Apple Watch for Your Kids | Hacker News Reader

Apple Watch for Your Kids

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48 pointsantfarm45 comments

Feels like an interesting trend where a "solution" for parent anxiety (and to be fair, vastly increased societal expectations around what "care" looks like) is proposed to be electronic surveillance.

It's a kid tracker / ankle bracelet in an attractive form factor.

I was a kid in the 80s, city fringe, single parent who worked until 5:30. Honestly nobody had any idea where me & my friends were a lot of the time. Totally acceptable in that era.

The main worry I have about tech like this is, at what saturation of deployment does the norm shift such that it's irresponsible NOT to electronically track your kids whenever they leave the house?

I’m not saying your conclusion is incorrect but the anecdote provided is survivorship bias. My childhood was much the same in the 90s.

There was a case recently where parents were charged with felony involuntary manslaughter, and felony child neglect because they let their 10 and 7 year cross the street unsupervised and a car hit them and the 7 year old died. As a parent if that’s the reality I definitely hesitate to allow my son out unsupervised when he’s a bit older. I can’t imagine losing your son in an accident and then have the state come down on you while you’re still grieving.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/06/opinion/children-traffic-...

That happened because they were Black. (The state force, I mean).

they were White as much as black

Blacker than the amount of blackness the state can tolerate.

I'm thankful I live in one of the several states with "free range" laws to protect parents from this. https://letgrow.org/states/

I rather have the boomer / genx childhood from me and my parents, really don't get this helicopter parent attitude.

Yes, accidents do happen, kinds can't be surveilled 24/7 anyway.

This is a fantastic option when the only other viable option is to get them a phone. They can text parents, they can be tracked, but they can’t watch stupid YouTube or TikTok videos, and they can’t participate in 95% of the stuff that harms kids at that age.

What’s become the “irresponsible norm” is to not give your kids a phone, which is crazy, because it’s just giving tech companies the ability to manipulate kids.

Or its a phone alternative for younger kids that keeps an actual phone out of their hands, allows for worry free communication while they roam the streets and is backed by arguably the most privacy focused of the big tech companies…

(disclosure: my 8 and 10 year old have them, works great for everyone involved)

We used to have payphones. You could ask a gas station attendant for directions, or someone on the street. Those sort of options have disappeared or become much less common. If my 11 year old starts asking a random person on the street how to get somewhere there is now a chance I will hear from DHS.

It is a different world now. Not everyone cares about the tracking, though it is nice to have for younger kids who may go on a field trip or with a group of friends and get separated or any number of normal situations.

I got one for my grade schooler and it's mostly great. She can text or call me or her mom or her grandparents (but no one else), we can know where she is, and there not too much she can play on it. It gives her a bit more freedom because she can get in touch with us to make plans or wander off out of sight but still be in touch.

I'm kind of annoyed with "schooltime" on the phone, it has a fixed (boring) watch face, it doesn't actually stop a kid from exiting schooltime, they just have to press a button and we can see if she did it in the app. It's also either on on a weekly schedule or totally off, so she has to whine at me to turn off schooltime on holidays and then it's easy to forget to turn it back on. There's also no provision for multiple family members to manage kid watches. I set up her watch so my wife can't also manage it. Also, there's no way for me to install apps. I'd really like to install Home Assistant on her watch so she can unlock doors, but...I can't. Can't be done.

Overall I'd say they built out a nice system for a while and then...stopped. I bet there's a PM at Apple that had the rest of the features all ready to go and then got moved off onto the Vision Pro or something. Every now and then they're talking to their old teammate and they sigh about what it could have been. I'll buy them a beer sometime.

I'd like to see regulators deal with the bundling requirements for devices. It would serve the greater good by preventing a company the size of Apple from obligating that someone must buy an iPhone to use an Apple Watch.

I'd be concerned a kid would lose this. Sure it's got Find My but that only tells you where it's at, doesn't guarantee retrieveability.

Also do you need an iPhone to manage the kid's Apple Watch or can you do this with a PC (web UI somewhere? apple.com?) or Android device etc? This is very important, if they're billing it as a safety device for kids, interacting with/reading data from the safety device should NOT require a _specific model_ of separate device. I should be able to do it from anywhere.

You'll need an iPhone to manage it. It's the same with managing an iPad's Family Sharing settings. Need another Apple device to manage it properly.

I don't know what kind of games you could fit on a watch (Tamagotchi type things?), but getting kids to actually use things requires them seeing some sort of direct reward.

