Smartwatches may be an overlooked answer to the kid phone conundrum. Watches have the communication and location tracking that parents demand without the distraction of phones.
My watch changed my relationship with my phone very positively, so I offered to get my kids watches as a phone alternative. Not that they couldn't have phones at all, but they'd leave them at home when going on, and not carry them in their pockets around the house.
They declined because they think watches are lame and nerdy. Only the most unfortunate kids get watches. They still can't carry them around the house, but I didn't gain much ground overall. I've gradually increased controls on and over the phones in my home, but the watch offer has never been taken up.
I think you're right that it could be an overlooked solution, but I suspect you need to sneak in before the kids are accustomed to a phone.
There's a fix to the "nerdiness" issue: Have the kids pick awesome bands or band/frame combinations from AliExpress. (They're about $5-20 rather than $60-200.) There are plenty out there to transform a watch to look nothing like an Apple or Samsung watch, and look nothing like anyone else's watch.
Funnily enough a lot of people trotted out the "only old people wear watches" argument when the Apple Watch came out as a reason why it was going to be a failure.
That said, I canceled my cellular plan on my original one and really mostly use it as a GPS device when hiking. It's easier just to use a watch that doesn't need charging day to day.
I got an Apple watch for my 11-year-old for precisely this reason - he can text, call, and play some games on it.
Subscription to cellular is $10/month.
And it let me set parental controls on it.
No way was I getting him a phone, it's already way too distracting with the other devices he has access to at home.
I also have an 11 year old with an Apple Watch and it has been such a good introduction to connectivity as well as social media (iMessage/texting...)
She has gained a lot of independance because we are able to track her with the watch, and she is now proactively communicating with it to let us know where she will be etc.
I'm not enthusiastic about the teen years with TikTok/Instagram,etc but at least she will have been onramped gradually and hopefully it's a natural progression.
I think the issue at hand is yes you can enforce this at the family level. However unless high maturity / self awareness the kid will struggle if his peers all have phones.
This needs to be a campaign pushed at the school or even county level.
I'll add that while that may be true. I find that it doesn't matter what kind of screen it is - my kids are like moths to flame. Its the backlit lighting + some kind of interactivity that makes it attractive to play with.
The original Game Boy and Tamigotchi weren't colour, or backlit, and they were disruptive in classrooms when they came out. For at least some individuals, even simple black and white, non-networked games, are kind of compulsive. This is probably particularly true for younger children without guidance.
The color is part of it. I put a greyscale filter on my phone and it’s insane how much it’s reduced the device’s ability to suck me in and keep me staring at it.
Overlooked answer? Aren't you are literally describing a mobile phone. You know, before they were smart phones with distractions. The nice thing about this solution is its less likely to be forgotten because its on the wrist.
I have seen a couple of videos on youtube about people only using an Apple Watch with LTE, but I have found nothing long term or about android smart watches. I would really like to explore this possibility for myself
Considering how often my three-year-old niece wants to play around with my Apple Watch, including at bedtime, it seems like it can be just as big of a distraction.
I'm not sure I agree with less intrusive. Having a tracker attached to your body that can notify you of anything it wants is very intrusive. It is, however, seemingly less addictive in some capacities. No doom scrolling, etc.
My kids main demand is the following features, and this watch doesn't deliver on any of them:
1. Whitelist contacts for calling and text call - installing an app is a pain for older ppl / friends.
2. Music: Why not Google? This already has headphone support and the Pixel watch hardware which support musics.
3. Maps: in case they need to go A to B. WearOS has google maps, so this should be an easy add. School bus is on google maps for e.g, so being able to check time to leave would be great.
4. Battery: 16hrs at launch is not going to age well...
Overall, despite being in the market for this, would not buy.
Features kids didn't ask for and I don't want:
Gaming: There is a market for gamification, but it seems to me the product team went overboard and spent way too much time here at the cost of making a better kids watch. I have no doubt it can and will make some kids more active, but...
Kids have never needed a watch to be active, run around and imagine creative games. Although, sure, we did spend hours during breaks all surrounding the one kid with a gameboy.
It's not like this is a uniquely Google-y model, it's just a fitbit. Based on their past history of dropping support for legacy devices, I'd expect it to remain supported for a minimum of 5 years, but maybe a decade or more. And if this page is up-to-date, then it seems like they've only EOL'd 7 out of ~40ish models in the company's ~15 year history.
Exactly. Anyone in the tech industry who buys this is a fool. But I feel sorry for everyone who doesn't keep up with tech news to know everything Google releases is dead in the water and gets duped by this and the inevitable shutdown.
If this lasts as long as Stadia it will shut down on Thursday the 5th of August 2027.
I feel somewhat in a twilight zone. I'm not a fan of this device, but I also don't understand the over the top paranoia around it. Why do we invent such absurdly terrifying discourse around kids?
If you don't want this for your kids, just don't get it. If you are worried about folks knowing where your kids are and what they are up to, I have bad news for you about neighborhood gossip.
