The Apple Watch: A Tool for Parents and Kids Alike

As I sat down with my 11-year-old son to discuss his new Apple Watch, I couldn't help but think about how quickly technology is advancing and how it's becoming an integral part of our daily lives. My son was initially excited to try out the watch, but as we started exploring its features, I realized that not everything was quite as straightforward as I had hoped. The watch has a lot of bells and whistles, from the School Time feature that aims to improve focus to the ability to track fitness goals, but for now, it's still a learning curve.

One of the things my son initially struggled with was figuring out how to use the interface. He's smart and tech-savvy, but even he felt overwhelmed by all the features and settings available on the watch. I can only imagine how frustrating this must be for kids who are just starting to get used to wearing a watch. That's why I think it's essential for Apple to create a more kid-friendly interface, with clear and simple instructions that make it easy for children to navigate.

Another feature that my son was not impressed with is the ability to monitor his location. While this may be a useful tool for parents who want to keep track of their child's whereabouts, I think it's essential to consider whether kids are actually going to wear the watch all the time. For now, it's still a bit of a novelty, and my son has been hesitant to wear it regularly.

One thing that did surprise me was how quickly my son adapted to the idea of wearing the watch for specific purposes, such as having his phone number on hand in case of emergencies. He initially thought he wouldn't want to wear the watch all the time, but once I explained its features and benefits, he became more enthusiastic about using it.

Speaking of which, one of the things that's been on my mind is how this experience relates to our discussions around remote schooling and digital distractions. As we navigate online learning, it's essential to find ways to minimize distractions and stay focused. The Apple Watch's School Time feature aims to do just that by locking down certain features during set periods, but I'm still not convinced that it will be effective for all kids.

Another area where the watch falls short is in terms of accessibility and user-friendliness. While some parents may appreciate the ability to track their child's fitness goals or monitor their location, others may find the interface confusing or overwhelming. This is particularly true for kids who are not tech-savvy, as my son unfortunately discovered when he first put on the watch.

In terms of practicalities, I was disappointed to find that the battery life didn't quite live up to Apple's promises. My son and I did manage to get around 14 hours out of a single charge, but by the end of the day, we found ourselves needing to recharge again. This is not ideal for parents who want their child to have access to their watch throughout the day.

Finally, there's one feature that I think has the most potential: Family Sharing. The idea of being able to share money and rewards with your child through a secure wallet is a game-changer. However, I do have some reservations about using this feature until it becomes more widely available and reliable. Right now, the only places we've been able to use Apple Pay are in designated terminals, which may not be readily available everywhere.

