Coincidentally Vodafone just stopped supporting their Neo smart watch which is pretty much the same, turning it into eWaste come August this year.
Google releases smart watch for kids
501–510 of 809 posts
Re: Google releases smart watch for kids
#502Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is a bit of projection. I have a child younger than yours and I feel exactly like OP. I’m really sorry about your son’s experience. Getting lost can be terrifying for a kid. But being lost happens (eg I was lost in hunting woods at 8yo), and many commenters have shared their experiences. Being scared and eventually overcoming the fear is a quintessential growing experience. Obviously there are countless caveats…
Ditto I have four kids between 8 and 1. These things keep children AND parents from growing up.
Times change. Two hundred years ago growing up as a parent might have meant accepting one of your kids dying. Things don't stay the same.
Re: Google releases smart watch for kids
#503Ugh, I threw up a little in my mouth just from the headline. This constant tracking of kids is unnecessary and dangerous. Generations of kids survived without their parents needing to know their location at all times. And yes, I totally admit, some kids (very few actually depending on the locale) didn't survive. But we've traded this false sense of "safety" for kids that are so risk averse it is seriously negatively…
My kid is non verbal with autism, this would be great for parents who has kids with special needs.
Maybe you should try to be open minded perhaps.
Re: Google releases smart watch for kids
#504Earlier quoted context omitted.
> This constant tracking of kids is unnecessary and dangerous. Generations of kids survived without their parents needing to know their location at all times. This topic is always so alarmist. I have kids and a spouse. We all have Find My and Location Sharing on our phones. I don't FrEaK oUt that my kids are going to die if I'm not tracking their every movement. But it's nice to glance at Find My app and see if the k…
Oh jeez. I'm so glad i had none of this goofy tracking gump growing up. If teenage me had something that tracked every location, and I knew it, and my friends had them on too, I'd probably miss out on a lot of stuff I cherish. I had time limits, and a hard immovable low budget that made a lot of the bad stuff impossible. The rest was up to us to figure out and learn and improvise as we go. I'm better for those learni…
I have a toddler, and that has changed my view on it a bit, from the same starting point you are expressing.
With the social pressure going on, I expect she'll get a smartphone earlier that I'd honestly prefer (not that we are there any time soon), and quite a bit before she's a teenager.
So I honestly expect we'll be location sharing for a while, but I don't expect it to continue into the teenage years. By then it'll be up to her, if she wants to continue sharing it.
Re: Google releases smart watch for kids
#505Earlier quoted context omitted.
Good lord. As I recall, a big part of growing up was spending time and doing things my parents didn’t want me to do. The idea of them tracking me is super creepy, as is tracking one’s spouse for that matter.
>As I recall, a big part of growing up was spending time and doing things my parents didn’t want me to do. a big part of parenting is making sure your kid actually is at school, or monitoring more closely a child that has done improper things.
Or - A big part of parenting is building trust with your child to do what is expected of them, and dealing with it when they stray.
Re: Google releases smart watch for kids
#506Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
How did your relationship To your phone change?
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.
The only essential thing I'm missing is a camera!
Re: Google releases smart watch for kids
#507Earlier quoted context omitted.
It’s also possible to be more liberal than your parents were with respect to expecting teenage experimentation but still want to know why your kid/spouse isn’t home within an hour of when you expected them and they aren’t responding to texts. Parents are still adults with lives and have better things to do than sit around watching a dot on a map. “huh, I guess they went to get some boba, we’ll just go get dinner with…
If the premise is that they have a phone, why not just ask them where they are when you need to know?
This. And also, the problem is people want to have too much control. You should build your society in such a way that if you lose control (a bit), its no problem.
That is the real problem with tracking of parents and -for that matter- the security agencies.
You should raise your children to be resilient. If they get lost, teach them how to get unlost. They should recognize danger by the stories we tell them and the experiences they had. Sometimes this goes wrong, and that is super sad, but things go wrong in life. There is no real way of preventing things to go wrong.
We are now making sad human beings by putting our kids into a safe bubble.
Re: Google releases smart watch for kids
#508Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is a really naive take. I tried literally what you’re advocating. And what happened was some busybody lady in my neighborhood kept calling CPS when my daughter would walk to play at a friend’s houses down the block. When I was her age (6) I ranged an entire town on my bike. But this lady just kept calling on us. She’d bring my daughter home whenever she saw her out. It was infuriating. Once we got the Apple Watc…
woah WTF, is this what it's like in the US??? Here in the UK we don't have Japan-level super-younglings walking to school on their own etc, but you certainly wouldn't get any bother walking around at age 6 unless you looked obviously lost. Hearing your experience is just so mindwarpingly boggling it's unreal..
This is not the overall US. This is a particular type of middle class suburb that is full of busybodies and helicopter parents.
Re: Google releases smart watch for kids
#509Ugh, I threw up a little in my mouth just from the headline. This constant tracking of kids is unnecessary and dangerous. Generations of kids survived without their parents needing to know their location at all times. And yes, I totally admit, some kids (very few actually depending on the locale) didn't survive. But we've traded this false sense of "safety" for kids that are so risk averse it is seriously negatively…
What is the danger of having an information source available to you, versus not having one available to you? Are you imagining a scenario where, maybe, a kid is walking by a house, but the tracking shows the kid IN the house. And then the parent who is watching every minute of their 10 year old's walk down the street takes their gun and kills the "pedos" and tries to rescue their kids? Maybe that seems hyperbolic, bu…
Would you want to be tracked 24/7? Your argument is basically the nothing to hide fallacy
Re: Google releases smart watch for kids
#510Earlier quoted context omitted.
Samsung does have a comparable line of devices, but yeah, it's Samsung only.
AirTags have a huge network advantages in that a lot of people have iPhones. It’s not what you have, but what everyone else has that is important when finding things. That Google hasn’t bothered to compete, or the antitrust authorities haven’t out yet, is a complete mystery to me. Airtags alone have me firmly locked into owning an iPhone.
Google and partners are rolling out their own network now: https://9to5google.com/2023/05/10/android-find-my-device-tra...