Google releases smart watch for kids • Hacker News Board

Re: Google releases smart watch for kids

#631

Post by LeifCarrotson » Thu, May 30, 2024, 12:08 PM UTC

jaydeegee wrote: post #268

Gamifying fitness and activity I really like. The rest is something I don't think we need.

Re: Google releases smart watch for kids

#632

Post by rayiner » Thu, May 30, 2024, 12:09 PM UTC

BiteCode_dev wrote: post #618

khazhoux wrote: post #316

Earlier 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…

Kids need to mess up, and do things outside of the sight of their parents to grow. They need to be able to do things their parents disapprove from time to time, or just hide some behavior that they feel shy about. Sex, meeting people outside of your social norms, attempting stupid stunts, and all that is part of growing. The simple fact you can know where they are at all time steal those opportunities from them, and…

> Sex, meeting people outside of your social norms, attempting stupid stunts, and all that is part of growing

That’s an American cultural fallacy, like how Germans believe you’ll get sick if your kidneys get cold. Asian kids in America are strongly discouraged from doing these things (some do it anyway, but there’s measurable differences in aggregate behavior: https://www.guttmacher.org/sites/default/files/pdfs/tables/3...) and have vastly better outcomes than European American kids, especially in the bottom 20% of the income distribution. Similarly regimented communities like Mormons are also highly successful.

Cultivating impulsiveness has its benefits. If you’re trying to build a world empire, maybe give your kids the freedom to succumb to the impulses of their underdeveloped brains. If you’re trying to maintain and perpetuate an orderly civilization, carefully regiment their behavior until they’re capable of controlling themselves.

Re: Google releases smart watch for kids

#633

Post by TrisMcC » Thu, May 30, 2024, 12:18 PM UTC

canucker2016 wrote: post #399

Narkov wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are absolutely right. I'm certainly not pro-Garmin here. Just anti-12 hour battery life for kids watches. It's just not compatible with the way young kids work.

Reading the comments to dcrainmaker's review, his kids' Bounces were getting 36 hours of charge whereas several commenters state they were barely getting 10 hours, certainly less than 24 hours of charge. Seems like the energy used to keep the LTE connection up is the main problem, if all the users have the similar settings to minimize battery used by the Garmin Bounce. If Google/Fitbit says the ACE LTE only lasts 16…

I only have to charge my kid's bounce every 2 days, 2.5 days usually. I do not turn on the "Live Tracking" very often but location updates, boundary fence notifications, voice/canned messages work great.

Re: Google releases smart watch for kids

#634

Post by yobid20 » Thu, May 30, 2024, 12:19 PM UTC

Having gone through 5 different fitbit watches and them all breaking within a year or two, as well as two different fitbit scales and them breaking too, i have moved on and will NEVER look back.

Fitbit is CRAP. let me reiterate. crap. C-R-A-P. crap. Lets use that in a sentence.

Mark grumbled, "My Fitbit is such crap—it breaks down faster than I can count my steps!"

And for those wondering, I moved onto Garmin watches. I mean if you're going to pay it might as well be a nice one and most importantly one that is reliable.

Re: Google releases smart watch for kids

#635

Post by nicolas_t » Thu, May 30, 2024, 12:20 PM UTC

altacc wrote: post #521

gofreddygo wrote: post #426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 agree with you that tracking as a teenager is not ideal, although teenagers track each other's locations incessantly at least they should be free from their parents tracking. However this watch is aimed at younger children than teenagers. My kids started walking to school and friends houses at 7 and are still preteen. After school they can be anywhere as they'll go to a friend's house or just hang out somewhere for…

Yes, I'm absolutely against tracking for teenagers or adults but I could see it when my son is around 8 years old and I let him walk to a friend's house or go to a nearby playground. We live in Hong Kong, and it's very safe here once he's old enough to understand the rules of the road and be careful when crossing.

Having something to track them between 8 and 12 years old I think is useful. I remember when I lived in Japan (where children start walking to places as early as 5 years old) before the iphone came out, there were plenty of children phone that sent gps to the parents and only allowed calling to a select set of numbers.

Re: Google releases smart watch for kids

#636

Post by wholinator2 » Thu, May 30, 2024, 12:21 PM UTC

khazhoux wrote: post #316

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #106

Ugh, 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…

> 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…

I do not know the ages of your children but i fear for them if/when they're teenagers. A small child does not care, a teenager _very much does and should_. Will you still track them when they're 25? Or 30? What if they ask you to stop, what will you do?