We bought cheapo dumb phones for our kids and they'd never remember to take them with them, but once we were forced to get them smart phones suddenly that was never a problem.

And by forced I mean the endless wearing down of the whining and crying and petulance because all their friends had smartphones. Ugh, one of many occasions where I failed as a parent.

i have this for both my young kids and it's great. It results in me letting them do all manner of things I wouldn't otherwise let them do because in an instant they can call me if things go sideways.

It ends up being less "tracker" and more "if they really really need me they can get me". It's win win - they get to do more, and I get to feel better.

$275 for a kids watch. Even considering the extras it provides: no.

And we have an iPad Air for educational work, which get used daily. It's not about the money per se.

Additionally Apple isn't very good in proper parental controls compared to family link on Android. Abysmal at best. So, why would I buy another Apple product with probably the same bad UX for me as a parent?

Not gonna happen.

My child has an SE, and the only downside we’ve seen is that without a connected iPhone or WiFi network, the battery life is unimaginably bad. That little LTE radio works hard in the school.

How bad is bad? My son has an Xplora and it doesn’t even make it to 5pm after less than a year.

I think some people are missing the point here. There is an age where it makes sense to get your kid some kind of connectivity device, but you don’t want to get them a smart phone so you either get them an over priced dumb phone or kids phone or you could get them the Apple Watch. It allows them to call you for pickup and maybe text a few friends, but is inconvenient enough they won’t sit and stare at it all day.

Honestly—I think this is a great marketing angle for Apple. (And if they didn't want to risk cannibalizing iPhone sales they could also spin it as an anti-phone addiction measure for adults as well!) More and more I'm starting to feel comfortable leaving my phone at home and using just my cellular Watch + AirPods when I'm out and about.

I wanted this about six years ago… had to find a donation iPhone just to set up a child’s apple watch.

250 bucks. For an 8 yo. Meh.

I see, either everything one here goes to preppy schools, in a perfect Montessori world, vs others working three jobs to pay mortgage and 2 cars.

And the solution is apple watch.

Workouts for kids? Surveillance sold as «independence»? This is dystopian stuff, a few years ago I wouldn't think of Apple to sink this deep.

Let the kids live.. Without trackers you psychopaths

What? You don't want your kids be familar with parental tracking so that they can graduate seamlessly into government tracking?

The response to "Where's Erica?" should not be to put a tracking wristband on Erica. Perhaps you won't know where Erica is. Perhaps she is doing something dangerous. The oblivion and ambiguity are part of what constitutes acknowledging Erica's personhood.

This is crucial, and at the same time difficult now that I am a parent. Part of my childhood was stretching limits, going past that street because there was a cool shop or place I wanted to see, returning home one or two hours later that I should have because I was having fun.

Now I try to avoid the temptation of control, I have the tools and the skills to easily do it, and it's a daily struggle to say "let them go"

That has nothing to do with tracking though. Just because I can see my kid went out of the neighborhood without permission doesn't mean I need to punish them for it or even tell them I noticed.

Furthermore, my parents couldn’t track me, but I guarantee if I came home 2 hours later than I said I would I was getting grounded unless I had a REALLY good excuse.

Perhaps this is true if Erica is 16, but if Erica is 10 then I would like to be notified if she doesn't make it to school safely.

I get how it can feel horrifying, but I don't think we should make this decision based on gut-reactions.

Bad things can and do happen to children, but nearly not as much to warrant tracking them. Even if it were, I'd be reluctant to say that this is okay

Who are you to say what is okay? She's not your child.

Yes its unlikely something bad would happen. It's also unlikely that you would get into a life threatening car accident. But you still wear a seatbelt. Why? Because it's the precautionary principle, pretty much common sense.

Yes in the past we let children wander, but if you asked those parents in the past if there was some very low cost way to afford additional security like knowing where your 10 year old is, they would obviously take it. But for some reason people take the wrong lessons from the past.

nitpick: the “where is erica?” is a catchy title for the feature being showcased - which is actually a notification that your child made it to school safely. Look at the screenshot closely (i don’t think you did). That’s a genuinely useful feature.

Anyway I agree with you in general! But don’t forget that everyone has a different relationship with their kids and each kid is different. Believe it or not, not every teenager goes through a rebellious phase. some kids might actually appreciate a watch like this because mom and dad will pester them less and be less anxious in general.

Of course the main issue is the person purchasing the watch is the parent, and some parents don’t really respect their children’s feelings. It can definitely be a problem so I hear what you’re saying. It can be used in a way that takes away their freedom. That’s not cool.

another consideration: this device can be a bridge from a dumb phone to a smart-ish device, a device that’s not an actual smart phone.

