Apple Highlights Three Benefits of Apple Watch for Kids Without iPhones

[MacRumors]

Since watchOS 7 in 2020, parents have been able to pair their iPhone to their child's Apple Watch. Formerly known as Apple Watch Family Setup, and now marketed as Apple Watch For Your Kids, this option allows kids to use an Apple Watch with a cellular plan for texting, calling, and location sharing, even if they do not own an iPhone.

For children, a cellular Apple Watch can be a stepping stone towards an iPhone, and Apple has now marketed that idea in a series of new ads.

On its YouTube channel in Canada, Apple has shared three short videos advertising the benefits of the Apple Watch For Your Kids feature. In each video, a child uses their cellular Apple Watch to text their parents. And in one of the videos, a parent reminds their child who is secretly at a shopping mall that they can see their child's location.

Three key benefits of a cellular Apple Watch for kids: texting, calling, and location sharing.

"Apple Watch with cellular lets your kids text, call and location share, all without their own phone," says each video's description.

Apple Watch For Your Kids requires a child to have an Apple Watch Series 4 or newer with watchOS 7 and later, while the parent must have an iPhone XS or later. A cellular Apple Watch is recommended for full functionality, but a limited set of features are available on Apple Watch models with Wi-Fi only.

More details are available on the Apple Watch For Your Kids page, and in a support document.

Article Link: Apple Highlights Three Benefits of Apple Watch for Kids Without iPhones

 

[I7guy]

Interesting marketing. While it may technically be true, how practical is it?

 

[CobaltJacket]

I fully agree with the three use cases, and my youngest uses a watch instead of a phone. He also happens to be a heart transplant recipient, so we use it for heart rate monitoring, and it contains his emergency medical info.

Disclosure: I am co-author on a paper about using Apple Watches to monitor kids in heart failure.

 

[turbineseaplane]

These are a great choice for kids, I agree

I wish they'd go even further with Apple Watch and make it truly standalone and never require an iPhone.

I've considered "Apple Watch only" as a possible long term solution to the lack of small phone options anymore.

 

[Pezimak]

Whilst good, not to be a cynic, all their health data also gets recorded....

 

[Plutonius]

It sounds like it's something else I want my kids distracted with. /S

 

[Plerf]

I like my kids more than to make them use a watch for texting and calling.

But the location thing would be nice.

Maybe I’ll just staple an Air Tag to him instead.

Because is this is the internet, I must inform you that I’m kidding and do not actually staple things to my kids.

 

[CobaltJacket]

It sounds like it's something else I want my kids distracted with. /S

WatchOS has a "Schooltime" feature to deal with this.

 

[CobaltJacket]

Whilst good, not to be a cynic, all their health data also gets recorded....

1. Some of us might want this (see above)
2. You don't *have* to use the health features

 

[mcewen98]

The implementation of the family setup for a child having only a watch without a phone is poor and sloppy. It just doesn't work well and feels like apple bolted on it on after the fact, similar to parental controls in general. An SE watch running only on a cellular gets quite poor battery life as well, and at many schools you can't get on wifi due to the captive portals and log in process that don't work on a watch without a browser.

 

[TETENAL]

Why is this for kids only? As an adult one might want to use an Apple Watch without an iPhone too. Maybe a Mac is enough for some people. The Watch should be independent.

 

[orbital~debris]

This is working nicely for my family – allowing us to avoid giving in to the 'everyone has a phone' approach.

 

[cragem]

Well, we use Apple Watch for our kids too. Unfortunately it lacks international roaming which is - for our family use case - really annoying and difficult to understand the reason behind Apple‘s decision.

 

[iLuddite]

Mommy, Daddy, my wrist hurts…

Arm falls off

 

[Plutonius]

WatchOS has a "Schooltime" feature to deal with this.

It's a good idea but kids can be very smart when it comes to getting around "features" .

 

[TechWhisperer]

Why is this for kids only? As an adult one might want to use an Apple Watch without an iPhone too. Maybe a Mac is enough for some people. The Watch should be independent.

No need to worry, the European Union’s got you covered. DMA addendum dropping in 3, 2, 1…

 

[fkick]

Whilst good, not to be a cynic, all their health data also gets recorded....

If the icloud account is set up as a child account, they aren’t able to use the Health App features on the watch.

 

[macfacts]

These states, California, Idaho, Indiana, Louisiana, Minnesota, Ohio, South Carolina and Virginia, are banning smartphones in school I hope they will expand to smartwatches.

 

[BBCWatcher]

I’m sure it’s a coincidence that kids often lose and break devices.😐

 

[WarmWinterHat]

These states, California, Idaho, Indiana, Louisiana, Minnesota, Ohio, South Carolina and Virginia, are banning smartphones in school I wonder if they will expand to smartwatches.

My kids go to school in one of those states and smartwatches are banned as well, at least at their school.

They drop off both in the morning upon entering and pick them up when leaving for the day.

 

[BSoares]

I wish it allowed apps to be installed from the parent iPhone controlling the kid's watch. I wanted to install Spotify but that requires it to be installed via the phone and it's not supported on a kids's watch. It is nice but I think it has lots of room for improvement.

 

[MacMikePro]

It sounds like it's something else I want my kids distracted with.

You're missing the point. The point is an iPhone would be WAAYYY more distracting. An Apple Watch can't really do too much on it's own and therefore would not be distracting, so if you want the ability to call and text your child and see their location without them owning a distracting cell phone, this is absolutely the best solution.

 

[CmdrLaForge]

Many troubles with this. For example the watch doesn't show the location. Also Phone I haven't got working so far...

 

[MacMikePro]

Honestly out of all of Apple's marketing tactics and growth plans etc, I seriously think making the Apple Watch geared towards kids is the smartest move Apple makes across its entire company. Get kids into the iMessage ecosystem with their friends and you are now almost guaranteed that they will get an iPhone when they become of age, which will lead to more and more Apple devices as they grow up as the ecosystem is just that good. It's like the king of all evil genius plans lol.

 

[swissmann]

The implementation of the family setup for a child having only a watch without a phone is poor and sloppy. It just doesn't work well and feels like apple bolted on it on after the fact, similar to parental controls in general. An SE watch running only on a cellular gets quite poor battery life as well, and at many schools you can't get on wifi due to the captive portals and log in process that don't work on a watch without a browser.

Exactly this. I use one for my 15 year old and my 12 year old instead of an iPhone. We can't even transfer music that we own to their watches through family setup so they record voice memos of songs. Family setup could use some serious improvements.