MWC 2021: New kids smartwatch also serves up some familiar safety features
Chinese tech outfit TCL is jumping back into the world of smartwatches by unveiling the MoveTime Family Watch 2 as part of its big roll of MWC 2021 announcements.
Following on from the Family Watch, which was announced in 2020 and was aimed at seniors, it’s switching its attention to younger users with the Family Watch 2 offering the kind of features we’ve seen crop up on other kids smartwatches that have launched so far.
The 48mm sized plastic bodied smartwatch features a 1.54-inch display and a replaceable, hypo-allergenic 20mm wristband. It’s also been given an IP65 water and dust resistant rating to make sure it’s built for some rough and tumble.
Safety is a big play on the Family Watch 2, offering parents the ability to view real-time location of their child from the companion phone app and create geofenced safe zones so they can be alerted if they step out of those zones. That’s possible thanks to the built-in GPS and support for Beidou and Glonass satellite systems to make sure that location tracking is accurate.
Away from keeping tabs on location, they can also monitor activity tracking progress and set up reports on app usage too. When you drop a nano SIM card in they can also make 4G voice calls, video calls and send messages to parents and friends.
For the kids, there’s a 2-megapixel front-facing camera for selfie action with 4GB of storage to save photos. TCL has made the Android-based proprietary OS it runs on child-friendly to make it easy to navigate features and personalise the watch.
In terms of battery life, there’s an 850mAh capacity battery that TCL says is capable of offering up to 2 days of watch time when 4G is in use and just 12 minutes of talking time. In standby mode, it’s good for 7 days and will take around 2 hours to fully charge.
The Movetime Family Watch 2 is set to go on sale in Europe in mid-August 2021 for €149 (roughly ). To put that into context of other kids smartwatches, that’s around the price you’ll pay for the Xplora X5 Play, which offers similar features including that added cellular connectivity. There’s no details on the pricing for that added connectivity or the networks that will enable it, which will likely see that price jump up.
The presence of smartwatches designed for children seems to be growing in Europe and the Family Watch 2 looks to offer another feature-packed option that should have appeal for those kids and parents or guardians who are not ready to hand over a smartphone but do want to make sure their little ones are safe when they aren’t nearby.
