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.
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.
Considering the number of times I've heard cell phones referred to as being "attached at the hip", I think that ship has sailed.
Also, almost every smart watch allows you to block notifications on top of what you phone already blocks, so if you have apps that you want notifications from for when your attention is on your phone, but not all the time, you can only allow those through. It's not "anything it wants", it's anything you choose.
Just turn off notifications for the vast majority of apps. I don't even auto-install third-party apps on the watch. I use my watch as mainly a fitness tracker and I allow notifications from fewer than 5 apps.
This is absolutely what I worry about for my kids, down the line. A boyfriend could easily pass her an inherited iPhone with a prepaid SIM card so they could keep in touch away from parental prying eyes. Most families around here (SV) have old devices lying around, and $20/mo for a cellular plan is nothing for many teenagers.
I think you've sort of missed the forest for the trees, here. If you've gotten to the point where the kid is hiding a phone from you, you're already in an adversarial relationship with a young adult who has lost trust in your ability to be a reasonable authority figure.
You seem to think that there aren't any kids that, under pretty much any circumstances, would want to have a private device. Speaking from experience (having been a kid myself) I can assure you that these kids exist.
Pretty much all teens have stuff they are hiding from their parents. Some of it is trivial, some might be pretty serious. For example I'd guess it's not very common for your kid to come home and announce he's started having sex (though one of mine did).
Ha! my dad celebrated my announcement by inviting me to a good restaurant. I would never have thought about hiding that from my parents and I had their full support to bring my girlfriend back to my room (and later for the night)
> A minor is going to get a phone plan w/o a guardian signing for it?
In the US at least, it is trivial to get a phone plan without being 18 or having an adult sign for it. There is no credit check nor identity check.
Just walk into any Walmart and pick up any one of a dozen prepaid kits. These plans require you to bring your own devices, but you can get a used/unbranded smartphone for under $100 and a plan with data for under $10/month.
It has been this way for at least 10-15 years, if anything post-pay/credit line plans are quite an outdated concept, and mostly used by older generations who are overpaying. Plus T-Mobile specifically have had three data breaches leaking all of their customer's personal information (which they wouldn't even have with a prepaid plan).
lol kind of funny something like 35 can be bargained down with cash. if im selling a used phone for 35 im for sure expecting to deal with cash but of course accept other payments as well since its at my store. i guess its even hard to pay for drugs in cash these days huh. i do know in korea cash is not even a thing anymore. either are plastic cards its just all through phones
The trick is whether or not he’s a true believer in the rules you promulgate. If he’s not, he may find ways around them, and you probably don’t want to foster a game of cat and mouse with your child lest they end up resenting you.
Not YOU, specifically. I’m speaking in general terms, and somewhat from experience.
When I was in high school we barely had smartphones. A friend of mine had a Windows Mobile 6 device, some kids had Blackberry devices. The iPhone had just come out. Devices were somewhat less personal back then so my experiences may not be practically replicable today, but back in the day I would lend my phone to my friends at the end of the school day if they had been grounded and their phone taken away.
Again, that was almost 20 years ago (dear god), but there’s something to be said for the unchecked determination of a teenager in search of a gadget.
I don’t necessarily disagree with your stance, nor am I criticizing you. For every watchful parental eye, there’s always a bit of sleight of hand. It’s the way of so many of us here, and likely something passed on to the kids of many of us here.
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.
Yeah there's discussion about this in scientific articles I've read, where at a certain point the social circle exists on these apps, and by a single individual removing themselves they are forced to effectively choose isolation.
I experienced it myself when I deleted instagram. I realized that certain friendships that had been thriving on that channel didn't flow as well outside it, via texting for example.
So I redownloaded and set a screen time limit and I'm calling that good enough.
> I realized that certain friendships that had been thriving on that channel didn't flow as well outside it, via texting for example.
I think it's a strain to call that friendship. Communication channels don't matter in case of friendship. I may text, call, email, etc... and it's all good. But it being exclusive to a specific platform is more a social circle or a club as you said.
I had this happen when I got rid of facebook years ago. I just lost touch with certain groups that were going to the movies or out for drinks or whatever. I just wasn't aware things were happening. Occasionally I'd get "where are you?" texts. No big loss, as I had other much closer groups where the communication mechanism matters less and varies, but I can imagine it could be isolating for some without that.
Let's say I'm in a group of 6 close friends and every year we have 20 poker nights, 4 barbecues, and attend 2 sports events or concerts.
If I decide I don't like poker and I'm not going to attend the poker nights - my friends will still welcome me to the barbecues and sports events. We'd still be friends.
But they're not going to cancel poker night. And if at poker night Bob tells the other guys how proud he is his daughter Jenny has gotten accepted to the fancy college she applied to - nobody's going to summarise that in an e-mail to me.
We'll still be friends - but I'll be spending more time alone, and the social fabric won't be quite as tightly knit.
> nobody's going to summarise that in an e-mail to me.
You don't need to know everything that's happening in your friends' life. They may want to share some news and it'd be ok to not know if you were not present and you haven't heard from other channels. Every now and then, you call them and ask them what's news and how everything's going.
I liked Facebook when it was about getting status updates from a friend. It was blogging for people that did not know how to set up a wordpress website. Then it became...something else.
> We'll still be friends - but I'll be spending more time alone
Social activities are not the same as social platforms. And as for me, I'm not forcing myself to attend events and use platforms I don't like just to not be alone.