> If you are worried about folks knowing where your kids are and what they are up to, I have bad news for you about neighborhood gossip.
Obvious strawman comparing Google knowing vital stats and location about your child at any time with neigbors knowing and talking to each other about a kid.
$59.98 a year for unlimited connectivity is a pretty good deal. My kids are getting to the age where we leave them for things like soccer practice or summer camps. Not really interested in giving them a phone yet... but want them to be able to keep in touch. This seems like a decent compromise.
Smart watches for kids are great compared to alternatives. My kids have Apple Watches and aren't asking me for phones/tablets (and the related evils like IG, TT, etc). Love to see this from Google (and Apple).
I was at one point head of security and infratructure at Pebble and the only person standing in the way of personally identifiable biometric data being directly accessible on employee workstations. I know such practices end with data leaked or sold.
I believed Pebble users could enjoy rich data-driven features without fear as long as someone like me had their back. That sense of mission was part of why I stayed on to the end.
Once Pebble and I were integrated into Fitbit I got to see up close that they are not a wearables company, but a surveillance capitalism firm that will profit from all available data, even not-technically-hipaa protected medical data in any way legally possible. No one there had any mission but share-price-go-up.
I quit 3 months before my golden handcuffs came off, because I realized I no longer wanted to be part of an organization so deeply negligent with security and unethical with data usage.
I then got to watch from a distance as Pebble user trust and user data was then gobbled up again, this time by Google.
Now firms like Google have fully saturated the adult market and seek to parasitically cause behavior changes in children while extracting highly profitable biometric data from them too.
A ratified-and-strengthened American Privacy Rights Act cannot come soon enough.
We have to convince our legislators to stop these predators.
Readit News
They declined because they think watches are lame and nerdy. Only the most unfortunate kids get watches. They still can't carry them around the house, but I didn't gain much ground overall. I've gradually increased controls on and over the phones in my home, but the watch offer has never been taken up.
I think you're right that it could be an overlooked solution, but I suspect you need to sneak in before the kids are accustomed to a phone.
That said, I canceled my cellular plan on my original one and really mostly use it as a GPS device when hiking. It's easier just to use a watch that doesn't need charging day to day.
Subscription to cellular is $10/month.
And it let me set parental controls on it. No way was I getting him a phone, it's already way too distracting with the other devices he has access to at home.
She has gained a lot of independance because we are able to track her with the watch, and she is now proactively communicating with it to let us know where she will be etc.
I'm not enthusiastic about the teen years with TikTok/Instagram,etc but at least she will have been onramped gradually and hopefully it's a natural progression.
https://support.apple.com/en-us/109036
(a flip phone would also be acceptable but a watch is physically attached which is ideal for 7 year old).
This needs to be a campaign pushed at the school or even county level.
Deleted Comment
Better hope that watch is water- and shockproof because a healthy 7yo will find many ways to test those features.
1. Whitelist contacts for calling and text call - installing an app is a pain for older ppl / friends.
2. Music: Why not Google? This already has headphone support and the Pixel watch hardware which support musics.
3. Maps: in case they need to go A to B. WearOS has google maps, so this should be an easy add. School bus is on google maps for e.g, so being able to check time to leave would be great.
4. Battery: 16hrs at launch is not going to age well...
Overall, despite being in the market for this, would not buy.
Features kids didn't ask for and I don't want:
Gaming: There is a market for gamification, but it seems to me the product team went overboard and spent way too much time here at the cost of making a better kids watch. I have no doubt it can and will make some kids more active, but...
Sounds like a nightmare having to also manage your kids' watches and keep them charged just for them to barely make it through the day.
https://www.fitbit.com/global/us/legal/legacy-device-policy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Fitbit_products#Fitbit...
So I wouldn't worry them killing these ala the spotify car thing.
Deleted Comment
My bet is Google EOL.
If this lasts as long as Stadia it will shut down on Thursday the 5th of August 2027.
If you don't want this for your kids, just don't get it. If you are worried about folks knowing where your kids are and what they are up to, I have bad news for you about neighborhood gossip.
Obvious strawman comparing Google knowing vital stats and location about your child at any time with neigbors knowing and talking to each other about a kid.
I believed Pebble users could enjoy rich data-driven features without fear as long as someone like me had their back. That sense of mission was part of why I stayed on to the end.
Once Pebble and I were integrated into Fitbit I got to see up close that they are not a wearables company, but a surveillance capitalism firm that will profit from all available data, even not-technically-hipaa protected medical data in any way legally possible. No one there had any mission but share-price-go-up.
I quit 3 months before my golden handcuffs came off, because I realized I no longer wanted to be part of an organization so deeply negligent with security and unethical with data usage.
I then got to watch from a distance as Pebble user trust and user data was then gobbled up again, this time by Google.
Now firms like Google have fully saturated the adult market and seek to parasitically cause behavior changes in children while extracting highly profitable biometric data from them too.
A ratified-and-strengthened American Privacy Rights Act cannot come soon enough.
We have to convince our legislators to stop these predators.