Hmm… mine turns 10 in February and wants a Watch, but my wife is dead set against it (understandably so; when she was a state prosecutor she did computer crimes, which was a nice euphemism for kiddie porn)… I’m not opposed to getting her a watch, but I’m not sold on the phone yet. Just got the kids the $329 iPad when NJ did the back to school tax exemption…
Same here. Kids are turning 10 and 8. I am completely against my children being tracked in any way and I’m also against my children sitting around on text/phone (unless it’s with grandma and grandpa). We don’t do any social media.
That said, my kids need watches with alarms to tell them when to come home. Activity tracking is a plus because they are starting to become interested in the effort they put into things.
I know there are a ton of alternatives for much cheaper but I also feel comfortable getting watches set up with only the permissions that I allow. Adding in the ability for mom and I to text them, see where they are, etc. is a plus. Other benefits like timers for tooth brushing and creating, family calendars, etc. are good, too. We’ve also had minor heart concerns with both of my children to heartbeat monitoring may help.
Because I already started the stream of consciousness, the watches would also be audio book players, nightstand clocks, alarm clocks, garage door openers (we have a smart garage and I wouldn’t have to worry about beating the bus home), their church bibles, their ski maps, etc.
My kids absolutely will not be getting phones any time soon even if their friends do. There won’t be texting, phone tome, social media, etc., but I am starting to lean towards justifying a smart watch for them, not for communication reasons but for all the utility that they can use in their young lives.
Still a little torn, though.
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Same boat. My Series 5 is only worth $90 on trade in, so I was debating giving it to my daughter… I’ll probably be overruled by the wife, but worth a shot.
I don’t wear a watch, they drive me batty. I think once I got my first pager, in like 1995, I mostly stopped wearing a watch.
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An LTE Apple Watch has been the perfect solution my tweens/early teens. They walk a mile to school, and it’s been very nice to be able to use Find My Friends to check up on them, especially when they take a scenic route home. It’s also possible to text, but not easy enough that they like to, so it’s done a marvelous job of helping my kids develop (what I regard as) good habits. They see most of their friends’ texting behavior as insipid and burdensome, so they don’t usually participate and it’s kind of killed any interest in social media, but they still get to stay in the loop and feel included. They also both have iPads, and the combination of the easy portability and communication options of the watch and the screen size on the iPad mean neither of them wants a phone at all—it just seems like a worse version of what they already have. My wife passed her old phone down to my daughter a while back, and my daughter almost never uses it.
As always, YMMV, but I feel like the watches were just stellar for my family.
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Same. My cell phone is a watch if I really need to know precisely what time it is, but usually I can guess. But I also have always used an old flip phone, with no internet, camera, or emojis, because I don’t want all that stuff on me where ever I go. Aside from my channel, I don’t do social media and do all my job stuff from the laptop at home.
This has been such an interesting discussion for me because my son is 6, and I know eventually, I’ll have to start making these kinds of choices, and I’d never in million years have considered the apple watch as an option. But this now seems like the best option : )
My daughter has an iPad, so having the iPhone also won’t be a big deal. She mostly just plays Roblox with her 2 best friends. She has a limit on screen time every day regardless, and we never have a problem with that. She uses my wife’s phone now to text with my mother (who lives across the country) and her 2 friends, so nothing will really change here. I monitor everything on her ipad, and 2FA for any application download is into my account, and she won’t crack my passcodes.
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This is a luddite question, but are there apps to monitor how the ipad is used and for how long and such?
iOS has a screen time feature built in that can track all that for you–I use it for my kids.
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Apple parental controls allow me to control all purchases, monitor her location, set screen time limits and hours of use (like have her unable to use her device during the middle of the night.)
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Yeah, flu don’t have any other OSs to compare it to, but Apple’s ecosystem seems to be able to accommodate parents who want to control and monitor just about everything.
