As a dad or mum, it may be daunting at hand over a wise gadget to their tween when a myriad of on-line risks exist. Pinwheel, a kid-friendly tech firm, is introducing a brand new answer for folks who need to keep linked with their kids with out giving them a telephone.
The Pinwheel Watch is a not too long ago launched smartwatch designed particularly for teenagers aged 7 to 14, providing a child-safe different that forestalls entry to social media and the web. It options parental administration instruments, GPS monitoring, a digital camera, voice-to-text messaging, enjoyable mini-games, and — right here’s a shock — an AI chatbot.
The smartwatch itself includes a modern black design and a display that’s barely bigger than that of an Apple Watch. It’s presently priced at $160, with a $15 month-to-month subscription. It turned out there for buy on Pinwheel.com final week, and we’ve been testing it over the previous few days.
Along with a extra customary set of parental controls, the function some mother and father is perhaps cautious of is the watch’s AI assistant, “PinwheelGPT.”
PinwheelGPT is designed as a safer different to typical AI chatbots, enabling youngsters to ask questions on varied matters, together with on a regular basis curiosities, social interactions, and homework-related questions, the corporate claims.
Nevertheless, mother and father could already be cautious about AI chatbots, as they’ll produce misinformation. Dad and mom might additionally argue that the pleasant nature of chatbots can result in unhealthy patterns, the place kids depend on these digital companions for interplay as a substitute of participating in face-to-face interactions with household and mates.
The corporate defined to us that safeguards are in place; the AI is educated to acknowledge matters which may be delicate or inappropriate for kids, opting out of those conversations and inspiring youngsters to debate such issues with a trusted grownup as a substitute. Throughout our restricted testing, we confirmed that PinwheelGPT efficiently averted answering inappropriate or violent questions.
Moreover, mother and father have full visibility into all interactions with the chatbot, together with each present and beforehand deleted chats, to allow them to step in if any purple flags come up.
“We’ve not acquired any pushback from mother and father as a result of it’s attainable, if they’re involved, to take away the PinwheelGPT from the watch or flip it off by way of your individual controls,” stated founder Dane Witbeck, who’s a father of 4. “We don’t use any private knowledge supplied by any customers, minors, or adults, in coaching AI fashions,” he famous.
Witbeck’s firm launched its first child-safe telephone in 2020 and, 4 years later, ranked No. 212 on the Inc. 5000 record of the fastest-growing corporations in America for 2024.
Coming into the smartwatch market looks like a pure development, permitting the corporate to raised compete within the roughly $100 billion good wearable market towards main manufacturers like Apple and Fitbit. Pinwheel believes it’s strategically positioning itself by focusing particularly on the children class.
It additionally differentiates itself from different comparable units, akin to Fitbit’s Ace LTE, which focuses extra on monitoring location and well being metrics.
Along with the AI function, youngsters and tweens could make calls and ship texts on the watch by utilizing voice instructions or a keyboard. There’s additionally a digital camera for video calls and selfies, together with a voice recorder app. Different apps embody an alarm, calendar, calculator, and mini-games, akin to a Tetris-like recreation.
The dad or mum monitoring options can be found by means of the “Caregiver” app. This enables mother and father to create a “Safelist” of contacts that their kids are permitted to speak to, in addition to reject sure telephone numbers from being added to the record.
Moreover, a Schedule tab lets mother and father arrange totally different modes to make sure that youngsters keep off their units throughout particular instances, like after they’re at college or summer time camp. For example, they’ll select to restrict contacts to solely emergency numbers through the day and change to “All mode” later within the day, permitting their youngsters to entry every thing freely.
If desired, mother and father have the choice to watch textual content messages, which might be notably helpful for these with youthful kids. Right here, an AI textual content abstract function gives mother and father concise overviews of children’ textual content message threads.
The Pinwheel Watch is obtainable now within the U.S., Australia, Canada, and the U.Ok., with plans to broaden into extra markets quickly. It is going to be out there on Amazon later this summer time, although the corporate has not supplied a selected date.
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