The Parent App & Pairing
Pair the parent app with the device and complete the family’s first configuration.
What you’ll need
Section titled “What you’ll need”You’ll need the device powered on and sitting on its Setup screen, showing its short claim code — that’s where Unboxing & First Setup left you. You’ll need a phone, iPhone or Android; it’s the same yoyopod app on both, and a household with one of each is completely normal.
You will not need to invent a password. Your account uses a passkey — your phone’s own face or fingerprint unlock — so there’s nothing to make up, write down, or forget.
The device does need mobile coverage during pairing, because your phone and the device never talk to each other directly — everything goes through yoyocloud, our service in the middle. That’s a feature, not a limitation: it means pairing works exactly the same whether you’re beside the device or, one day, helping a grandparent set one up over a phone call.
Set aside about ten minutes. Ideally do it at the table with the kid watching — this is the moment their device joins the family.
Install the yoyopod app. Search “yoyopod” in the App Store or Google Play. One app for the whole household — every parent installs the same one.
Create your parent account. The app asks for your email and then your phone does the rest: a passkey is created and confirmed with your face or fingerprint. No password to invent, nothing to reuse from another site, nothing for anyone to phish later.
Set up your household. A household is the home for your family’s parents and devices. You create it once; a second parent or caregiver joins the same household later from the app, with equal say — both of you see the same devices and can change the same settings.
Add your kid. This step is shorter than you expect: a first name and an age band. That’s all, and that’s deliberate — the device doesn’t need a birthday, a photo, or a surname to do its job, so we never ask for them.
Enter the claim code. The device has been showing a short code on its canvas since it reached the Setup screen. Type it into the app, or scan it. The app sends the code up to yoyocloud, yoyocloud checks that this device really is the one showing that code, and binds it to your household. The canvas confirms with a little celebration, and from that moment the device appears in your app. You can give it a name here — “Mia’s yoyopod” — so it’s unmistakable if the household ever has two.
Build the first whitelist. The whitelist is the short list of people the device can call and exchange voice notes with — and the only people who can reach it. Start small: you, the other parent, maybe one grandparent. You can grow it any time. As you save each contact, the app shows two honest states: saved (yoyocloud has it) and active on device (the device has confirmed it) — so you always know what the device is actually enforcing, even if it’s briefly offline.
Load something to listen to. Put the first music and stories on the device from the app. Content lives on the device, which means the listening half of the product works with no internet at all — in the basement, on a plane, anywhere. More on everyday listening at Listening.
Glance at the location view. Before the first solo outing, open the location tab once so you know what it looks like. It shows roughly where the device is and when it last checked in — periodic, unhurried updates, not a live track. What it shows and why is explained at Location.
You’re done when:
- The app is installed and your account opens with a passkey
- Your kid is added — first name and age band
- The device is paired, named, and shows as online in the app
- The whitelist has at least one contact marked active on device
- There’s something loaded to listen to
- You’ve seen the location view once
Do the pairing together. The moment the code on the kid’s canvas turns into “their device” inside your phone is a genuinely nice one, and a kid who watched it happen understands the device is connected to family, not to the internet at large.
Start the whitelist small and grow it on request. “Can we add Uncle Jonas?” a week in is a lovely conversation; pruning a too-long list is not.
Invite the second parent early. Same household, same app, equal rights — the invitation lives in the app’s household screen, and two configured phones beat one from the first day.
Bookmark Parental Controls. Everything you just set — whitelist, location, content, the Ask helpers — lives there, and nothing you chose today is permanent. First setup is a starting point, not a contract.
Troubleshooting
Section titled “Troubleshooting”The app won’t accept the code. The app never searches for the device — it simply asks yoyocloud, so a rejected code usually means yoyocloud can’t see the device yet. Check the canvas is actually on the Setup screen showing its code, give the device a minute near a window if coverage is thin, and try again. Codes are short-lived by design, so if some time has passed, use the fresh one on the canvas.
Pairing worked, but the device shows as offline. Almost always coverage. Nothing is lost: every change you make is marked saved in the app and becomes active on device the moment the device next connects. Meanwhile the device carries on happily — music, stories, and its last-known family list all work without a connection.
New phone, or reinstalled the app. Sign back in with your passkey — your household, your kid’s profile, the whitelist, and the device are all exactly where you left them. There’s nothing to re-pair; pairing binds the device to your household, not to a particular phone.
No coverage at all where you are. Pairing is the one moment that genuinely needs the device online, because yoyocloud has to verify the code the canvas is showing. If home is a dead zone, do the pairing step anywhere with a bar of signal — a café, the car park — and finish the rest at home; everything after the bind tolerates being offline.
Still being decided
Section titled “Still being decided”- Passkey recovery — adopt a second registered device, a printed recovery code in the box, or both? Recovery is the real front door to the account; the choice deserves the same scrutiny as login itself.
- Adopt a mandatory minimum before leaving Setup — at least one whitelist contact — or allow an empty circle? Requiring one contact guarantees the device is never reachable-by-nobody; allowing zero respects families who want a listen-only start.
- Scan-first or type-first for the claim code? Scanning is faster and error-proof but needs the camera permission conversation; typing a short code is humble and always works. Adopt one as the primary path.
- Invite the second parent during first setup, or keep first-run single-parent and surface the invitation afterwards? In-flow invitations set the equal-rights household up correctly from minute one but lengthen exactly the flow we want shortest.