We’re home from Big Sur. Robi made it into the car, into the campsite, and never came out of the bag.
We used it a little in the car, and even that was a pain. The case wasn’t screwed together, so the front and back were held shut by nothing but the fit, in a moving car, in a three-year-old’s lap.
Next time, I’ll take the extra few minutes to screw the case shut.
Then the real problem. The campground has no Wi-Fi and the phone had no signal, and without Wi-Fi the player is effectively unusable. The app couldn’t connect to it, and nothing new could be loaded onto it. It sat in a bag in the woods for three days and did nothing.
This is the parking garage again. The thing that started this project, a player that wouldn’t play because it couldn’t reach a server, is what my own player did to my own kid. The Toniebox and Yoto forums are full of the same complaint, which was comforting for about a minute. Then it was just mine to fix.
A device that needs Wi-Fi to be useful isn’t a device you take anywhere, and taking it anywhere is the point. So here’s what has to be true. The player plays whatever it has, with no network at all. The phone can control it without Wi-Fi, over Bluetooth. And anything added on the phone while the player is out of reach waits, and lands when they meet again.
Next: an offline-first plan, in three parts, starting Monday. The board work waits for it, and that’s a choice with a cost.
The next camping trip, after the offline work: it worked without Wi-Fi.