My kids love their Yotos and I love Audiobookshelf. I wanted something in between that works as they get older and more control. I had two old Gen 2 players lying around that Yoto no longer supports.

It turns the player into an Audiobookshelf client. You browse your library with the two knobs, the 16x16 screen shows tiny cover art, and favourites and downloads sync back to the server. Its still keeps the NFC card concept, but they're optional: you can link books/favourites to any NFC card. It all runs locally, with no Yoto account or cloud.

It does require opening the player and soldering some wires to flash the initial firmware, but then its OTA after that.

Disclaimer: Its all Claude Code, Its an idea I've been slowly tinkering around in my spare time and never got very far so. I threw Claude Code at it and I was amazed at how well it did. Flashing, reading logs and fixing things - leaving me to just perform physical button presses and checks.