If your child is begging you to get them the Apple Watch Ultra that’s wrapped around your wrist right now, Pinwheel has unveiled a kid-friendly smartwatch that costs $160, giving you and your wallet some peace of mind.
Pinwheel, a company that sells smartphones that teach kids to use them responsibly with parental guidance, revealed the new smartwatch for kids at Pepcom during CES 2025 on Monday, showing off safety features that would please parents interested in buying the product. According to Engadget, kids have the ability to use the watch as a standalone device to make calls, send text messages, play preinstalled games (including a puzzle game resembling Tetris), and talk to a kid-friendly chatbot dubbed PinwheelGPT. The company said that kids can ask the AI chatbot any question they want, and it’ll respond to them in an age-appropriate manner. However, it won’t respond to inappropriate questions, prompting them to talk to a trusted adult about such topics instead.
Like its smartphones, Pinwheel’s kid-friendly smartwatch has strong parental controls. Parents can remotely monitor text messages and call history, turn off certain features for each individual contact on their child’s list, use GPS tracking to monitor their child’s whereabouts through notifications telling them when they arrive and/or leave a saved location, and vet every contact their kid adds to their contact list until they’re 14. They can also monitor conversations their kid has had with PinwheelGPT, even after those chats have been deleted.
The watch also has a camera built on the side so that kids can conduct video chats with their friends and family. Unfortunately, Pinwheel said they won’t be able to use the camera until later this year.
The Pinwheel watch for kids costs $160 plus an additional $15 a month with a mobile plan. Parents interested in buying the watch for their child instead of the Apple Watch Ultra — or any other Apple Watch model, for that matter — can join the waitlist on the Pinwheel website.