Agree, won't be easy -- he already has many peers with phones. But we have a lot of rules like that (e.g. no unsupervised YouTube use, wear helmets on the bike, etc) and he lives an otherwise well-provisioned life -- I think we'll work something out.
I’m amazed no one is pushing back on this. I respect your decision as a parent — it’s your decision — but not letting them have a phone until 16 or privacy in their YouTube sounds miserable for them. I would be, but everyone is different I suppose.
In contrast, I was watching gore videos by the time I was 13. I think I turned out ok.
We’ll see if it’s survivorship bias, but personally, I plan to give our daughter Kess most of the freedom she’ll want. She’ll figure it out. The worst situation would be for her to develop feelings for someone and not trust her parents with that info. I suspect restricting smartphone usage is exactly how to end up in that situation.
Yes. But, having the freedom to watch something and decide for yourself is a different question. 16 is two years short of military age, and old enough to pay taxes on your income.
16 does seem late for a first phone and likely they will find the phone necessary by the time their child reaches high school (age 14). Still, I appreciate the goal of trying to protect their child from the always connected lifestyle until they have some mental tools and life experience to understand and manage it.
My kid is college age now and a couple years ahead of the first iPad generation. There is a huge difference in how those kids handle the internet even though they are nearly the same age.
I had unrestricted (dial up) internet access from a very young age and I _do not_ think it was good for me. I don't think having that access in my pocket at all times would have helped either (I didn't get smartphone until I was out of college in 2013).
Despite all the rules I've outlined in this thread, I really do believe in giving my kids as much freedom and autonomy as possible. I do not want to manage their time, I do want them to pursue their own interests and grow into their own person.
That being said, developing brains are not adult brains. It is a parent's job to fill in for that immature prefrontal cortex when needed. I can't expect a child to handle the asymmetric onslaught of the attention economy without negative side-effects. Have you seen the manipulative kids content on YouTube? How can a kid escape the recommendations tab with thumbnail after thumbnail specifically designed to draw them in?
So I will work with my kids to learn how use technology without experiencing all the ill-effects. At the end of the day, technology is just one of many tools they will use throughout life -- I don't let them use the bandsaw without help yet either. We'll make adjustments as they get older, but at age 7 things are still pretty hands-on.
I don’t mind the content they watch on kids YouTube (mostly, streamers can be awful), but the exposure to the algorithm turns them into tiny zombies and led to behavior problems. Even adult brains have trouble navigating the dopamine hits of recommendation algorithms optimized to keep you engaged.
We’ve stuck to a middle ground where they are limited to a certain amount of YouTube per day (but have no time limits for Netflix, games, etc). This has worked well so far
Totally agree. To your point, I personally have disabled watch history on YouTube so there is no recommendations feed at all. I just search for the videos I want or scroll through the new videos from my subscriptions.
It is these kinds of tactics that I want my kids to develop.
You could bet I'd have a secret phone, and somehow knowledge on every wifi password in the neighborhood.
The effects of things like gore at 13 are not well understood, I think, but content like this is prevalent, so I see the point in either restricting or allowing it. The definition of "fine" also varies, what's fine for some, is certainly not fine for the other. Also, simply surviving, or turning out to be a degree of fine might not be something that parents want for their children. For example, people overcome trauma all the time, and doing so is great achievement and a source of life satisfaction, but we generally don't cause trauma to achieve this outcome, in fact, most of the time we actively prevent it.
At the end of the day, I think it's mostly just risk, and dealing with it is risk management. It's not that there are any clear paths, many excellent people and outstanding contributions come from unlikely circumstances, and many times even the safest bet fails.
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
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.
Not the poster, but since getting a smartwatch with a cellular plan, I've found myself more often leaving my phone when out and about - especially with my kids. I'm still be able to make calls, text, listen to pods and music, pay for stuff, navigation etc. but without any of the distractions.
I stopped using it as much. I had some reports of using it for several hours per day, which as an adult with kids was sort of internally shameful and humiliating. Yet it kept happening despite efforts to prevent it.
The watch did a few things. It made it so I didn’t feel like I needed my phone around since my urge to have it was communication with my family or work. So, with that handled I could relax and leave the phone at home.
It also allowed me to see quite clearly how unnecessary my phone actually was. I rarely actually use my watch while out and about because the instances in which I imagined I’d need my phone were mostly false. The watch is useful, but maybe a few times per week rather than per day.
Finally it demonstrated that the utility I imagined my phone had outside of necessity was a lot more limited than I thought. Apps and cameras are cool, but not using them is, too. I really don’t care that my phone is gone when it’s gone.
So, I’ve gained up to hours per day of my life back and broke a terrible habit. I tried willing myself out of it but failed. Ultimately the watch was a great solution.
The trick is actually putting the phone away, though. If you carry both you’ll just use the phone anyway.
I’m not kidding when I say I’ve filled it with great things. I’ve always wanted to dive deeper into robotics but “never had the time”. Well, a couple hours a day is a lot. I’ve made huge strides in learning and I’m actually building practical things with that recovered time.
If someone told me this two years ago I’d think I knew better and they didn’t understand my situation or something. I didn’t realize this was happening until it occurred to me that I was finally learning and building all the stuff I’d intended to. I wondered what changed.
Prior to this I’d built a hydroponics automation and monitoring system, and all said I think it took me ten years. I’m pretty sure I could have quartered that if I wasn’t glued to my phone so much.
