An Apple Watch for Your 5-Year-Old? More Parents Say Yes

The effect on independence has been interesting. They seem to feel more reassured about venturing farther afield, so they've been riding bikes to shops and restaurants and their friends' houses much more frequently than they did before. (Of course, before they were also younger and there was more covid, but their calls to check in tell me that they like being able to ask a question or keep us up to date on their plans.)

As for durability, I got some chunky hard cases for the watches and there have been no issues. You can also get the "solo loop" band, so they don't have to deal with clasps, and the watches never fall off.

He isn't pining for a smart phone yet, nor do his friends seem to generally own them, so that wouldn't be the motivation but I can understand how it would be a good intermediate step. Gradually increasing access to these technologies and educating them along the way makes sense to me, rather than passing the child the firehose when they turn a certain magical age.

The worst part is when i get a call, i have to decline it, put on my airpods, open the podcast app to make sure my watch is connected to my airpods, and then call back. If I pick up the call immediately i either have to ask them to wait while i put on airpods and sometimes the call is stuck on watch speakers (which is less than ideal, but can be ok) because blue tooth suck. this might sound nightmarish, and it sorta is, but, that is how far I'm willing to go to avoid the internet when I'm out and about.

I own an iPhone SE, it just sits at home in the charger, forwarding calls to my watch. My watches battery goes out late afternoon, where i get home and can charge it. I have replaced my computer with an iPad pro where i answer all my messages.

You really can’t do much with just the watch. It gives a way for the patent to track them, and a way to communicate in both emergency and non-emergency situations.

They’re rather expensive and fragile for that purpose, but they’re often on sale through cellular providers as part of a bundle. That’s how my 14-year-old got hers. It’s the $300 version, and was free after rebate when I bought mine, as long as I pay the $5/month for the service. That’s cheaper than a basic GPS tracker, which is what she was asking for. I’m not totally comfortable with her being tracked, but it was her idea; I made sure she knew how to turn it off and made sure we were clear that she wouldn’t be in trouble or even under suspicion if she did. She usually keeps the GPS function off unless she’s at an event or something. That feels like a good compromise.

If nothing else, its high relative value could help teach a younger child responsibility. That’s very dependent on the child, though.

But I don't get the idea of an Apple Watch... I'm a small adult and even with the smallest straps standard Apple Watches are WAY too big for my wrists. How big are these kids?!?

Also... a full Apple Watch seems like an expensive option for kids who might be playing outside. My husband is an athlete and he's actually scratched his watch because it got dropped from waist height while he was getting changed. It's a small scratch, but still... he takes decent care of things, wouldn't a five year old wreck it?

I like the idea of kids having access to tech but an Apple Watch seems like overkill.

As you can tell, I'm not an ad person.

I am in some latent way, however, concerned with the idea of them wearing a cellular radio directly on their skin all day - I have for the most part avoided any of the EMF/4G/5G handwaving but would love an informed opinion from HN if there is any reason for concern / need to moderate or otherwise?

Great for peace of mind, not great for building independence in my opinion.

I regularly have phone watches left at our house by my children's friends and if you walk through the school after hours you'll occasionally find one lying on the floor (in amongst all the discarded clothes). They're too big for active children to want to keep on all day.

I can see why this would benefit some people, if their children have long solo commutes, and I'd trust Apple's privacy features more than most other phone watch manufacturers. But in general I'm more in favour of free-range children and not being able to track where my 9 year old is or have them message me every 10 minutes.

https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2020/09/apple-extends-the-app...

At least here in Europe you can't see that young kids with any watch, it's extremely rare to see kid with those huge bulky watch with GPS even I wouldn't put on my hand (anything thicker than 10mm is crazy), they look literally like they are in home prison.

First piece of electronics my kids will be wearing will be most likely Casio F91W, they already have cheap Chinese clones.

Father of two kids

That didn't last long.

.