The Halo scanner is recommended because the xBT operates at 134kHz. Most Arduino development boards are tuned for 125kHz. I wasn’t able to find a premade Dev board set up for 134kHz. Most people either cannibalize a reader (like the Halo) and hook it up to their Arduino, or tune an existing 125kHz board for the 134kHz frequency by changing out some SMT caps/resistors/Inductors. If the 134kHz tags use a different communication protocol, you’d have to write code to interpret that as well.
Actually, funny enough, 125khz and 134khz are close enough that there is not really typically a distinct difference with regard to reader tuning. The Halo reads the xBT and xEM both.
By the way, the image of the player does not appear when I click on the Amazon link.
I’m looking for readers of this name, but I only fall on animal drives as shown above