As a father or mother, it may be daunting handy over a wise machine to their tween when a myriad of on-line risks exist. Pinwheel, a kid-friendly tech firm, is introducing a brand new resolution for folks who wish to keep related with their kids with out giving them a telephone.
The Pinwheel Watch is a just lately launched smartwatch designed particularly for youths aged 7 to 14, providing a child-safe various that stops entry to social media and the web. It options parental administration instruments, GPS monitoring, a digital camera, voice-to-text messaging, enjoyable mini-games, and — right here’s a shock — an AI chatbot.
The smartwatch itself encompasses a modern black design and a display that’s barely bigger than that of an Apple Watch. It’s at the moment priced at $160, with a $15 month-to-month subscription. It turned obtainable for buy on Pinwheel.com final week, and we’ve been testing it over the previous few days.
Along with a extra customary set of parental controls, the characteristic some dad and mom may be cautious of is the watch’s AI assistant, “PinwheelGPT.”
PinwheelGPT is designed as a safer various to typical AI chatbots, enabling youngsters to ask questions on varied subjects, together with on a regular basis curiosities, social interactions, and homework-related questions, the corporate claims.
Nonetheless, dad and mom could already be cautious about AI chatbots, as they will produce misinformation. Dad and mom might additionally argue that the pleasant nature of chatbots can result in unhealthy patterns, the place kids depend on these digital companions for interplay as an alternative of participating in face-to-face interactions with household and pals.
Picture Credit:Pinwheel
The corporate defined to us that safeguards are in place; the AI is skilled to acknowledge subjects that could be delicate or inappropriate for kids, opting out of those conversations and inspiring youngsters to debate such issues with a trusted grownup as an alternative. Throughout our restricted testing, we confirmed that PinwheelGPT efficiently averted answering inappropriate or violent questions.
Moreover, dad and mom have full visibility into all interactions with the chatbot, together with each present and beforehand deleted chats, to allow them to step in if any crimson flags come up.
“We have now not acquired any pushback from dad and mom as a result of it’s attainable, if they’re involved, to take away the PinwheelGPT from the watch or flip it off through your individual controls,” stated founder Dane Witbeck, who’s a father of 4. “We don’t use any private knowledge supplied by any customers, minors, or adults, in coaching AI fashions,” he famous.
Witbeck’s firm launched its first child-safe telephone in 2020 and, 4 years later, ranked No. 212 on the Inc. 5000 checklist of the fastest-growing firms in America for 2024.
Coming into the smartwatch market looks like a pure development, permitting the corporate to higher compete within the roughly $100 billion sensible wearable market in opposition to main manufacturers like Apple and Fitbit. Pinwheel believes it’s strategically positioning itself by focusing particularly on the youngsters class.
It additionally differentiates itself from different related gadgets, corresponding to Fitbit’s Ace LTE, which focuses extra on monitoring location and well being metrics.
Picture Credit:Pinwheel
Along with the AI characteristic, youngsters and tweens could make calls and ship texts on the watch through the use of voice instructions or a keyboard. There’s additionally a digital camera for video calls and selfies, together with a voice recorder app. Different apps embody an alarm, calendar, calculator, and mini-games, corresponding to a Tetris-like sport.
The father or mother monitoring options can be found by means of the “Caregiver” app. This permits dad and mom to create a “Safelist” of contacts that their kids are permitted to speak to, in addition to reject sure telephone numbers from being added to the checklist.
Moreover, a Schedule tab lets dad and mom arrange completely different modes to make sure that youngsters keep off their gadgets throughout particular instances, like after they’re in school or summer time camp. As an illustration, they will select to restrict contacts to solely emergency numbers throughout the day and swap to “All mode” later within the day, permitting their youngsters to entry the whole lot freely.
If desired, dad and mom have the choice to watch textual content messages, which may very well be significantly helpful for these with youthful kids. Right here, an AI textual content abstract characteristic provides dad and mom concise overviews of youngsters’ textual content message threads.
The Pinwheel Watch is out there now within the U.S., Australia, Canada, and the U.Okay., with plans to broaden into extra markets quickly. It is going to be obtainable on Amazon later this summer time, although the corporate has not supplied a selected date.