Ultimately, I think the Apple Watch has the potential to be an excellent tool for parents and kids alike. However, it's essential to acknowledge its limitations and work towards making it more accessible and user-friendly for all users, regardless of age or tech-savviness. By doing so, we can unlock the full potential of this innovative device and create a more seamless experience for everyone involved.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enthe apple watch can finally work without an iphone and i set it up pretty easily but the only problem was my kit for years i've been wanting the apple watch to function without an iphone to be something that could be standalone that you could give to somebody they wouldn't have to set it up with an iphone which makes it an accessory and you have to pay up for all this extra stuff well that's kind of sort of here with family setup it is here if you're a family member and you want to give an apple watch to them and have them use it let's say it's a kid let's say it's a relative uh and it works surprisingly easily for the setup part i've been thinking about setting my kid up with a phone he's 11 he doesn't have a phone yet and i've been waiting to figure out how to do this well would it be good to wear one on his wrist i kind of thought that would be great because he wouldn't have distractions and he'd be able to use that while riding around and walking apple did set me up with an iphone and an apple watch to try out with family setup it's set up surprisingly easily if your kid is in your family with icloud family sharing now that stuff gets set up separately and you've got to make sure that first of all your kid has an icloud account then you need to have an iphone as the person who's setting it up and then when you go into family sharing settings you make sure that their icloud account is connected and you're all part of this little family group once you do that you then go into the apple watch app and right there is an option for setting a new watch up for a family member you just follow those steps i did it and that's where you realize that the apple watch needs to be cellular so that's a thing and not just all cellular watches particular ones apple watch series 4 with cellular the new apple watch se with cellular or the apple watch series 6 with cellular the apple watch series 5 with cellular there are options there but they're not super cheap options so if you're used to the idea of 199 apple watch you're not gonna get that here the cheapest apple watch se with cellular is 330 dollars that's a lot that is a phone price so i have a 40 millimeter apple watch essay that i tried setting up and once i did that i got through the steps and you need to have a phone number that then gets assigned to that watch so it turns it into a phone you're also dealing with an extra charge this is going to be a cellular device that will cost probably around 10 extra a month with your phone company now if you're adding a line you're thinking about as a phone sure but that adds to the overall price of the equation then there's an interesting part which is health sharing now that allows you to take whatever health data is being collected on that watch and allow you to monitor it that is weird for a kid but it's very interesting if you have an older relative that you want to put this watch on to monitor them and and use it to see how they're doing that could be very very useful and now i thought it's time for my kid to use this now my kid's not a reviewer like and he's not part of cnet and i felt weird about this i'm not gonna like push him to wear an apple watch i don't need him to wear an apple watch i was just curious if he wanted to and he felt it was useful so he did wear it when he went out for a walk and he went for a bike ride and it was really cool he could call in he felt comfortable about that it felt it helped us let go and and say okay go for that ride and and uh we need to do that more uh but it was not something that he wanted to wear all the time so we got to this point where i got home and he wasn't wearing the watch and i said oh you're not wearing the watch he says yeah i'm fine do you sure don't want to wear it i'm okay so okay that's fine he considers it like a phone when he goes out he's gonna wear it to have in case he needs to reach us he doesn't like wearing it during the day and that's the thing we're starting to see the watch like a phone and i think a lot of people will they're setting it up for their kid and then that brings up the question of whether you want to just get them a phone because iphones start for the iphone se or for ones you can get on sale pretty much in that price range watch or phone there are less distractions on the watch but it's not nearly as useful for all the other things you can do apple did introduce this other crazy feature called school time we're doing remote schooling right now and school time is a way to try to aim to improve focus what it does is it's kind of like sleep mode on the apple watch that locks everything out until you spin the crown to then come out of school time and open up the rest of the watch so it just stays on this basic watch mode but if your kid decides to unlock the watch it will send a report to you so you can see when they did that so then it's kind of like screen time where you're able to monitor when they overrode that it's a little bit weird did it help my kid with focusing i guess so i don't really feel like he's gotten into fiddling with all the features i mean frankly we're trying to get him to stop fiddling with all the stuff on the chromebook that he's using for school so there are a lot of distractions it's not just a watch just like the iphone you could track its location so you can keep an eye on where they're at just in case um again i gotta kind of let go here a little bit with um observing my kid and all the fitness stuff which they could use but the interface is not kid friendly you know my kid is 11 who's smart and tech savvy put it on and immediately felt confused and he said i don't really understand how to use this thing i have felt that way too with the apple watch it is a confusing interface and they really should create a kids mode or a mode for for people who are older who aren't as tech savvy and take all those features boil them down into the core things that you need to access and you got to have the person actually wear it so a kid's not necessarily going to wear their watch all the time what do you do if they take it off well welcome to being a parent and battery life well the battery life takes a little bit of a dip apple reported that the battery life is not quite the same because you're using cellular and it's always going to be staying on and there's some tracking features so 14 hours is what it's rated for with the uh for the 40 millimeter i did find that the battery life was dipping a bit by the end of the day the other thing apple introduced on apple watch with family sharing is family cash which is going to share stuff in a wallet i can transfer stuff off to my kid to put on his watch so he could spend it at uh contactless payment terminals that's a fun idea but the thing is that first of all even if apple pay cash works on all of the apple pay terminals uh which it's getting closer to but is not necessarily the case you have to wait to find a place that accepts contactless payment and i'm not going to stores right now and neither is my kid at the moment so you know going into a store and swiping is not really a thing that we'd be doing and i feel like i would just give him some cash and put it in his pocket to use in case of emergency because you just don't know at the other end if it's going to work so while the idea of the cash sharing is intriguing i feel like until we live in a fully cashless world i wouldn't send my kid out with that as his only emergency payment i think you have to think of this basically as a really fancy alternative to a phone maybe the prices will drop which i would love maybe they'll make it a little easier to set up for people to use on the interface side but i think this is a