Arnaud Aubry Built Marelleo, an Open-Source ESP32 Story Box for Kids That Plays Whatever File You Tie to an NFC Figurine, With No Store and No Subscription

Aubry’s complaint is about the business model. With the commercial boxes, he writes, “every new story is a purchase,” and “you’re buying a subscription dressed up as a wooden toy.” He names the three he means, linking Toniebox, Lunii and Yoto, and set out to make one where the parent loads the files.

He learned electronics to do it. The name is a family thing: marelle is French for hopscotch, and it also strings together the first syllables of his kids’ names, Marceau, Ella and Léonie.

Inside, the project README lists an ESP32-S3-DevKitC-1 (the N16R8 version, about 15 euros), a PN532 NFC reader running in HSU mode (about 10 euros), a MAX98357A amplifier driving a Visaton FRS 7 speaker, a microSD card for the audio, a 3000 mAh 3.7 V lithium battery that charges over USB-C, and a 10k potentiometer with a built-in switch, so turning the volume knob all the way down also turns the box off. The figurines carry NTAG213 stickers. Any object with a tag works, which means a toy car or a seashell can be a story too.

Aubry hand-routed a circuit board with 491 tracks and ordered it from JLCPCB. “For 160 euros I got five, already assembled,” he writes. The cube itself is PLA printed on a Bambu Lab A1, with brass inserts for the screws.

Using it takes no app. On first boot the box opens a Wi-Fi network named Marelleo-XXXX; join it, and the box’s own page at marelleo.local lets you upload MP3 or M4A files and assign them to a tag. A tag can also point at an internet radio stream. Press the button once to pause, resume or restart, and hold it to skip ahead.

Story boxes became a category because a toddler can work one alone. Marelleo keeps that part, figurine down and story on, and leaves out the store. A parent with a 3D printer and a weekend can build the same thing for the cost of the parts.