My kids have come of age where they start noticing fashion accessories. My eldest, a 10 year old, inherited a Casio G-Shock that I had always used for bike training. He’s never taken it off. The youngest, 7, had always wanted a watch (because he copies everything his kuya likes). This was the perfect moment.
The Xiaomi Smart Kids Watch is a parent’s dream come true. This is meant for children who may be too young to own a phone, but need to have some way of contacting their parents – and vice versa. The old solution was to buy a burner phone from Lazada and hope they don’t lose it in school. A smart watch solves this problem because it looks cool and they’re always wearing it.
You will need a nano SIM card to make this watch work. I inserted a prepaid Smart SIM, loaded it up with a Magic Data promo (these are great because they don’t expire), and popped it into the phone. Every family member needs to download the Xiaomi Kids app from the App Store or Play Store. As the guy who set up the device, I am also the administrator of the account, allowing me to add and remove family members. Unlike other smart watches, the Xiaomi Smart Kids Watch builds an ecosystem of contacts around your child. This means that only family members I have vetted can SMS, call, locate, and video call my son. The same is true on his end – he can only contact family members I have added to the app. Once a child is added to a group, it creates a family group chat with all the members paired to the watch. You can send voice messages and SMS as well as video call from the Xiaomi Kids app, but you can also use your default SMS and call apps to contact your child.
The most ideal setup would be to have one administrator — most likely the parent — adding up other whitelisted numbers from family and very close friends of the child. That way, calls can be made on both ends. Adding a number from the app automatically adds the contact to the phone. Contacts can call normally even without the app.
Of course, being a kid, he kept calling me every 5 minutes. This is normal excitement behavior and I had to sit him down and tell him to only do this when he’s outside the house and really needs to talk to me.
The watch comes with a 1.4” touch screen display. It also only has one hardware button that turns the device on and off, awakens it from sleep mode, and if pressed long, makes a loud SOS alarm for emergencies. The alarm can also be triggered from within the app in case you need to find your child in a sea of people.
When at home, the phone can use WiFi connectivity to save on data (it has 4G data capabilities for video calling and location services). Indoors, the GPS makes use of WiFi positioning and this shifts to data + satellite once your child steps outdoors. The Location feature is fairly accurate, but it has a delay of around 30 seconds to 1 minute depending on signal and anomalies. From experience, it’s not real time location tracking. What the watch can do however is help plot out the path your child took to get from point A to point B. You can also plot a historical chart of where your child has been on previous days.
In terms of battery life, I would say the watch can go for more than 24 hours on a single charge, but it also depends on how often your child uses it to call and message. The 2MP camera can also take photos – so yes, my son drained the battery in less than a day because he was taking photos of everything – this is the perfect functional play for kids who love to pretend they are a secret agent or a spy. I can imagine how siblings and cousins can all keep in touch with group chats and video calls.
The watch comes with DND disturb privacy modes that mute messages during specific times. It also comes with a battery saver option that turns the phone off and on at scheduled times. I personally keep the phone always on with no DND mode enabled, because really, only family has contact with him so it has to be important if someone needs to call.
The Xiaomi Smart Kids Watch is graded at 2 ATM water resistance. You can take this into a pool or take a bath with it.
For the price of P4,899 you get yourself some form of security knowing where your child is at all times. Available in blue and pink, it’s honestly the perfect holiday gift for parents with kids under 10 years old. You can order it from Shopee through this link.
Features:
- Silicon Strap
- Supports 4G Network
- 2MP Camera
- 2ATM Water Resistance
- 900mAh battery
- Locating Mode
- Tracker for Running, Skipping Rope count, record motion data
- MagneticCharge
- Video calls