Best GPS Smartwatches For Kids

As a parent, the premise of having your child wander off alone to school can feel quite daunting. Sometimes, having an extra safety net of knowing where they are or being able to call them at a moment’s notice feels great. But, what if your child is too young for a smartphone or if you can’t afford it just yet? If that’s so, a GPS Smartwatch for your kid might just be an optimal solution.

With that said, we’ve gone down and tested out the most popular GPS smartwatches for kids. Needless to say, we were quite surprised with the number of options there and the unique features each brand offers.

What Makes A Good GPS Smartwatch For A Kid?

First things first, if you are looking for a good GPS Smartwatch for your child, you are probably looking for one that has the ability to track your child. So, we’ve put this feature as the foremost reason why you’d want to pick a smartwatch up for your child.

Besides that, we’ve boiled down our judging criteria to a few factors, these include the durability of the smartwatch, its ease of use, price, and the functionality it provides. Moreover, another addendum is whether the watches can function standalone if needed.

So, if you don’t feel the need to track your child constantly and want to provide them with a bit more autonomy, would the wearable they have already function fine both in terms of aesthetics and features? 

With that said, let’s get started!

1. TicTalk 4 Kids

Specifications / Features	Availability / Details
Battery Life	1 Day
Text / Calls / Video Chat	✓
GPS Tracking	✓
Water Resistance	IP67
Camera	✓ (5 MP)
4G	✓

Alright, so we don’t cover a lot of kids’ smartwatches here, and rightfully so. However, the TicTalk 4 Kids certainly grabbed our attention when it came through our office. Well, the watch looks exactly as you’d imagine a high-end watch for kids to look like. It’s rugged, durable, and seems to appeal to kids with its bright colors.

In terms of hardware, the display was okay, the materials used were primarily plastic (and not the best kind), to be fair. But, the watch comes absolutely loaded with features. In exchange for its bulk, you gain access to the ability to stream music, take photos using a 5MP camera, record video, call and text using your SIM, and even call 911.

While still made up of plastic, the watch is relatively durable. In fact, we dropped it a few times during testing (whoops) and the watch still wound up being quite scratchless.

Is It A Good Smartwatch For Kids?

Yes, the TicTalk 4 Kids is an excellent smartwatch for kids. For starters, it has an easy-to-use intuitive UI that is expansive for both younger and older children. Plus, the ability to video call their peers, to be able to listen to music for free is an added bonus too.

The TickTalk 4 Kids also has excellent parental controls. You can select who’s allowed to call your children and what they’re allowed to access on their watch as well. What’s more, is that they can also call emergency services if you allow them through parental control.

Plus, you can use the companion application to always keep track of your kids. From what we’ve seen, the tracking was quite flawless! We were able to see the watch movement in real-time and it even kept up pace with a moving car. With all that tracking, we were still looking at a day’s worth of battery life.

In all honesty, the TicTalk 4 Kids has nailed their device in every way of the word. It is fast, responsive, durable, and contains all the features you’d expect from a smartwatch meant for kids and then some. 

Pros

• Intuitive UI
• Great GPS tracking
• Feature-rich with a special focus on safety 

Cons

• Color choice may be too flashy

2. Angel Watch

Specifications / Features	Availability / Details
Battery Life	1 Day
Text / Calls / Video Chat	✓
GPS Tracking	✓
Water Resistance	IP67
Camera	✓
4G	✓

For anyone who wishes to keep a track of their child but still wants to give them some independence, the Angel Watch is an obvious pick. With the inclusion of a dedicated SOS button which you can customize, the Angel Watch truly lives up to its name.

But, before we get into the nitty-gritty, let’s talk hard hardware. At first glance, the Angel Watch is sleek and stylish, it features a relatively durable build but the lack of bulky plastic leads to it being more scratch-prone than its competition.

Besides that, there’s not much to talk about the Angel Watch in terms of hardware. And, that’s a good thing. In essence, we found no real qualms with the overall look and feel of the watch. The touchscreen was fine, the battery life of about a day is nothing special either.

Is It A Good Smartwatch For Kids?

Yes, the Angel Watch is an excellent GPS tracking smartwatch for kids. In fact, features two unique properties that almost no other kid-friendly smartwatch has on this list. Namely, a dedicated SOS button and discrete audio / video check-ins.

While we’ve already talked about the SOS button, we were pleasantly surprised with the discrete check-in. In essence, you’ll be able to call your child’s smartwatch and listen to their conversations or even view their surroundings without them knowing. So, if you are fearful of your child’s immediate safety and want to be sure that they’re okay, visual check-ins make so much sense.

In fact, we used less the GPS tracking (which was great by the way), and opted to get a quick remote image of our surroundings as a quick primer to our wearer’s safety. Since this method is discrete, your child will have no idea that they’re being tracked. So, for your nagging teenager who demands space, this is an excellent option.

