Custom Yoto Cards — How to Put Your Own Audio on a Generic NFC Card

Clone a Yoto playlist link onto cheap generic NFC cards using only your phone. A Yoto card just holds a URL pointing to a playlist in your Yoto cloud account — so "making a card" means creating a playlist and copying its link onto a tag.

This repo gives you two ways to make custom Yoto cards:

1. No code — phone only. A step-by-step guide to clone a playlist link onto cheap generic NFC tags with just the Yoto and NFC Tools apps (all sections below).
2. Scripted — yoto-upload.js. A zero-dependency Node CLI that builds an entire Yoto playlist — audio and custom 16×16 pixel-art icons — from a local folder via the official Yoto API. See Scripted upload.

Table of Contents

• What you need
• One-time setup per blank card (NDEF format)
• Putting audio on a card
• Adding a NEW playlist on a NEW card
• Scripted upload: yoto-upload.js
• Notes
• Contributing · Code of Conduct · License

What you need

• A Yoto player (to play the finished card)
• 1 genuine Yoto MYO card (reused forever as the "master" source)
• Generic blank tags: MIFARE Ultralight EV1, 48-byte version (avoid the 128-byte version — it needs an extra hack)
• A smartphone with NFC (iPhone or Android)
• Two free apps / accounts:
  • Yoto account + Yoto app (iOS/Android)
  • NFC Tools app by wakdev (iOS/Android)

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One-time setup per blank card (NDEF format)

Each new blank card must be formatted once before it can be used.

1. Open NFC Tools > Other > Advanced NFC Commands > tap I understand.
2. In the Data field, paste exactly:

   A2:03:E1:10:06:00,A2:04:03:04:D8:00,A2:05:00:00:FE:00
   

3. Tap Send command, then hold the blank generic card to the top edge of your phone until it confirms.

(You only do this once per card. After this, skip to "Putting audio on a card".)

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Putting audio on a card

Step 1 — Create the playlist (custom audio)

1. Go to my.yotoplay.com/my-cards/playlists and create a new playlist.
2. Upload / add your custom audio files and arrange them in order.
3. Save the playlist.

Step 2 — Link the playlist to your genuine MYO card

1. In the Yoto app: tap Library (bottom) > Playlists (top) > open your new playlist.
2. Tap Link to a card > Use your phone.
3. Hold the genuine MYO card to the top edge of your phone to link it.

Step 3 — Copy the link onto your generic card

1. In NFC Tools: tap Write > More options > Import from NFC tag.
2. Hold the genuine MYO card (now linked) to the top edge of your phone. The Yoto playlist URL appears (~45 bytes).
3. Tap Write / ~45 Bytes, then hold the generic (already-formatted) card to the top edge of your phone to write the link.

Step 4 — Cache the playlist on the player (required for the clone to play)

A byte-perfect clone still shows the red stop sign ("card not recognised") until the playlist is downloaded onto the target player. The player resolves the card URL against the cloud by the card's hardware NFC UID; the clone's UID is unregistered, so the cloud rejects it until the content is already local.

1. With the player online, play the playlist (genuine MYO card or Yoto app) until every track downloads — no blue streaming-cloud icon; it plays with WiFi off.
2. Then insert the clone. It matches the URL to the cached content and plays.

(Do this once per player. A player that has never cached the playlist won't play the clone until you do.)

Done. The generic card now works like any Yoto card.

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Adding a NEW playlist on a NEW card

The MYO card is your reusable "staging" card — you overwrite its link each time.

1. Create the new playlist (Step 1 above).
2. Relink the MYO card to the new playlist (Step 2). This overwrites the URL on the MYO card so it now points to the new playlist.
3. Clone MYO → new generic card (Step 3). Format the blank first only if it has never been NDEF-formatted.
4. Cache the new playlist on the player (Step 4).

Your old clones are unaffected. Each link writes a playlist-specific URL onto the MYO card; previously cloned cards keep their own URLs, and the Yoto cloud still maps those to their original playlists. Overwriting the MYO card does not touch cards you already made — only the MYO card itself now plays the new playlist.

Sanity check on your first run: after relinking, tap an old clone and confirm it still plays its original playlist. If it doesn't, Yoto is reusing one fixed URL per card — but the community cloning workflow relies on per-playlist URLs, so old clones should stay intact.

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Scripted upload: yoto-upload.js

Prefer code? yoto-upload.js creates (or updates) a Yoto playlist directly from a folder of MP3s + matching 16×16 PNG icons — no phone, no NFC Tools. Each song becomes a chapter that displays its own pixel art. Zero npm dependencies (Node 18+ built-ins).

Requirements

• Node.js 18+ (uses global fetch, crypto, http).
• A free Yoto developer app (see Setup).
• Bring your own audio — *.mp3 files are git-ignored and never shipped in this repo.

Setup (one-time)

1. At dashboard.yoto.dev, create a Public client.
2. Register the redirect URL exactly: http://127.0.0.1:8787/callback
3. Enable the scopes user:content:manage and offline_access, then save.
4. Copy the Client ID and export it:

   export YOTO_CLIENT_ID=your_client_id

Usage

node yoto-upload.js example-playlist   # build / update the playlist in <folder>
node yoto-upload.js --reset-auth       # force a fresh browser sign-in

The first run opens your browser to sign in to Yoto once; the refresh token is cached in .yoto-token.json (git-ignored) so later runs are silent.

A ready-to-copy template lives in example-playlist/: duplicate the folder, drop your .mp3 files in it and your 16×16 PNG icons in icons/, then edit playlist.json.

The manifest — <folder>/playlist.json

{
  "cardId": null,
  "title": "My Example Playlist",
  "tracks": [
    { "title": "Track One", "match": "track-one", "icon": "1-track-one.png" }
  ]
}

• match — a distinctive substring used to locate the song's .mp3 in <folder> (must match exactly one file).
• icon — a 16×16 PNG under <folder>/icons/.
• cardId — leave null. On the first upload the script fills it in; later runs then update that same playlist instead of creating a duplicate.

What it does

For each track: request an upload URL → PUT the MP3 → poll until Yoto finishes transcoding → upload the icon. Then one call assembles the playlist (each song a chapter, each with its icon16x16). Auth is OAuth2 Authorization-Code + PKCE — the browser sign-in is caught on a local loopback server. The full API/endpoint reference lives in CLAUDE.md.

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Notes

• Reuse the master card: the same genuine MYO card can be re-linked to a new playlist and copied to as many generic cards as you want.
• To change a card later: only repeat Steps 1–4 (the NDEF format is permanent — never needs redoing). See Adding a NEW playlist on a NEW card above.
• Playlist edits sync automatically: updating audio in a playlist updates every card linked to it, with no re-writing.
• Keep your genuine MYO card safe — it's your reusable source for all future cards.

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Contributing

Contributions are welcome! See CONTRIBUTING.md. Please open an issue first to discuss substantial changes.

Code of Conduct

This project follows the Contributor Covenant. By participating you agree to uphold a welcoming, harassment-free environment.

Disclaimer

For personal use with audio you own or have the right to use. You are responsible for respecting the rights of any content you upload. This project is not affiliated with, authorized, or endorsed by Yoto.

License

Distributed under the MIT License. See LICENSE.

Acknowledgements

• The MYO cloning workflow is based on community guides (r/yoto and similar).
• The scripted tool is built against the official Yoto Developer API.
• The pixel-art icons shown above are original, hand-designed 16×16 sprites.