A while ago, I wrote an article discussing and gauging people’s thoughts regarding cell phones for kids. As a parent myself, I’ve often wondered if I should at least allow my oldest, who is now in elementary school, to have limited access to a phone of his own – at least for emergencies. But if anybody reading this has kids like mine, they would prefer to have a phone that does more than just work for emergencies. They want to be able to watch movies, play games, and probably binge on Kid’s YouTube. While every parent will undoubtedly have different views on when it’s appropriate for a child to have full access to a smartphone, I've decided that mine won’t have access to a smartphone of his own for quite some time.

However, I did come across an interesting alternative. While looking for a smartwatch of my own, I stumbled upon something called the dokiWatch. dokiWatch is a smartwatch made specifically for kids, and it seems to have the perfect amount of compromise to make both kids and parents happy.

While there doesn’t seem to be much wiggle room for games or videos (expected), the watch offers voice calling, video calling, SMS, and even the ability to send emojis to people on their allowed contact list. It also features GPS and fitness tracking. It’s really less of a smartwatch and more of a smartphone that attaches to your wrist. Kids won’t need a separate phone to make dokiWatch work. Instead, parents can control what the dokiWatch can do with an app on their smartphone.

A couple of other noteworthy features of dokiWatch include the AlertArea and SOS features. Taken from doki’s webpage, the AlertArea feature "is a virtual radius or geo-fence around a specific location, like home, school, or a friend’s house. Once an AlertArea is set from the Doki app, parents will receive a notification every time their child enters or leaves that area.”

It seems like a good way to make sure your child stays where he or she needs to be without hounding them about it all the time, which I’m sure most parents (and kids) don’t really feel like dealing with constantly.

On that same wavelength, in the unfortunate case that an emergency were to occur, there's the SOS button. When a child holds down the SOS button for 3 seconds, a message goes out to their contacts, 60 seconds of the child’s voice and any background noise will be recorded, and an update of the child’s location is sent out every 60 seconds until the alert has been canceled.

Overall, I dig the concept. I have bought a “smartwatch” of sorts for my son before (Kidizoom smartwatch), but it doesn't do much other than play a couple of games and tell time. This smartwatch serves an actual purpose, and as I previously mentioned, seems to include enough compromise to make both kids and parents happy. Kids still have access to something phone-like and “fun”, while parents don’t have to worry about kids getting into apps or websites they wouldn’t want them visiting, like they potentially could on a phone.   

I can get behind the idea of kids – especially younger ones – using smartwatches rather than smartphones. Given the amount of control that a parent has using the app from their smartphone, I really like the direction that dokiWatch has taken the idea, and I may be buying one for my kids in the future.

Readers, what are your thoughts on kids using smartwatches over smartphones? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!