In public I very rarely have my phone out of my pocket or bag. 75% of the notifications that would make me look at my phone, I get on my watch. I also never miss a notification when my phone is not in my hand/pocket and as such have reduced the notifications significantly.
Ha, now that you mention it, my phantom vibrations are gone as well.
Like you I ended up culling a lot of notifications. I also added focuses which only allow certain people to call or apps to notify me throughout different parts of the day. It’s really nice to pare this stuff down on top of obviating the phone’s ability to deepen distraction if you happen to be notified.
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.
It's true. Design, aesthetics, and impressions cannot not be made, and so are always constructed even without attention. People, especially kids, associate much of their identity with their appearance. Sometimes, I pine that we ought to live as Quakers in some ways.
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.
Yes, charging is a legitimate pain in the ass. At first I didn’t mind, now I find it annoying. Maybe because I took a long hiatus from work and I’m rarely at a desk; that’s where I used to charge it.
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.
It only needs to be paired to an iOS device for initial setup and configuration. A watch with cellular can operate independently of the iOS device after setup and configuration.
It's been a year or so, but some carriers refused to sell me a watch only plan, it had to be a new cell plan for a phone too. (And pairing with an existing phone meant it had that cell's number, not a watch only one.)
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.
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.
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'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 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.
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.
When I was a kid I wanted a slick James Bond style smartwatch that had lasers, tools, and other badass capabilities, not this baby-ified fitness tracker.
As soon as you invent the In Live and Let Die watch that deflects bullets with magnets or something, I'll buy one for my kids as long as you leave out the buzzsaw.
If it had an IR emitter and camera in the right place, one could play laser-[watch-]tag, although the classic cheat of obstructing the sensor would still exist.
The James Bond watch was a tool for James Bond to use. This watch is a tool for parents and Google to use. They are not so easily comparible beyond both having the appearance of a watch and being called "spy tools"
I just hope this is not a repeat of the Versa 4 where no third party apps were allowed[1] (unlike the prev versions which allowed them). That's a head-scratcher. This is the thing that gets people to spring for a Garmin.
There's no mention of software support lifetime. If this is just another multi-hundred dollar electronic gadget that's going to be useless in 2 years, why would I buy it for my kid?
I can get a refurb Apple Watch SE 2nd gen direct from Apple for $209. I'm clearly not going to buy this Google watch because of the price.
If it's going to be broken, have a shot battery, or be useless in 2 years it doesn't matter which of those happens, I am not willing to spend >$200 initially and then a monthly fee on it.
If I needed to track my kids' locations, I'd give them each an Airtag. $20ish and free tracking. I mind much less if they destroy/lose a $20 thing with a replaceable battery.
2 years is an eternity in the field of kids tracking devices. I sure wish it's supported for longer, but also don't expect to use it that much longer if there's a better device 2 years from now.
In particular you'll be paying a monthly subscription, so you'll still be paying the same price whether you stick to this device for 10 years or not.
On the Apple Watch it's a completely different proposition, in particular you absolutely need to pair to an active iPhone.
I am amazed by the way decisions are made at Google.
In my imaginations the story was something like that:
- How to keep next generations hooked into useless technology?
- Oh, let's make their parents buy smartwatches to their kids, this way we A. will track them 24/7, sell other useless stuff too.
Fitbit has been making smartwatches for like a decade. They've been making models specifically for kids before Google even bought them. It's the Fitbit Ace line. Why is continuing that product line something you're amazed by?
Like, the only reason you seem amazed is because you've made up an outrageous story about how the product came to be. Except you admit that you've just made it up and know very well it's not true, so presumably that's not driving your amazement.
Could you please stop posting unsubstantive comments and flamebait? You've unfortunately been doing it repeatedly. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for.
As mentioned by others in this discussion, Apple does have a way to limit the functionality of an Apple Watch, as outlined: https://support.apple.com/en-us/109036
You can do similar things with an iPhone or iPad. Turn off all kinds of stuff entirely, require a request (comes through in the parent’s phone) to override. No Web browsing without asking? Done. No installing apps without asking? Done. Web browsing allowed, but allow-list only? Done. Allow some app, but max one hour per day? Done. Lots of stuff.
Apple purposefully leverages its closed ecosystem to generate social friction amongst kids in order to drive hardware sales, making them persona non grata in my book.
Does anyone else feel uneasy about the idea of children having to curb their behavior because they know they're being constantly monitored by their parents?
This product concerns me not only due to corporate advertising surveillance but also parental spying.
And then when they finally break free they don't have any feedback mechanism that they had since childhood. This can go both ways. They might turn out to be model citizen or your worst nightmare.
People raised children for 1000s of years without any technology. I bet we can do that too.
Possibly -- but we're looking at a smartwatch to give our 7 y.o. _more_ freedom. If he has a way to call home and we can check on his location, I'm much more likely to set him loose in the neighborhood.
In the US, the biggest danger to free-range kids is nosy neighbors, who are convinced kids out wandering alone are in danger of… something! Kidnapping? Sex trafficking? Darned if I know. But it’s a huge problem to those of us who want our kids to be free to walk to the corner store. My kid had a woman call the police on him at age 7, in a safe suburban neighborhood, when she wasn’t satisfied with his answers about why he was out alone. Having a phone would have helped: he could have called me right then. (As it is, he ran away before they got there, and I still chuckle wondering what the cops thought about the whole thing.)
I am pretty comfortable with him moving around w/o a cell device but it would give my wife peace of mind (which is fair). Plus the convenience of calling him home without driving around.
