If you’ve got a smartwatch yourself, you might find your child is fascinated by it and might even like one themselves. While perhaps investing in an Apple Watch for a five-year-old is a bit much, there are plenty of options for smartwatches designed for children.
Many smartwatches for children offer similar perks to those more adult models – activity tracking, goal setting and life-admin functions like calendars. Some go further and do GPS tracking, calls and some even have cameras.
So how do you choose the best smartwatch for your child? “Parents may consider the importance of parental controls, such as setting bedtime alerts or restricting access to certain features.” Suggests Doctoral researcher, Amy Creaser, from Loughborough’s School of Sport, Exercise and Science.
She adds that, involving your child in the purchasing decision is also beneficial. “Some smart watches offer gamification components, such as challenges, virtual rewards, and avatars, which are typically favoured by children, but it is worth considering whether these features align with your child’s interests.” Amy also advises conversation and caution when approaching teenagers and monitoring their physical activity as smartwatches can be anxiety-provoking.
On the whole though, getting the whole family in on the act is a great idea. “This can initiate conversations about health and allow family members to support one another. If this is an option, purchasing smart watches that enable interconnectivity (e.g., linking both devices to the same app) can allow parents to easily monitor their child’s health, and even prompt healthy competitions and collective challenges!”
Garmin vivofit Jr. 2
This Spider-Man themed smartwatch is our five-year-old’s dream. It’s bright red with Spidey embossing on the strap, which makes it easy to spot if it’s left lying around. We loved the simplicity of this smartwatch too – it’s pitched at ages four and over, and we’d say that’s dead on, with an upper age of about 12 years old.
Our Reception-aged child felt really grown up with it, and it had enough features to keep him happy without being overwhelming. However, all use of apps can be overseen by parents and there’s no need for them to interact with the app at all. This put to rest our concerns about introducing too much tech into our young child’s life.
You need both an adult’s and kid’s version of the Garmin app, but aside from that it’s easy to set up. The small screen shows Spider-Man’s face and then one piece of data, and you can toggle between the information displayed, using the single button on the watch. You can review your child’s progress in the app when it’s connected to your phone via Bluetooth.
From this app you can set chores for your child – once they’ve completed the chore, they get coins (you decide how many per chore) and then they win a Spider-Man themed adventure. The Jr. 2 comes in plenty of other themes too, from Frozen to Star Wars, as well as other Marvel superhero characters.
Honor band 6
Despite being enough for smaller wrists, the Honor band 6 packs some serious functions in. Older kids will love being able to monitor workouts including swimming, cycling and running. Plus, there’s also a freestyle workout function if your kid is into something else, such as yoga. The bright touchscreen colour display is easy enough to use by scrolling through options, and teens might also appreciate that you can customise the face.
It’s easy to set up by downloading Huawei’s Health app to your phone, which takes a matter of minutes. From here a dashboard presents a whole load of metrics so you can track your progress, set goals and see how intense your workouts are. It also connects to your smartphone – or your child’s – so it can display your phone notifications too. Whether this is helpful or more of a distraction really depends on your child. Charging is easy via a USB cable, and the battery life is very decent.
Fitbit ace 3
One of the best-known fitness-tracker brands, Fitbit, have produced a new iteration of their smartwatch for kids. It’s specifically designed for children, with a lightweight and durable face and strap, a long battery life and a pared back interface. While you do pair it with your smartphone, there’s a children’s app view and a parents’ one – a feature we really liked.
The tracking function is also pared back – it simply tracks activity and sleep, and you can set family challenges if other members have a Fitbit too. It will remind kids when to go to bed, and gently wake them in the morning in time for school. Sadly it doesn’t get them to brush their teeth or put their shoes on, but we can’t have everything.
The display isn’t as eye catching as some others we tried – while it’s OLED, so very bright even in direct sunlight, it’s greyscale only so no eye-popping colours here. This is great for kids up to maybe about 10, as older children may find they want a little more from their smartwatch.
SFL 4G smartwatch for kids
We were immediately struck by the size of this watch – it’s bigger than our own Apple Watch, and much chunkier too. This will appeal to some kids, but might mean it’s a bit too large for youngsters. It comes in two kid-friendly colours and reminds us a little of the GShock watches we wore in the Nineties.
Naturally, things have advanced since then, and this gadget offers lots of safety features. There’s an SOS button on it which can dial pre-assigned SOS numbers, or send a short message to a phone or sound an alarm on your phone. If you worry about where your kids are going when you’re not with them, you can use the watch to track them. If that isn’t too much monitoring for you, you can also set an “electric fence” – essentially a mapped boundary and if your kid leaves that designated area you’ll be alerted on your phone.