I gained very very significant experiences by lying to my parents about where i was. I never got hurt, not once, we were never running from the cops or anything and i solved every problem on my own. Those are invaluable experiences! A 6 year old simply cannot, but a teenager must.

What is your true motivation in tracking them? Is it based in fear? And I'm sure you're aware that any apps they have installed on their phone can also be capable of storing and selling this location data you'd like them to provide. Are you comfortable with Google storing a record of every movement your child makes?

Re: Google releases smart watch for kids

#637

Post by v-erne » Thu, May 30, 2024, 12:39 PM UTC

richrichardsson wrote: post #594

broeng wrote: post #504

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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'l…

> 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. Our kids (8 & 10) keep telling us nearly every kid in their class has a smartphone, but we're still not letting them have one. Fuck social pressure; that's an important lesson to be learned in itself.

I do not understand how anyone can be so categoric about this - it should not depend on peer pressure but also it should not be dictated by some ideologies. Phones (instant communication actually) is part of modern world and is here to stay and children should learn it as fast as they are able to handle it. Otherwise there is a danger of being left out for them. And at their age there is few other equal things that can make or break their future as being accepted by their peers. And of course not all children are the same so you need to know yours and decide on case by case basis (my dauther got her first phone when she was 9, my son on the other hand will have to wait)

Re: Google releases smart watch for kids

#638

Post by sersi » Thu, May 30, 2024, 12:43 PM UTC

kelnos wrote: post #525

prpl wrote: post #436

Earlier 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 main reason seems to be that you want to know where they are when they've decided not to answer the phone... maybe that's fine that you don't know. If you're expecting them for dinner, and they decide to do something else instead, they should learn that consequence: if they don't come home when they're expected for dinner, they don't get dinner with the family. I don't have kids, so of course my opinion is irr…

What did you do that your parents didn't want you to do? Some concrete examples? I'm asking because I'm having a hard time coming up with examples of things that both my parents wouldn't have wanted me to do and would be obvious if they tracked me in real time.

Re: Google releases smart watch for kids

#639

Post by rjzzleep » Thu, May 30, 2024, 12:57 PM UTC

BiteCode_dev wrote: post #618

khazhoux wrote: post #316

Earlier 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…

Kids need to mess up, and do things outside of the sight of their parents to grow. They need to be able to do things their parents disapprove from time to time, or just hide some behavior that they feel shy about. Sex, meeting people outside of your social norms, attempting stupid stunts, and all that is part of growing. The simple fact you can know where they are at all time steal those opportunities from them, and…

In my opinion, part of that is how societies have made their societies less and less safe. If you look at a child the wrong way in the US people are ready to call the cops on you. It was a very odd experience to me, but then I realized that the US has one of the highest child abduction rates in the world.

My daughter is loving a little book of a little girl that her mom sends to buy milk on her own for the first time. It's a Japanese book. Now Japanese and Taiwanese and much Asia for that matter are not famous for letting children just roam without freaking out every step of the way, but there is a pretty common theme in Japan of letting small children do groceries, sometimes as young as 4 years old.

When I grew up in Germany, it too was a very safe society, so we would play in the street on our own. Before that I still have memories of my older brother taking me to buy Bread when I was 3 years old in the Normandie, I think in more remote places in France you can still do that.

Part of the issue is safety from people and the other part is actually just the proliferation of cars, but if I had children in the US I would not let them out of my eyes even one second.

That being said, I do sometimes put a Xiaomi smart band on her when I'm concerned about her heart rate. It's way less intrusive than fitbit. To put a device on a child where the makers used to brag internally about being able to know when people have sex is insane to me.

Re: Google releases smart watch for kids

#640

Post by aceazzameen » Thu, May 30, 2024, 12:59 PM UTC

donw wrote: post #443

gofreddygo wrote: post #426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

To be fair: the only reason I want trackers for my kids is so that I can find them if (a) they run off and get lost; or, (b) they get nabbed. The average small child can't say what Dad's phone number is, or even his full name. Young kids have really limited awareness of their surroundings, and can get lost very easily. Add multiple kids into the mix and it can be a real challenge to keep them all together when you're…

First, how often do your kids get nabbed? And if they get lost, they should hopefully have the skills to get unlost.

>The average small child can't say what Dad's phone number is, or even his full name. Young kids have really limited awareness of their surroundings, and can get lost very easily.

Kids can be taught at a very young age too. Teaching our kids our address and numbers was really important and surprisingly easy when they were still toddlers. To this day they still know our numbers despite rarely if ever having to actually dial it into a keypad.