/<card_id>/<chapter_key> plays the chapter from its first track.
• yoto://card/<card_id>/<chapter_key>/<track_key> plays the track from the start.

The URI is case-sensitive. When picking a card in the media browser, the corresponding URI is the value passed to media_content_id.

action: media_player.play_media
target:
  entity_id: media_player.yoto_player
data:
  media_content_type: "music"
  media_content_id: "yoto://card/abc123/01/02"

Time

Yoto players can switch between a day display and a night display. Set when each mode starts:

• Day mode start: The time the player switches to day mode.
• Night mode start: The time the player switches to night mode.

Numbers

Set the display brightness and volume limit for each mode:

• Day mode brightness: The display brightness in day mode, from 0% to 100%. Unavailable while day mode uses automatic brightness.
• Night mode brightness: The display brightness in night mode, from 0% to 100%. Unavailable while night mode uses automatic brightness.
• Day mode maximum volume: The highest volume the player can reach in day mode, from 0 to 16.
• Night mode maximum volume: The highest volume the player can reach in night mode, from 0 to 16.

Selects

Set the player’s ambient light color for each mode, picked from a fixed palette. Available on players with an ambient light:

• Day mode color: The ambient light color in day mode.
• Night mode color: The ambient light color in night mode.

Switches

Turn the following player settings on or off:

• Bluetooth pairing: Enables Bluetooth so you can pair an audio device.
• Maximum headphone volume: Limits the volume when headphones are connected.
• Day mode automatic brightness: Automatically adjusts the display brightness in day mode (only available on players with a light sensor). Turning this off sets the brightness to 100%.
• Night mode automatic brightness: Automatically adjusts the display brightness in night mode (only available on players with a light sensor). Turning this off sets the brightness to 100%.

Binary sensors

Each Yoto player also provides several binary sensors:

• Charging: whether the player’s battery is charging.
• Headphones: whether headphones are connected to the player.
• Bluetooth audio: whether a Bluetooth audio device is connected to the player.

Sensors

Each Yoto player also provides several sensors:

• Battery: the player’s battery charge.
• Card slot: what is loaded in the player, such as a physical card or streaming content.
• Day mode: the player’s current mode (day or night).

Examples

Here are a few ways to use your Yoto players in automations.

Play a card from a bedside button

Pair a wireless button with a player so a card starts on demand, for example a bedtime story at the press of a button by the bed. The easiest way to set this up is in the automation editor: add your button as the trigger, then add the action that plays the card. The exact trigger depends on your button. The example below uses a button that exposes an event entity. Replace the card ID with one from your own library by browsing it in the media browser and copying the media_content_id of the card you want.

automation:
  - alias: "Play the bedtime card from the bedside button"
    triggers:
      - trigger: state
        entity_id: event.bedside_button
    actions:
      - action: media_player.play_media
        target:
          entity_id: media_player.yoto_player
        data:
          media_content_type: "music"
          media_content_id: "yoto://card/abc123"

Set a later wake-up time on weekends

Each player has a Day mode start time entity that controls when it switches to day mode. This automation changes that time so the player lights up later on weekends. Just after midnight, it sets the day mode start to 8:00 AM on Saturday and Sunday, and back to 7:00 AM on the other days.

automation:
  - alias: "Later wake-up on weekends"
    triggers:
      - trigger: time
        at: "00:01:00"
    actions:
      - if:
          - condition: time
            weekday:
              - sat
              - sun
        then:
          - action: time.set_value
            target:
              entity_id: time.yoto_player_day_mode_start
            data:
              time: "08:00:00"
        else:
          - action: time.set_value
            target:
              entity_id: time.yoto_player_day_mode_start
            data:
              time: "07:00:00"

Notify when the battery is low

This automation sends a notification to your phone when a player’s battery drops below 20%.

automation:
  - alias: "Notify when the Yoto battery is low"
    triggers:
      - trigger: numeric_state
        entity_id: sensor.yoto_player_battery
        below: 20
    actions:
      - action: notify.mobile_app_phone
        data:
          message: "The Yoto player battery is below 20%."

Data updates

The integration updates each Yoto player’s data in three ways:

• Media player and playback state are pushed live over MQTT, so play, pause, volume, and track changes appear in Home Assistant right away. A player going online or offline is pushed the same way, so its media player, sensors, and binary sensors switch to available or unavailable instantly.
• Sensor values are refreshed every minute, when the integration requests a status snapshot from each player.
• Configuration, such as the day and night mode settings, is refreshed from the Yoto cloud through pollingData polling is the process of querying a device or service at regular intervals to check for updates or retrieve data. By defining a custom polling interval, you can control how frequently your system checks for new data, which can help optimize performance and reduce unnecessary network traffic. [Learn more] every 5 minutes. This is also when newly linked players are added.

Known limitations

• Yoto players cannot be powered on or off from Home Assistant.

Troubleshooting

The media player and sensors show as unavailable

To save battery, a Yoto player turns itself off after a period of inactivity. While it is off, it disconnects from the Yoto cloud, so its media player, sensors, and binary sensors show as unavailable in Home Assistant. The day and night mode settings stay available. To bring the rest back, wake the player by pressing a button on it or inserting a card, or plug it into power to keep it awake.

Home Assistant asks you to sign in again

Access to your Yoto account can expire or be revoked, for example if you change your Yoto password. When that happens, Home Assistant starts a reauthentication flow and shows a notification. Follow the prompts to sign in again and restore the connection.

Playback controls do not respond

Yoto players cannot be powered on remotely, so playback actions have no effect while a player is off or disconnected. Wake the player by pressing a button on it or inserting a card, then try again.

Development and testing with your own client ID

Only follow these steps if you need to use your own OAuth application, like when you are developing or testing the integration.

Removing the integration

This integration follows standard integration removal.

To remove an integration instance from Home Assistant

1. Go to Settings > Devices & services and select the integration card.
2. From the list of devices, select the integration instance you want to remove.
3. Next to the entry, select the three dots menu. Then, select Delete.

After removing the integration, you can also delete the developer application you created on the Yoto developer portal if you no longer need it.