really overdue feature it's something i've wanted for a while now i want the apple watch to be totally independent and to be able to be set up for anybody to use without an iphone come on apple you can do it next year let's do thatthe apple watch can finally work without an iphone and i set it up pretty easily but the only problem was my kit for years i've been wanting the apple watch to function without an iphone to be something that could be standalone that you could give to somebody they wouldn't have to set it up with an iphone which makes it an accessory and you have to pay up for all this extra stuff well that's kind of sort of here with family setup it is here if you're a family member and you want to give an apple watch to them and have them use it let's say it's a kid let's say it's a relative uh and it works surprisingly easily for the setup part i've been thinking about setting my kid up with a phone he's 11 he doesn't have a phone yet and i've been waiting to figure out how to do this well would it be good to wear one on his wrist i kind of thought that would be great because he wouldn't have distractions and he'd be able to use that while riding around and walking apple did set me up with an iphone and an apple watch to try out with family setup it's set up surprisingly easily if your kid is in your family with icloud family sharing now that stuff gets set up separately and you've got to make sure that first of all your kid has an icloud account then you need to have an iphone as the person who's setting it up and then when you go into family sharing settings you make sure that their icloud account is connected and you're all part of this little family group once you do that you then go into the apple watch app and right there is an option for setting a new watch up for a family member you just follow those steps i did it and that's where you realize that the apple watch needs to be cellular so that's a thing and not just all cellular watches particular ones apple watch series 4 with cellular the new apple watch se with cellular or the apple watch series 6 with cellular the apple watch series 5 with cellular there are options there but they're not super cheap options so if you're used to the idea of 199 apple watch you're not gonna get that here the cheapest apple watch se with cellular is 330 dollars that's a lot that is a phone price so i have a 40 millimeter apple watch essay that i tried setting up and once i did that i got through the steps and you need to have a phone number that then gets assigned to that watch so it turns it into a phone you're also dealing with an extra charge this is going to be a cellular device that will cost probably around 10 extra a month with your phone company now if you're adding a line you're thinking about as a phone sure but that adds to the overall price of the equation then there's an interesting part which is health sharing now that allows you to take whatever health data is being collected on that watch and allow you to monitor it that is weird for a kid but it's very interesting if you have an older relative that you want to put this watch on to monitor them and and use it to see how they're doing that could be very very useful and now i thought it's time for my kid to use this now my kid's not a reviewer like and he's not part of cnet and i felt weird about this i'm not gonna like push him to wear an apple watch i don't need him to wear an apple watch i was just curious if he wanted to and he felt it was useful so he did wear it when he went out for a walk and he went for a bike ride and it was really cool he could call in he felt comfortable about that it felt it helped us let go and and say okay go for that ride and and uh we need to do that more uh but it was not something that he wanted to wear all the time so we got to this point where i got home and he wasn't wearing the watch and i said oh you're not wearing the watch he says yeah i'm fine do you sure don't want to wear it i'm okay so okay that's fine he considers it like a phone when he goes out he's gonna wear it to have in case he needs to reach us he doesn't like wearing it during the day and that's the thing we're starting to see the watch like a phone and i think a lot of people will they're setting it up for their kid and then that brings up the question of whether you want to just get them a phone because iphones start for the iphone se or for ones you can get on sale pretty much in that price range watch or phone there are less distractions on the watch but it's not nearly as useful for all the other things you can do apple did introduce this other crazy feature called school time we're doing remote schooling right now and school time is a way to try to aim to improve focus what it does is it's kind of like sleep mode on the apple watch that locks everything out until you spin the crown to then come out of school time and open up the rest of the watch so it just stays on this basic watch mode but if your kid decides to unlock the watch it will send a report to you so you can see when they did that so then it's kind of like screen time where you're able to monitor when they overrode that it's a little bit weird did it help my kid with focusing i guess so i don't really feel like he's gotten into fiddling with all the features i mean frankly we're trying to get him to stop fiddling with all the stuff on the chromebook that he's using for school so there are a lot of distractions it's not just a watch just like the iphone you could track its location so you can keep an eye on where they're at just in case um again i gotta kind of let go here a little bit with um observing my kid and all the fitness stuff which they could use but the interface is not kid friendly you know my kid is 11 who's smart and tech savvy put it on and immediately felt confused and he said i don't really understand how to use this thing i have felt that way too with the apple watch it is a confusing interface and they really should create a kids mode or a mode for for people who are older who aren't as tech savvy and take all those features boil them down into the core things that you need to access and you got to have the person actually wear it so a kid's not necessarily going to wear their watch all the time what do you do if they take it off well welcome to being a parent and battery life well the battery life takes a little bit of a dip apple reported that the battery life is not quite the same because you're using cellular and it's always going to be staying on and there's some tracking features so 14 hours is what it's rated for with the uh for the 40 millimeter i did find that the battery life was dipping a bit by the end of the day the other thing apple introduced on apple watch with family sharing is family cash which is going to share stuff in a wallet i can transfer stuff off to my kid to put on his watch so he could spend it at uh contactless payment terminals that's a fun idea but the thing is that first of all even if apple pay cash works on all of the apple pay terminals uh which it's getting closer to but is not necessarily the case you have to wait to find a place that accepts contactless payment and i'm not going to stores right now and neither is my kid at the moment so you know going into a store and swiping is not really a thing that we'd be doing and i feel like i would just give him some cash and put it in his pocket to use in case of emergency because you just don't know at the other end if it's going to work so while the idea of the cash sharing is intriguing i feel like until we live in a fully cashless world i wouldn't send my kid out with that as his only emergency payment i think you have to think of this basically as a really fancy alternative to a phone maybe the prices will drop which i would love maybe they'll make it a little easier to set up for people to use on the interface side but i think this is a really overdue feature it's something i've wanted for a while now i want the apple watch to be totally independent and to be able to be set up for anybody to use without an iphone come on apple you can do it next year let's do that\n"