I don't disagree, but we didn't had a choice and now we have. How much guilt is a parent going to have in, the unlikely situation, that something unfortunate happens and that it could have been prevented by this device?
Correct me if wrong, but the anti-vaxxer movement is limited to Americans. I never once heard any other nationality talk about it, except to make fun of loonies from the US. In many highly developed countries, you cannot go to public schools without evidence of many vaccines.
From skimming the page, it looks like it mainly just lets you know their location. Were there other more invasive features than that? Parents keeping tabs on where their kids are and who they're with is associated with positive outcomes like reduced drug use risks.
My child has more freedom now, because I can let her walk further from home, unsupervised, to see if a friend can play - because she can immediately text me and let me know she's staying at the friend's house for the next few hours. She no longer has to wait for me to be ready to walk with her.
She can text me if she wants to be picked up from aftercare early. Or if she wants to stay later. Or if she wants to make plans for afterwards with a friend.
I don't mean to dismiss your concerns, they're valid. But this question also varies hugely with age. It would feel very odd tracking every step of my child's life if they were 16; it's different if they're 8.
Germany showing its incredible infrastructure again then. But then giving the kids a cell phone really is a necessity huh. Can't even call parents at work if they're back from school or on break and something happens.
Thank you to share. My experience (different countries) was similar to yours.
Do you know anyone who grew up in a big city in the same era? I do. They didn't experience the same type of freedoms. Their parents were much more concerned about crime/kidnapping/"the boogey man".
Anecdotally, where I live in a more rural area now, it's common to see kids out riding bikes during the day. Contrast that, I work in the city and unless it's right after when school lets out, I don't see nearly as many kids just riding around. Perhaps it's because they really stay inside the neighborhood or culdasac, but the city is small enough and well connected (Netherlands) with bike infrastructure, that I would expect to see more kids around.
Perhaps this is also influenced by the number of expats in the larger cities and those people are unsure of the safety/normalcy aspect and tend to lean towards caution? I'd be interested to see some data!
I grew up in a socialist apartment block neighborhood with more apartment blocks around and more even further.
You came home from school, watched tv, did whatever, then around three, parents would start coming home, so we (the kids) went out, you knew approximately when dinner would be ready to go home and eat, and that was it. The playgrounds, benches, basketball courts, etc., where full of kids and noone really cared. Sometimes when someone was needed at home, a mom would yell his name through the window, and someone heard it and told someone else, and than that third person knew where that kid was and told him that his mom is looking for him, and the kid went home (usually to eat, or if some relative came to visit).
You're talking about giving the kid the ability to send messages to their parents - I don't think anyone thinks that's a bad thing.
The person you're responding to is talking about the location "sharing" feature, where the watch constantly reports the kids location to their parents without the kid doing anything.
Your kids won’t appreciate it once they grow up and they found out later that their whole childhood been recorded and being used to train AI or even worse, a data breach, since they didn’t have the choice to opt in or out.
This is about the same price as the Apple Watch SE w/ LTE -- seems tough for Google to compete with an established, reliable alternative at the same price point.
> Fitbit Ace LTE is designed to protect your child’s privacy and wellbeing. Parents can see their child’s recent activity and goal progress, but older data will be automatically deleted from our systems. Location data is only shown to parents and is automatically deleted after a short time.
> There are no third-party apps or ads shown to kids, and health and wellness data will not be used for Google ads.
Interesting definition of "protecting your privacy", which means: Sending location information remotely to a US-hosted centralized server + a third-party (the parents) can track you all the time
Does this include the cellular plan? Then it's probably fine. But if we'd still have to get an additional cellular plan on top of this, then it's silly.
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.
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.
We've been happily using the Verizon Gizmo watch for a while now. It's a deliberately crippled smart watch. No games, no apps (it has a step counter and a stopwatch, but that's about it) -- some calling functionality, some messaging functionality, tons of oversight (limited contacts, all contacts must be approved by a guardian), and location tracking.
It's kind of bad at all of these, but our primary thought is to have it be a limited capability device -- similar to a flip phone but a wearable.
This looks like it's trying to enter the same market, but with a bunch of really really really really stupid shit.
"Meet the eejie. The eejie is the center of the Fitbit Ace LTE. The more your kids move, the more goals they hit and the happier they make the eejie."
You'd have to be an "eejie"-it to buy into this cutesy bullshit.
Quite possibly I am not the target demographic -- I never really got the tomagotchi thing either, so maybe I'm just a soulless monster.
My kids have access to other electronic devices, but don't yet have a smartphone. The Gizmo is a nice intermediate step. They know what real games are like and they want those. As a parent I don't want the phone to be a source of distractions. Having these sort of half-assed games feels like the worst of both worlds; disappointing games that the kids don't like, and stupid distracting games that the parents don't want.
I agree that some kids would like this, but in my family we wouldn't give our kids smartwatches at that age (6-8?). I don't think this will hit with tweens/teens, both because of the UI and because Apple Watches will be perceived as more prestigious/elite (not endorsing the feeling — just saying that will likely be the impression).
Tried a Gizmo when my daughter hit 5th grade; a big increase in independence comes around then (at least in our town which is still quite old fashioned with many, many kids walking, shopping, socializing, and playing outside unsupervised all over town in the nicer months).
