Sky Mobile has announced a child-friendly smartwatch, which it says will give parents the peace of mind of staying in contact with their kids.
The Spacetalk smartwatch, which is designed for 5-12 year-olds, is a GPS tracker that includes a location on-demand feature. It also offers geofencing that’ll alert the parent when when the kid leaves a ‘safe zone’.
The device also bundles in a Sky Mobile SIM card that allows the wearer to make and receive calls from pre-approved contacts. Those same contacts will also be able to send and receive messages from the smartwatch.
Sky Mobile is also advertising what the smartwatch doesn’t have. There’s no access to social media apps, in fact there are no apps at all and no camera. Any functions you don’t want to be accessible can be switched off with the ‘school mode’ setting.
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The Android-based watch, which has 24-hours of battery life, will cost parents as little as £10 a month and will come with 1GB of data with unlimited calls and texts. Any leftover data goes into the parents’ Sky Mobile piggybank and can be used for their own purposes.
While there’s likely too be some pushback about a smartwatch geared at pre-teens, it’s actually a really good idea from Sky. Parents are able to keep in contact with their children without actually getting them a smartphone with all of the associated dangers and distractions.
Sophia Ahmad, Director of Sky Mobile said “The Spacetalk kid’s watch is the latest in a range of products from Sky to help keep children safe. With the new school term on the horizon, we wanted to reassure parents by launching a device which will help them keep an eye on their little ones, whether they are doing after-school activities or travelling to and from school alone.
“Keeping children safe is a key priority for Sky – we’ve also recently launched the Parents Guide on Sky Q, helping parents to make more informed decisions about choosing movies to watch, as well as Broadband Buddy, part of our Broadband Boost package, which helps families to manage their internet access in and out of the home.”
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Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
