The Pinwheel Watch is a kid-safe Apple Watch Extremely lookalike to placate your tween

The Pinwheel Watch doesn’t scream “it is a children’ gadget.” The brand new smartwatch, unveiled at Pepcom throughout CES 2025, doesn’t have a chunky, brightly coloured casing or super-thick bezels. It’s truly fairly glossy, with a construct like a barely bigger Apple Watch — plus a bit of digicam bump — and swappable straps of various types. To tech-aware children who’ve begun bugging their dad and mom for a smartwatch identical to they’ve, it could simply cross as an analogue for an grownup wearable. Nevertheless it’s additionally full of security options meant to supply solely the quantity of connectedness that folks really feel comfy with. And an AI chatbot, as a result of, in fact.

Pinwheel already has a smartphone platform that enables for parent-approved communications, however the watch is a standalone 4G LTE mobile gadget with its personal cell plan (about $15 in accordance with the corporate) and the flexibility to make calls, ship texts and, down the road, do video chats. Dad and mom can decide the extent of intervention they suppose is acceptable for his or her children, and alter these settings within the Pinwheel app as they see match.

For a youthful child, they could set it so all contacts have to be accepted, whereas a 14-year-old may be granted the liberty so as to add no matter mates they need with out approval. Dad and mom can remotely monitor textual content and name historical past, and switch off sure options — like picture sending — individually for contacts. It additionally affords GPS location monitoring so dad and mom can maintain tabs on their children’ whereabouts.

Past fundamental communication, there are a bunch of options which are simply meant for enjoyable. There are built-in video games, like a helicopter sport I actually loved enjoying that entails tapping the display on the proper time to gather gems and maintain it within the air, and a kid-friendly model of ChatGPT known as PinwheelGPT. The corporate says the chatbot has been examined for all of the frequent workarounds used to trick this stuff into doing what they shouldn’t, so it gained’t produce inappropriate responses when prompted to. And fogeys can see these chats, together with deleted ones. “You possibly can actually ask it no matter, nevertheless it will not reply,” stated Pinwheel co-founder Dane Witbeck. “It shortly backs out and says, ‘hey, that is one thing you need to discuss to a trusted grownup about.’” The abysmal hotel-casino Wi-Fi on the crowded occasion prevented me from truly placing that to the check, although.

The Pinwheel Watch will go on sale later this yr for $160 (plus the month-to-month mobile subscription). It’s rated IP67, so it needs to be fairly sturdy towards spills, grime and different child messes. For folks considering a safer option to let their kids begin utilizing sensible gadgets to speak to their family and friends, Pinwheel’s watch may very well be a reasonably first rate possibility, particularly for youths in tween territory that will not need an especially restricted, immature-looking wearable.