The thing was an absolute turd. I think over 9 months I managed to get one message to go through to her, maybe two or three calls worked. She was never able to reach us when she wanted, and we could never reach her. End result was that we both experienced far more anxiety than if she'd had nothing at all - utterly counterproductive. Whether on wifi or 5 bar cell coverage, the damn thing just wouldn't ever reliably actually communicate. Support never figured it out though we did try.
The final straw came when she walked over to a friend's house across town one afternoon for a playdate, then I tried to call her an hour later to make sure all was ok and it didn't ring, as usual. I tried the location tracker thing and it told me she was in a dodgy neighborhood 20 miles away from where she was supposed to be. (People here will probably guess that it was getting location info from the address formerly associated with the WiFi AP at the house she was at - the parents had recently moved.) After that panic she and I both decided it was a piece of crap and we upgraded her to an Apple Watch as a "graduation present" from elementary school. It's worked perfectly, and it has been easy to manage controls and restrictions.
Agreed on the turd aspect. It's really amazingly poorly done, everything from the bad charger to the incoherent interface to the badly designed and operating app.
But what's nice is that it is a limited capability device. I'd love to hear more about the controls and restrictions associated with an Apple Watch. Apple's documentation is pretty shitty so I don't have a good feel for how it operates; just that the features exist.
"Screen Time" under Settings on iOS controls most of the functionality. You can set downtime, school time, allowed apps, and permitted contacts for your kids' devices from that.
For example my daughter is permitted to contact anyone in her contact list (which I approve, so no strangers - and it auto rejects texts from non-contacts) from 0730-0900, then just me and mum from 9-3, then anyone from 3-7, then just parents again. And no apps of any kind from 7pm onwards. That way no distractions at school but she can reach us in an emergency and she can get hold of us when at sleepovers but no playing games at night.
It's a little confusing, and if the docs are shitty I'll have to take your word because I haven't even managed to find any yet, but it does work well. It does however all work once set up.
"happy" is a bitch of a stretch with the gizmo since it's pretty much garbage but it does deliver on being a restricted communication and crappy tracking device at an affordable cost.
I'm on the fence about switching to a dumb phone or an apple watch next year (middle school).
It's not up to Google. It's up to parents. The point of this product is to give parents an option other than a phone, which I assume you would believe to be worse (in cost and what it enables).
$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.
No sleep or stress with heart rate seems like a missed opportunity. The games to help kids move is interesting but if a distraction in school more trouble than it’s worth.
If I have kids, I will never trust them with an evil and dangerous company like google, same goes for facebook too, the business model been and still exploiting, abusing, and selling users’ data.
An open source alternative, both software and hardware would be ideal for kids, in the meantime, being a good and dedicated parent is the best strategy, and keep your eyes on your kids, tech isn’t needed.
It's privacy-protecting; their location will be private, only you can track them all the time, the apps installed, Google and their SREs, the US government if they want to (but they most likely need to ask), etc.
Words have meanings. And I don't think you know what they are.
Google absolutely will be selling this location data to "improve the advertising experience".
Am I missing something? Is it not just a glorified fitness tracker? I can certainly understand privacy concerns but I don't get how a smart watch is the signifier of a 'broken' world.
What's the benefit of this over a cheap LTE Apple Watch? I'm not an AW fanboy (Pebble/Garmin for me), but I had always anticipated getting my kid an LTE AW when the time came.
It doesn't look like the pricing is much different, and for families with iPhones it would presumably be simpler to stay in the Apple ecosystem. Is there something I'm missing, or is this just for Android families?
Regardless, I'm happy to see innovation in the space.
Huh wow, I can see that. [1] I didn’t realize that not all carriers that support Apple Watch support the family setup feature. I hope that changes soon! I was counting on that for our kids, but we’re not going to triple our monthly bill to enable this one feature!
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.
> Ace Pass required. Works with most phones running Android 11.0 or newer or iOS 15 or newer.
This is a bummer. It's still better than being android only or iOS only, but this would really have benefited from allowing standalone use with management from the web for instance.
A noble idea that looks to be mired in bad design.
Once again Google ties a product to a subscription service (beyond whatever lte connectivity which would be needed anyways). They seem to be always chasing getting that recurring revenue by adding unnecessary features. This adds little value, greatly increases the maintenance cost for Google, and puts the risk on the customer for whether Google will continue thinking it's worth it.
Worst of all, "Games". As a lover of games as an artistic medium, and a game designer myself, I'm just so tired of gamification crap being added to everything else. Flashy graphics and numbers going up are the "sugar" to games' "nutrition" of interactive experience, mechanical exploration, and emotional expression. Rewarding children with external rewards over building internal motivation is dubious at best, and incredibly harmful at worst.
I was hopeful this would be minimalist, secured contacts version of general purpose OS used in more powerful smartwatches. Regular phone and message apps, parent-limited contacts, communications logged where the parent can review/block it.
We are currently sharing a Verizon Gizmo 3 among multiple children. The GizmoHub app is not bad but its mandatory use is frustrating. Friends need substantial parental help to start communicating with the Gizmo user (account creation with Verizon). Forcing all communications through a dedicated and clunky app is a non-starter.
Battery life is the other challenge. Kids don't heed advice to conserve the less than all day battery life. Later when communications for pick-up are most needed, the watch is often low on power.
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[ 3.5 ms ] story [ 390 ms ] threadWhereas on a phone, the temptation to open apps to do things is always there.
It's almost like comparing an eink device with a regular tablet.