Other than those safety features, the Angel Watch comes in loaded with what you’d expect from a kid-oriented smartwatch. It features a calculator, weather, and flashlight application alongside a decent selfie camera (which also is used when doing visual check-ins). 

Pros

• SOS Button + Discrete visual / audio check-ins are a step in the right direction
• Relatively lightweight

Cons

• Initial set up can be a pain
• Prone to glitches

3. Verizon GizmoWatch 2

Specifications / Features	Availability / Details
Battery Life	48 hours
Text / Calls / Video Chat	✓ (Verizon only)
GPS Tracking	✓
Water Resistance	IP67
Camera	✓
4G	✓

If you are on a budget, the Verizon GizmoWatch 2 is an excellent GPS smartwatch for kids. It has a great display, looks like an Apple Watch from afar, and features stellar GPS tracking. 

In terms of build quality, it is primarily made up of high-quality plastic with a rubber strap. It isn’t extremely bulky so we aren’t quite sure of whether it’ll be able to stack up against dents and scratches. Plus, Verizon has been nice enough to lend us their specs list too. The watch comes in with a Wear 2500 processor, 4 GBs of RAM (Wow!), and a 500 mAH battery. 

How does all of that add up? Well, to a solid, fast UI with a battery life that lasts about 48 hours. Quite impressive! Plus, the GizmoWatch 2 also comes in with IP67 water resistance and comes in with a nice magnetic charger as well.

Is It A Good Smartwatch For Kids?

The Verizon Gizmowatch 2 is a great addition to your arsenal when looking for a GPS smartwatch for kids. You will have to shell out $10 a month for GPS / call / text connectivity. But, that isn’t really obscene as you’ll have to spend relatively the same amount for other watches too.

The big kicker here though is that you’ll be locked to Verizon’s network. So, if you were on a trip or wanted to switch carriers, tough luck. Besides that, the Gizmowatch 2 has a staggering amount of safety features for your ease.

It features geofencing and allows you to accurately find out where your child is at all times. Moreover, Verizon’s voice and video calls are the best in class. And, for good reason, they are a carrier company after all. 

Fitness tracking felt like a hit or miss. In some areas, the watch really calculated our steps well. In others, such as when GPS was a bit shoddy or the LTE connection wasn’t that great, we found huge inaccuracies to be seeping in erratically. 

Pros

• Great screen
• Feels fast and fluid

Cons

• Requires a Verizon connection 

4. Apple Watch Series 4

Specifications / Features	Availability / Details
Battery Life	1 Day
Text / Calls / Video Chat	Facetime / iMessage only
GPS Tracking	✓
Water Resistance	50 meters (ISO 22810:2010)
Camera	✕
4G	✓

We know what you are thinking, huh, Apple?! Why are they even mentioned in the list? Well, firstly, the 4 is a great smartwatch. It comes in at a reasonable price point, looks quite decent, and has a great display and a shoddy battery life.

Moreover, it functions well with the entire Apple Ecosystem and has some nifty little kid-friendly features that no other wearable has (We’ll get to those in a bit.) You’ll be hard stuck to find a good smartwatch at this price point that carries the same fluidity, durability, and sleek aesthetic that an Apple Watch does.

Other than that, the constant onslaught of updates that the Series 4 brings in helps ensure you are always plopped on the latest and greatest from Apple even if you are a few models behind in terms of hardware.

Is It A Good Smartwatch For Kids?

With the introduction of Apple’s Family Setup feature, all Apple Watches have immediately turned into one of the best options out there for kids. To get set up, you’ll need to purchase a cellular connection and will need a model that supports LTE.

While the initial investment is a bit higher, and the gadget itself may be a bit too expensive to strap on a kid’s wrist especially considering the notorious repair prices Apple is known for, you do get a lot for your money.

You can track your kids very easily by using the existing Find My application on your iPhone. You’ll be able to set up notification alerts when they leave a particular location (geo-fencing) alongside putting up alerts if they’re not present at a location at a specific time.

Moreover, even though you’ll be setting the watch up without a phone to connect to per se, it still has most of the features you’d expect. Your children can still use iMessage, Facetime, Siri, and all the other essential applications.

Apple also keeps iterating and introducing new features for kids. For example, their latest concoction, Schooltime, essentially lets you remotely turn your child’s watch into a conventional watch that only tells the time. You can enable and disable Schooltime based on your child’s school / class schedule.

All in all – while yes, Apple’s pricing and shoddy hardware repair policies mean that the Watch wouldn’t be turning into the defacto standard for smartwatches with GPS that are meant for kids, it certainly isn’t an option to completely negate and ignore.