A feature we were less in awe of was that you can secretly listen to your child’s conversations – we feel like that might be a bridge too far, but this is up for parents to decide with their children. Still, the colour touchscreen and interface is pretty easy to use. If you want to use the 4G features you’ll need to invest in a SIM card and plan, or you can use the connective functions when it’s on WiFi.
Vtech KidiZoom DX2 smartwatch
Our younger testers loved this super-fun, chunky smartwatch. It’s definitely geared around engaging younger kids, with a range of fun games such as a monster detector and mousey maze. Parents can switch the games function off in settings if they want to. It also has a camera so your kids can take selfies or shoot video. They can also edit the photos with fun filters which kept our five-year-old happy for ages
While the activity tracker isn’t highly sophisticated, it’s pitched about right for younger kids. They can see their progress, and there’s a simple “activity challenges” feature which encourages them to do a little more activity. From the parents’ side of things, we loved that it was a closed system – there is no GPS or WiFi etc on this watch, so it felt very safe to leave with our kids. Plus, you can plug it into your computer to download images if you want.
The watch’s sounds are insanely irritating, but we found you can turn it down or indeed mute it in settings. The interface isn’t beautiful, but it gets the job done and our kid seemed happy enough. And the touchscreen and chunky home and camera buttons seemed totally intuitive for them.
Amazfit GTS 2 mini
Older kids will love how grownup this smartwatch feels. It’s got some fantastic fitness tracking functions, including activity throughout the day, sleep, stress and even cycle tracking if your child wants. It’s waterproof so they can wear it to track swim, and it won’t matter if they forget to take it off in the shower either (which seems inevitable).
While it doesn’t offer calls, messaging or music playback, we quite liked this as it didn’t suck our tester in and make them even more connected to technology than they already are. You can set it to alert you when you have calls or messages though – great if your teen is liable to “forget” to look at their phone when they’re with friends.
Set up is easy – it connects via Bluetooth to your smartphone. Download the app, scan a QR code and allow to pair and you’re away. The decent-sized touchscreen took a little getting used to as the interface navigation isn’t quite as intuitive as others we tried. We feel like this is a really decent smart watch for older kids and teens, with plenty of decent functions without it being over the top.
Vodafone neo kids’ smart watch
This introduction into the smartwatch world for kids is a nice balance between giving them some tangible independence without letting them loose entirely. As it involves a SIM plan, there are two ways to go about this: buy the watch outright and then subscribe to Vodafone’s plan, which is currently £5.99 per month, or pay a little over £8 per month for 11 months and also pay the £5.99 subscription fee. The control is all yours though – you link the watch via an app on your phone.
The interface is easy to use for kids – they can choose from a Disney avatar to be their sidekick. This so-called sidekick animates when the phone is used, acting as a sort-of guide. We went for Iron Man, obviously, but there’s all the usual suspects to choose from, and you can switch this function if you prefer. Our tester liked that they could call contacts (though they can only have up to nine approved contacts).
Xplora XGO2 android children’s smart watch
This watch is packed with security features without being too heavy on surveillance. It’s perfect if your child is craving a bit of independence – walking to school on their own, for example – but you’re feeling a bit wobbly about it. The XGo2 allows the wearer to call people direct from the phone, but only from a list of contacts you add via an app on your smartphone.
Via the app you can also view your child’s activity levels, set safety zones with a radius of how far they can venture from school, say, and see a history of where they’ve been and where they are now. You can also use the app to switch it off remotely and put it into school mode, where it’ll function as a straight-up watch (but you can still track their location).
From the kids’ point of view, our tester found it easy to use. The menu isn’t overwhelming, and they seemed to be able to navigate around without any problems. They liked being able to see their step count, and the camera feature was a big hit. It’s on the bulkier side of smartwatches we tried, and is certainly heavier than some – a five year old might find it a bit much. The strap is nice though – super-soft and flexible and it didn’t appear to get too sweaty.
Kids’ smartwatches FAQs
What features to look for in a kids smartwatch
When choosing a smartwatch for your child, there are a number of features to look for:
- Display – There are three different display options for kids’ smartwatches, including a full touch screen display, button controls, or a combination of both.
- Health tracking – The most basic models track step count and different sports, while more advanced models can also monitor sleep.
- Location services – If you want to be able to track your child’s location, you’ll need a smartwatch that has GPS tracking.
- Battery life – To make sure your child’s smartwatch lasts a long time, check out how long the battery lasts after one charge.
- Smartphone compatibility – This will mean you can keep track of your child’s health information.
- Connectivity – If you want a watch that will allow your child to keep in touch via messages and phone calls, it’s worth considering a device that uses SIM card connectivity.
The verdict: Kids’ smartwatches
We loved the Garmin for its sheer simplicity, and our tester loved it for having a character they love on it. If you’re after something a bit more sophisticated with smartwatch functions, i.e. for an older child or teenager, then the Honor band 6 is a fantastic option. We also loved the Amazfit for fitness tracking for older kids.
