A new smartwatch designed for kids is giving little ones the ability to make contactless payments just like you can on an Apple Watch or Samsung Galaxy Watch.
The Mellow Watch, which is set to hit Kickstarter in August, is aimed at children aged 5-13 and lets parents fund a virtual debit card, which is powered by Mastercard and Visa to enable payments via NFC.
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Parents can access a companion app to decide where and how money is spent and can control the spending of multiple users from the one app.
That payment support is intended for older users in the target age range, with a Star Points system designed for younger kids to help them learn about saving, having a chore-based allowance and generally trying to encourage good habits around spending and saving.
From a privacy point of view, the watch is apparently Coppa and GDPR compliant while card security is EMVco and PCI and DSS compliant.
Outside of those payment features, the Mellow Watch includes LTE to enable 4G calls and GPS to track location. There's a pedometer to track steps, the ability for wearers to send an SOS alert and a TFT touchscreen display to interact with.
It carries an IP67 water resistance rating making it safe to be submerged in water up to one metre for 30 minutes. There's the promise of 72-hour battery life from a single charge, which is generally the norm for most kids smartwatches that have launched over the last few years.
The Mellow Watch is looking to raise funds on Kickstarter when its campaign launches on the 15 August. There's no indication how much this kids smartwatch is going to cost, but given it's promising big features like contactless payments, LTE and GPS we think it could end up being a pricey one for parents to pick up.
How we test
By Michael Sawh
Michael Sawh has been covering the wearable tech industry since the very first Fitbit landed back in 2011. Previously the resident wearable tech expert at Trusted Reviews, he also marshaled the features section of T3.com.
He also regularly contributed to T3 magazine when they needed someone to talk about fitness trackers, running watches, headphones, tablets, and phones.
Michael writes for GQ, Wired, Coach Mag, Metro, MSN, BBC Focus, Stuff, TechRadar and has made several appearances on the BBC Travel Show to talk all things tech.
Michael is a lover of all things sports and fitness-tech related, clocking up over 15 marathons and has put in serious hours in the pool all in the name of testing every fitness wearable going. Expect to see him with a minimum of two wearables at any given time.