Pros

• Sleek design
• Great customer service and repairs (as compared to other devices)

Cons

• Expensive
• Might be hard to operate for a younger child
• Apple’s ecosystem isn’t very kid-friendly 

5. Xplora XGo 2 

Specifications / Features	Availability / Details
Battery Life	18 hours
Text / Calls / Video Chat	✓
GPS Tracking	✓
Water Resistance	IP65
Camera	✓
4G	✓

The Xplora XGo 2 set out to resolve a simple problem, create a smartwatch for kids that features GPS tracking for under $100. While it did achieve that premise, it did lose a lot in the way either. 

For example, right out of the box, we were quite unimpressed with the build quality. Unlike the TicTalk 4 Kids, which used plastic of higher quality, the Xplora XGo 2 felt cheap. While we certainly didn’t risk dropping it, it didn’t look like it was going to survive a few feet in any case.

The Xplora XGo 2 is relatively heavy for a child that’s younger than 10 years old. Moreover, while the screen was bright, someone who’s been using smartphones or iPads will feel the sluggishness of the entire UI o be quite daunting. Moreover, the on-board 0.3 MP sensor certainly didn’t make out the most aesthetic shots in any case.

Is It A Good Smartwatch For Kids?

If you are on a budget, the Xplora XGo 2 is a great entry-level smartwatch option that features GPS tracking for kids. For anyone else though, stay away! While we certainly would rate other watches on the list at a higher spectrum, the Xplora XGo 2 does come with a few features that we liked.

For example, the Xplora comes in-built with an MP3 / music player that your child uses to play music with at any time. With a battery life of about 18 hours, it didn’t even last a full day without us needing to charge it. Besides that though, the watch comes with a calender, voice recorder, calculator, stop watch, and features calls and SMS too.

GPS tracking wasn’t all that great either. In fact, it was hit or miss. Sometimes, it was extremely accurate and precise. At other times, it took upwards of a few minutes for location data to be refreshed and updated. While this does feel more like a software bug than anything, it’s a shame that the watch shipped out with this one in mind.

Pros

• Stellar price

Cons

• Poor build quality
• Not the best UX for a child

Verdict

Now that we’ve taken a look at the most popular entries, here are our picks for each category!

Best Overall	Tictalk 4 Kids
Best Budget	Xplora XGo 2
Best Battery Life	Verizon Gizmowatch 2
Best Design	Apple Watch Series 4
Best GPS Tracking	Verizon Gizmowatch 2
Best Safety Features	Angel Watch

Why The TicTalk 4 Kids Is The Best Smartwatch With GPS For Kids

The answer’s simple, the TickTalk 4 Kids simply checks all boxes. It is rugged, durable, and features a brightly colored screen with reasonable battery life. Moreover, the watch itself feels fluid and hones a great UI / UX experience for both parent and child.

Besides that, we had no qualms with the overall GPS tracking, geofencing worked flawlessly, and calls and video clears were crisp and clear thanks to the onboard 5 MP camera. Moreover, it allows for free music streaming and also connects to specific Bluetooth headsets. It also has great parental restrictions for what they’re worth too.

The Angel Watch on the other hand ranked at number 2 simply because it lacks some of the features that made the TicTalk 4 Kids so great. For example, its camera wasn’t that great, it lacked some of the fluidity that we saw in the TicTalk. Plus, the UI felt buggy at times, especially when compared to the TicTalk.

Is A Kids Smartwatch Worth It?

Yes, a kids smartwatch is absolutely worth it especially if your child does not have a smartphone already. If you feel like your youngin’ doesn’t need a cell phone just yet but you still want to call them or text them / know where they are, then a kid’s smartwatch is an excellent stepping stone.

Plus, it helps invoke a great sense of responsibility within them while also teaching them how they can effectively and safely use gadgets. The sense of comfort that you get knowing you’ll be able to track your child down in case there’s an issue is quite paramount.

Moreover, they’ll be able to track their fitness and steps which acts as a great motivator especially when they see a number increasing every time they move. Moreover, the ability to geofence their location so that you get an alert whenever they move a bit too far also comes in quite handy.

What Are The Disadvantages Of Owning A Kids Smartwatch?

While there aren’t many, nothing can be perfect. Here are a few disadvantages that we’ve identified in our time testing out all of the smartwatches that we’ve mentioned above:

• Privacy: It can be quite hard for your child to trust you if you are always going to be tracking them. So, be wary of using all your tracking locations unless you absolutely need to.
• Security / Breach of Data: We aren’t really sure of what the manufacturers do with the location data/preferences they collect from extended use of the smartwatch. In fact, there’s no guarantee that some of this data might be sold to advertisers over time.
• Still Malleable: Besides the Angel Watch (which has the option of visual check-ins), your child can just remove the watch and move around giving you a false sense of security.

FAQ

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