Also, almost every smart watch allows you to block notifications on top of what you phone already blocks, so if you have apps that you want notifications from for when your attention is on your phone, but not all the time, you can only allow those through. It's not "anything it wants", it's anything you choose.
(a flip phone would also be acceptable but a watch is physically attached which is ideal for 7 year old).
There is a lot my kid is going to do under my nose, getting a smartphone doesn't seem too likely (esp. if he has alternatives like a desktop).
Besides, I am pro dumbphone and don't plan on reading my kids' texts so I don't think these scenarios are applicable.
In the US at least, it is trivial to get a phone plan without being 18 or having an adult sign for it. There is no credit check nor identity check.
Just walk into any Walmart and pick up any one of a dozen prepaid kits. These plans require you to bring your own devices, but you can get a used/unbranded smartphone for under $100 and a plan with data for under $10/month.
It has been this way for at least 10-15 years, if anything post-pay/credit line plans are quite an outdated concept, and mostly used by older generations who are overpaying. Plus T-Mobile specifically have had three data breaches leaking all of their customer's personal information (which they wouldn't even have with a prepaid plan).
I got one at the bodega on the corner for $20. The owner wanted $35, but when I told him I'd pay cash, he took the twenty.
It was in packaging from some carrier in Mexico, but wasn't SIM locked. No problems for the last year.
Not YOU, specifically. I’m speaking in general terms, and somewhat from experience.
When I was in high school we barely had smartphones. A friend of mine had a Windows Mobile 6 device, some kids had Blackberry devices. The iPhone had just come out. Devices were somewhat less personal back then so my experiences may not be practically replicable today, but back in the day I would lend my phone to my friends at the end of the school day if they had been grounded and their phone taken away.
Again, that was almost 20 years ago (dear god), but there’s something to be said for the unchecked determination of a teenager in search of a gadget.
I don’t necessarily disagree with your stance, nor am I criticizing you. For every watchful parental eye, there’s always a bit of sleight of hand. It’s the way of so many of us here, and likely something passed on to the kids of many of us here.
This needs to be a campaign pushed at the school or even county level.
I experienced it myself when I deleted instagram. I realized that certain friendships that had been thriving on that channel didn't flow as well outside it, via texting for example.
So I redownloaded and set a screen time limit and I'm calling that good enough.
I think it's a strain to call that friendship. Communication channels don't matter in case of friendship. I may text, call, email, etc... and it's all good. But it being exclusive to a specific platform is more a social circle or a club as you said.
Let's say I'm in a group of 6 close friends and every year we have 20 poker nights, 4 barbecues, and attend 2 sports events or concerts.
If I decide I don't like poker and I'm not going to attend the poker nights - my friends will still welcome me to the barbecues and sports events. We'd still be friends.
But they're not going to cancel poker night. And if at poker night Bob tells the other guys how proud he is his daughter Jenny has gotten accepted to the fancy college she applied to - nobody's going to summarise that in an e-mail to me.
We'll still be friends - but I'll be spending more time alone, and the social fabric won't be quite as tightly knit.
You don't need to know everything that's happening in your friends' life. They may want to share some news and it'd be ok to not know if you were not present and you haven't heard from other channels. Every now and then, you call them and ask them what's news and how everything's going.
I liked Facebook when it was about getting status updates from a friend. It was blogging for people that did not know how to set up a wordpress website. Then it became...something else.
> We'll still be friends - but I'll be spending more time alone
Social activities are not the same as social platforms. And as for me, I'm not forcing myself to attend events and use platforms I don't like just to not be alone.
In contrast, I was watching gore videos by the time I was 13. I think I turned out ok.
We’ll see if it’s survivorship bias, but personally, I plan to give our daughter Kess most of the freedom she’ll want. She’ll figure it out. The worst situation would be for her to develop feelings for someone and not trust her parents with that info. I suspect restricting smartphone usage is exactly how to end up in that situation.
My kid is college age now and a couple years ahead of the first iPad generation. There is a huge difference in how those kids handle the internet even though they are nearly the same age.
Despite all the rules I've outlined in this thread, I really do believe in giving my kids as much freedom and autonomy as possible. I do not want to manage their time, I do want them to pursue their own interests and grow into their own person.
That being said, developing brains are not adult brains. It is a parent's job to fill in for that immature prefrontal cortex when needed. I can't expect a child to handle the asymmetric onslaught of the attention economy without negative side-effects. Have you seen the manipulative kids content on YouTube? How can a kid escape the recommendations tab with thumbnail after thumbnail specifically designed to draw them in?
So I will work with my kids to learn how use technology without experiencing all the ill-effects. At the end of the day, technology is just one of many tools they will use throughout life -- I don't let them use the bandsaw without help yet either. We'll make adjustments as they get older, but at age 7 things are still pretty hands-on.
We’ve stuck to a middle ground where they are limited to a certain amount of YouTube per day (but have no time limits for Netflix, games, etc). This has worked well so far
It is these kinds of tactics that I want my kids to develop.
The effects of things like gore at 13 are not well understood, I think, but content like this is prevalent, so I see the point in either restricting or allowing it. The definition of "fine" also varies, what's fine for some, is certainly not fine for the other. Also, simply surviving, or turning out to be a degree of fine might not be something that parents want for their children. For example, people overcome trauma all the time, and doing so is great achievement and a source of life satisfaction, but we generally don't cause trauma to achieve this outcome, in fact, most of the time we actively prevent it.