I purchased an Apple Watch when it was in the second series and hated it so much that I returned it within the 30 day time period so I understand how those of you who say you hate the watches.
That said, about a year ago I purchased a new Apple Watch for a couple reasons. First, I had been going on daily walks, rain snow and shine. Second, I wanted something to motivate me to work out more. Third, I wanted to ditch my reliance on my phone. It worked wonders for all of this. I’ve lost a significant amount of weight, I’ve bulked up via lifting, and I credit my watch. I also don’t use my phone nearly as much any more and am able to leave it behind on my walks and trips to the store.
So I’ve been on both extremes, hating the things and now loving them.
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This is a good chat!
We have 10/8/8 - all have their own iPads and basically their own switches (technically I have 2, eldest has 1).
No phones / no wearable.
I am neutral on phones in Singapore as you need for everything- vaccine check in / grab etc.
We are strong on not having wearables. Why? I think it starts to train the kids, especially the girls, to have an unhealthy obsession with weight and health KPIs - steps / scales / etc.
We have reluctantly got kids messenger for the iPads, so the kids can connect to their Australian and Singapore friends when we head to US. Only get the iPad on weekends for certain periods of time, and only during the week if doing math work.
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9 has Messenger on her iPad too, despite my hatred of all things Facebook (meta?).
I’m in the same boat with the watch and having two girls, in terms of them worrying about calories and exercise minutes and unhealthy body image etc - I think you can change it to something else for kids but I forget tbh?
Pretty much the same rules on the iPad - only if she asks first, time limit, etc. I have it pretty locked down in terms of screen time, needing permission from my or my wife’s device to download apps, etc. I see all of her emails on my phone but do wish there was a way to see the texts too without having to physically pick up her device.
FWIW, I too stopped wearing a watch ~15 years ago, when my mechanical watch died; I’d recently acquired a smartphone and figured that could tell me the time. But I’ve had an apple watch for three or four years now, and it’s grown on me as a useful extension to my iphone. I don’t need to have the phone on my person most of the time, and that is really nice. Example: when a text arrives, I can read it on my watch even when the phone is on its charger in a different floor of my house. I don’t quite have the dexterity to answer a text with the watch, other than its half dozen canned answers like “OK”. But I can decide whether I need to go find the phone to answer promptly.
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Got the Apple Watch ultra on Friday and I’ve honestly never been so pleased with a purchase. The whole thing is chef’s kiss.
It’s a great size - just the chonky boy that I wanted out of an Apple Watch. I’ve always been a bigger sized watch wearer despite being short (take that how you’d like), although I’m very broad so I can pull them off. Always been partial to the big g-shocks, Breitlings, etc. Give me big bezels and lots of complications and I’m in.
The new Wayfinder face is fantastic and really takes advantage of all the capabilities of the watch. Love the orange color and orange band; I also got the yellow dive band which is very comfortable too.
One of the nicest features is the battery life. I’m over 30 hours of wear at this point, including an hour workout yesterday and a 45 minute one today, as well as sleeping with it (no issues there, wife didn’t awaken with a black eye or concussion), and I’m at 24% battery as I type this. Workouts were both in the house so can’t judge cellular only fwiw.
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It’s almost like you don’t want the comfort and security of having your technology listen in and record every single thing you do. Or as though you think it’s all being stored somewhere. That couldn’t be, though…
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Mainly that after listening to me for half an hour it would call either the police or a suicide helpline, for itself.
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Does anyone have any experience playing iOS or android phone games with some sort of mobile controller?
I know that there are better options for gaming; I have a Switch, which is great. I want a Steam Deck but it’s on the bubble of what I want to pay right now. I like the idea of using a controller with my iPhone to make it feel like one of those other mobile platforms but I don’t know if it will be worth it. I also don’t know if the iOS library had enough games that benefit from a controller.
If I were to buy one, it would likely the be Razer Kishi V2 since it it compatible with my phone case.
Any experiences here?