> which is actually a notification that your child made it to school safely. Look at the screenshot closely (i don’t think you did). That’s a genuinely useful feature.

Is it? I would think that the useful notification would be “Erica didn’t make it to school safely”. A notification that kids are where they are expected to be will needlessly distract parents many millions of times, and may cause anxiety every time it’s a few minutes late. I think it would be a net loss to society.

Luckily, I don’t think that image shows a notification. AFAICT, it’s a response from a user actively asking their phone where that watch is.

> I would think that the useful notification would be “Erica didn’t make it to school safely”.

That’s an excellent point actually. 100%. I don’t think FindMy can support something like that today which is unfortunate. I think the parent could create an ios shortcut that runs at a certain time every day, but that’s a lot of work lol.

> Luckily, I don’t think that image shows a notification.

It certainly does. It even say “time sensitive”, which is how ios annotates important notifications for a few years now. The FindMy app can also answer the “where is erica?” question (through siri), so i can see why it’s confusing.

> nitpick: the “where is erica?” is a catchy title for the feature being showcased - which is actually a notification that your child made it to school safely.

When I click on that square it says:

> See everyone’s location using the Find My app. And receive alerts when they arrive at their destination or get home. Parents can also get alerts when their child leaves a location, like school.

So the image shows a notification, but it claims to be possible to inspect their location at any time too.

you’re correct - that’s the purpose of the Find My app. And this app can send useful notifications.

> this device can be a bridge from a dumb phone to a smart-ish device, a device that’s not an actual smart phone

What do you mean exactly? Is it really a "bridge from/to" or rather a "compromise between"?

well it’s a device that can be smart in some crucial ways, without being distracting like a smartphone is. That’s what i mean. no social media or other cancer for a teenage brain. But it has useful apps for day to day life, like maps, music, messages, etc.

> which is actually a notification that your child made it to school safely

Thank you for the comment. I did notice that it was a notification, though.

It is an useful feature, but I don't think this is a good trade-off. Some Erica's might skip school and do some dumb and unsafe things, but I think this bit of privacy and autonomy is actually necessary for a good life

and i totally respect that point of view. but do realize that every family is different for better or worse, and has a different “culture”.

I’m not prescribing how others should run their families or what a good life means. :)

For example my kid is still young. I absolutely plan to use FindMy for peace of mind. Not to spy on them daily, but to quickly check where they are if they’re running 30 min or 60 min behind schedule. Like if they said they’d be home by x time. When they get older (maybe 14?) i’d flip it around and encourage them to disable location sharing with me most of the time, for privacy and autonomy, and ask them to intentionally use the “share location for 1 hour” feature when they want me to know their location. Like when they are in an uber, or walking home late at night from a friends house, etc.

This a lame cop out, and obviously flawed. There are parents that beat their kids for being gay. There are families that kill their kids for marrying the wrong person. There are families that teach their kids open bigotry. Those people are evil, and I will absolutely prescribe that they shouldn't be doing that.

Putting your kids in a panopticon is abusive. It denies them their autonomy, it cripples their social growth, and there simply is no justifying it with "but it's our culture".

apparently a tight knick family with open / great communication does not exist, and they must be abusive if they like to know where their kids are. LOL.

Yes horrible families exist. the fact that you can’t imagine a family in between those 2 extremes is sad. we’re at an impasse here so let’s just agree to disagree. The world is not black and white like you seem to think it is.

additionally this is already possible today. a parent can attach an airtag to their kids backpack or insert it into the sole of their sneakers, and call it a day. evil people will find ways to be evil. that’s nothing new.

I used extreme examples because I was challenging the assertion that "culture" was an acceptable excuse for immoral behavior, not because I can't imagine mediocre families. The fact that damn near everyone reading it would agree that the examples I used were abhorrent was, in fact, the point: culture does not excuse abuse.

The second paragraph established that I think subjecting someone to constant surveillance is abuse, and why: it's an attack not just on their current autonomy, which is bad enough, but also their future autonomy, which I hold as categorically evil.

A justification for that belief, that attacking one's autonomy is a an attack on their person, used to be completely unnecessary in the kinds of circles that would happily associate with the label "Hacker". Sadly the libertarian (left and right) ideals that modern tech world were built on have crumbled under the weight of authoritarian influence.

A parent as enlightened as you should have no trouble asking at dinner—without judgement or advice—"and how was your smoke sesh out back of the 7-11?"

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