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.
Google releases smart watch for kids
41–50 of 809 posts
Re: Google releases smart watch for kids
#42In next year: Google EOL watch for kids, closes servers rendering watches useless.
It's not because they did it with Fitbit, and with a lot of Dropcam/Nest products they abandoned that it will happen here... right, Right ?
Re: Google releases smart watch for kids
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
100%. My kid is not getting a smartphone until he's ~16 but we're looking at a restricted smart watch right now (a flip phone would also be acceptable but a watch is physically attached which is ideal for 7 year old).
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.
Re: Google releases smart watch for kids
#44Re: Google releases smart watch for kids
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
100%. My kid is not getting a smartphone until he's ~16 but we're looking at a restricted smart watch right now (a flip phone would also be acceptable but a watch is physically attached which is ideal for 7 year old).
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.
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.
Re: Google releases smart watch for kids
#46> 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. Sounds bette…
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
Re: Google releases smart watch for kids
#47[flagged]
Can buy a Airtag (or just a leash).
Re: Google releases smart watch for kids
#48I 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.
Re: Google releases smart watch for kids
#49I think we are crossing a boundary.
If our world gets so broken, that parents need this, we should start changing our world
Re: Google releases smart watch for kids
#50Anyone else who would be uncomfortable opting your child into location, behavior and health surveillance by the world's largest advertising company?
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.