At the end of the day, I think it's mostly just risk, and dealing with it is risk management. It's not that there are any clear paths, many excellent people and outstanding contributions come from unlikely circumstances, and many times even the safest bet fails.
Better hope that watch is water- and shockproof because a healthy 7yo will find many ways to test those features.
https://support.apple.com/en-us/109036
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.
The only essential thing I'm missing is a camera!
Apple watches work fine over Bluetooth, though that leaves a lot to be desired if you’re accustomed to CarPlay.
The watch did a few things. It made it so I didn’t feel like I needed my phone around since my urge to have it was communication with my family or work. So, with that handled I could relax and leave the phone at home.
It also allowed me to see quite clearly how unnecessary my phone actually was. I rarely actually use my watch while out and about because the instances in which I imagined I’d need my phone were mostly false. The watch is useful, but maybe a few times per week rather than per day.
Finally it demonstrated that the utility I imagined my phone had outside of necessity was a lot more limited than I thought. Apps and cameras are cool, but not using them is, too. I really don’t care that my phone is gone when it’s gone.
So, I’ve gained up to hours per day of my life back and broke a terrible habit. I tried willing myself out of it but failed. Ultimately the watch was a great solution.
The trick is actually putting the phone away, though. If you carry both you’ll just use the phone anyway.
My main concern would be filling all that newfound time.
If someone told me this two years ago I’d think I knew better and they didn’t understand my situation or something. I didn’t realize this was happening until it occurred to me that I was finally learning and building all the stuff I’d intended to. I wondered what changed.
Prior to this I’d built a hydroponics automation and monitoring system, and all said I think it took me ten years. I’m pretty sure I could have quartered that if I wasn’t glued to my phone so much.
I no longer get Phantom vibration syndrome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phantom_vibration_syndrome.
I also can tell the time without taking out my phone.
Like you I ended up culling a lot of notifications. I also added focuses which only allow certain people to call or apps to notify me throughout different parts of the day. It’s really nice to pare this stuff down on top of obviating the phone’s ability to deepen distraction if you happen to be notified.
If you have specific models of watches you have been most successful. Please do share.
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.
[1]https://community.fitbit.com/t5/Versa-4/Can-I-install-apps-o...
I can get a refurb Apple Watch SE 2nd gen direct from Apple for $209. I'm clearly not going to buy this Google watch because of the price.
Don't worry about it. I will be broken or lost far before those 2 years :)
You will wish it was lost.
If I needed to track my kids' locations, I'd give them each an Airtag. $20ish and free tracking. I mind much less if they destroy/lose a $20 thing with a replaceable battery.
I don’t trust Google with our kids’ data (or our dogs, I guess) and they’ll probably discontinue this in a year.
In particular you'll be paying a monthly subscription, so you'll still be paying the same price whether you stick to this device for 10 years or not.
On the Apple Watch it's a completely different proposition, in particular you absolutely need to pair to an active iPhone.
In my imaginations the story was something like that: - How to keep next generations hooked into useless technology? - Oh, let's make their parents buy smartwatches to their kids, this way we A. will track them 24/7, sell other useless stuff too.
Like, the only reason you seem amazed is because you've made up an outrageous story about how the product came to be. Except you admit that you've just made it up and know very well it's not true, so presumably that's not driving your amazement.
If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.
It's usually end-to-end encrypted.
I prefer Apple because it’s not nearly as bad. And I like having a phone and laptop.
This product concerns me not only due to corporate advertising surveillance but also parental spying.
People raised children for 1000s of years without any technology. I bet we can do that too.
Something for us to think about, though.
Depending on the person, the answer you expect might not be the actual answer you get...
To me, someone who wants to track their kid's location 24/7 in real time sounds rather anxious - unless their kid has a history of drug abuse.
My child has more freedom now, because I can let her walk further from home, unsupervised, to see if a friend can play - because she can immediately text me and let me know she's staying at the friend's house for the next few hours. She no longer has to wait for me to be ready to walk with her.
She can text me if she wants to be picked up from aftercare early. Or if she wants to stay later. Or if she wants to make plans for afterwards with a friend.
I don't mean to dismiss your concerns, they're valid. But this question also varies hugely with age. It would feel very odd tracking every step of my child's life if they were 16; it's different if they're 8.
Do you know anyone who grew up in a big city in the same era? I do. They didn't experience the same type of freedoms. Their parents were much more concerned about crime/kidnapping/"the boogey man".
Perhaps this is also influenced by the number of expats in the larger cities and those people are unsure of the safety/normalcy aspect and tend to lean towards caution? I'd be interested to see some data!
You came home from school, watched tv, did whatever, then around three, parents would start coming home, so we (the kids) went out, you knew approximately when dinner would be ready to go home and eat, and that was it. The playgrounds, benches, basketball courts, etc., where full of kids and noone really cared. Sometimes when someone was needed at home, a mom would yell his name through the window, and someone heard it and told someone else, and than that third person knew where that kid was and told him that his mom is looking for him, and the kid went home (usually to eat, or if some relative came to visit).
The person you're responding to is talking about the location "sharing" feature, where the watch constantly reports the kids location to their parents without the kid doing anything.
it'll be used against them, personally
If you opt your kid into surveillance capitalism, you are the worst type of scum.
Remember it was once legal and common to buy children tobacco products.
I'd argue that children have less stake in privacy than adults. How Google knowing location of my kids could possibly affect them?
> There are no third-party apps or ads shown to kids, and health and wellness data will not be used for Google ads.
Sounds better than the regular smart watches.
[edit] and there's no buying the watch WITHOUT the Fitbit Ace Pass data plan, the watch setup REQUIRES a data plan.
from the Compatability section of Tech Specs page:
"Requires Wi-Fi and Fitbit Ace Pass data plan for setup."
[edit2]
though I guess you could buy just one month of the data plan, just for setting up the watch.
But the watch's WiFi supports only 2.4GHz.
[edit3]
the annual data plan deal is only good until before Aug 31. see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzDpo1t02yA&t=275s
If this lasts as long as Stadia it will shut down on Thursday the 5th of August 2027.
So I wouldn't worry them killing these ala the spotify car thing.
https://www.fitbit.com/global/us/legal/legacy-device-policy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Fitbit_products#Fitbit...
My bet is Google EOL.
It's kind of bad at all of these, but our primary thought is to have it be a limited capability device -- similar to a flip phone but a wearable.
This looks like it's trying to enter the same market, but with a bunch of really really really really stupid shit.
"Meet the eejie. The eejie is the center of the Fitbit Ace LTE. The more your kids move, the more goals they hit and the happier they make the eejie."
You'd have to be an "eejie"-it to buy into this cutesy bullshit.
You call it bullshit, but maybe you just aren't the target market?
My kids have access to other electronic devices, but don't yet have a smartphone. The Gizmo is a nice intermediate step. They know what real games are like and they want those. As a parent I don't want the phone to be a source of distractions. Having these sort of half-assed games feels like the worst of both worlds; disappointing games that the kids don't like, and stupid distracting games that the parents don't want.
The thing was an absolute turd. I think over 9 months I managed to get one message to go through to her, maybe two or three calls worked. She was never able to reach us when she wanted, and we could never reach her. End result was that we both experienced far more anxiety than if she'd had nothing at all - utterly counterproductive. Whether on wifi or 5 bar cell coverage, the damn thing just wouldn't ever reliably actually communicate. Support never figured it out though we did try.
The final straw came when she walked over to a friend's house across town one afternoon for a playdate, then I tried to call her an hour later to make sure all was ok and it didn't ring, as usual. I tried the location tracker thing and it told me she was in a dodgy neighborhood 20 miles away from where she was supposed to be. (People here will probably guess that it was getting location info from the address formerly associated with the WiFi AP at the house she was at - the parents had recently moved.) After that panic she and I both decided it was a piece of crap and we upgraded her to an Apple Watch as a "graduation present" from elementary school. It's worked perfectly, and it has been easy to manage controls and restrictions.
But what's nice is that it is a limited capability device. I'd love to hear more about the controls and restrictions associated with an Apple Watch. Apple's documentation is pretty shitty so I don't have a good feel for how it operates; just that the features exist.
For example my daughter is permitted to contact anyone in her contact list (which I approve, so no strangers - and it auto rejects texts from non-contacts) from 0730-0900, then just me and mum from 9-3, then anyone from 3-7, then just parents again. And no apps of any kind from 7pm onwards. That way no distractions at school but she can reach us in an emergency and she can get hold of us when at sleepovers but no playing games at night.
It's a little confusing, and if the docs are shitty I'll have to take your word because I haven't even managed to find any yet, but it does work well. It does however all work once set up.
I'm on the fence about switching to a dumb phone or an apple watch next year (middle school).
At what age does Google think kids are responsible enough to be given such a device?
Remember the (long ago) episode when Schmidt suggested that kids change their names to avoid connection with online antics in the past?
Overseas contractors, third party apps that are used by said contractors, other cloud services and their contractors etc etc.
Words have meanings. And I don't think you know what they are. Google absolutely will be selling this location data to "improve the advertising experience".
It seemed so absurd that I wanted to pinpoint it
If our world gets so broken, that parents need this, we should start changing our world
It doesn't look like the pricing is much different, and for families with iPhones it would presumably be simpler to stay in the Apple ecosystem. Is there something I'm missing, or is this just for Android families?
Regardless, I'm happy to see innovation in the space.
Only the Pixel watch uses android.
Lots of carriers, particularly cheaper MVNOs, don't support LTE watches and even less support the standalone Apple Watch setup.
So in that sense, it is convenient.
1: https://www.apple.com/watch/cellular/#table-family-setup
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.
This is a bummer. It's still better than being android only or iOS only, but this would really have benefited from allowing standalone use with management from the web for instance.
Once again Google ties a product to a subscription service (beyond whatever lte connectivity which would be needed anyways). They seem to be always chasing getting that recurring revenue by adding unnecessary features. This adds little value, greatly increases the maintenance cost for Google, and puts the risk on the customer for whether Google will continue thinking it's worth it.
Worst of all, "Games". As a lover of games as an artistic medium, and a game designer myself, I'm just so tired of gamification crap being added to everything else. Flashy graphics and numbers going up are the "sugar" to games' "nutrition" of interactive experience, mechanical exploration, and emotional expression. Rewarding children with external rewards over building internal motivation is dubious at best, and incredibly harmful at worst.
We are currently sharing a Verizon Gizmo 3 among multiple children. The GizmoHub app is not bad but its mandatory use is frustrating. Friends need substantial parental help to start communicating with the Gizmo user (account creation with Verizon). Forcing all communications through a dedicated and clunky app is a non-starter.
Battery life is the other challenge. Kids don't heed advice to conserve the less than all day battery life. Later when communications for pick-up are most needed, the watch is often low on power.