One of the biggest decisions parents have to make in this day and age is when to give their child a cell phone. On the one hand, cell phones are a big responsibility and they allow your child almost unlimited access to the internet and various apps, so it’s understandable why parents may be reluctant to give their child a phone. On the other hand, cell phones are useful tools for staying in touch with your children, and they enable your child to have some degree of independence, which is useful for their development.
The solution is the TickTalk 2.0 smartwatch. This is an interesting little gadget that has a lot of the same features of a cell phone (the ability to talk, the ability to track your child’s location, ability to set reminders). However, it doesn’t give your child the sort of unfettered access to social media, the internet, and apps that a regular cell phone does.
In this review, we’re going to look at this interesting device and tell you what the pros and cons of it are. Is it right for your child? Is it worth your money? We’re going to answer these questions and more in this review.
Features
- Powered by T-Mobile’s Network ensuring good coverage.
- Can store up to 13 contacts on the watch.
- Over 50 different reminders that the watch can set.
- Watch provides constant updates on location, sent directly to the app.
- Allows for two-way communication between you and your child.
- Ages 4 – 12
Pros
There are a lot of different aspects to this little gadget that we should discuss, so it’s hard to pick a particular area to start with. So, let’s start by discussing probably the most important (although certainly not the only important aspect), it enables you to communicate with your child. Despite being shaped like a watch, the TickTalk 2.0’s primary purpose is to enable you to talk with your child.
Calling and Talk Functions
It actually does very well in that regard. Despite being only a watch, the speaker quality is great as is the reception. Your child should be able to easily hear you, and they don’t have to turn up the volume particularly loud, so they can still be somewhat discreet. Your child can also easily respond to you through the watch. If you thought that you needed to get a cell phone to have your child talk to you, think again because the TickTalk 2.0 makes it simple for you to keep in contact with your child. If they miss a call or if you don’t want to actually call them because they may be busy/in school, the TickTalk can receive small written messages; it functions similar to texting (although the watch can only call back, it can’t text).
Also, your child isn’t just limited to using the watch to contact you either. Your kid can store up to a maximum of thirteen contacts on the phone. This means that they can use the phone to easily contact a variety of relatives and friends. You can load the phone with aunts, uncles, grandparents, etc. It ensures that if you are ever out of contact that your child can still contact a variety of other relatives if they need help. Plus, it also means that your kids can use it to talk to their friends (if you permit them to use it like that of course).
Now that we’ve covered the communication aspect of the TickTalk 2.0, let’s move onto discussing other aspects of the watch. While its primary purpose is to let you communicate with your child without having to give them a cell phone, it does do a lot of other things as well.
Take a look at the short video below to see the smartwatch in action.
Daily Planner
For example, of the coolest aspects of the TickTalk 2.0 is how it can act as a sort of day planner for your kids. It comes preloaded with fifty different activities. You can pick which activities your child does or needs to do and then set the day and time that they need to do that. If you’ve ever used an iPhone’s reminder feature, then it functions very similarly to that. The activities that come preloaded on the TickTalk 2.0 range from very mundane things like “take a shower,” “brush your teeth,” “pack your school bag,” to more serious things like “take your medicine.”
It’s been known for a while that helping your child to develop a schedule can be very helpful, and the TickTalk 2.0 can be a very useful tool for helping children to understand the importance of doing things on time. While you can’t program in your own activities, the fifty preloaded activities that it comes with should be more than enough for the vast majority of children.
Link Your Phone to the TickTalk GPS
At this point, we should talk about the companion app that comes with the TickTalk 2.0. Now, it may seem a bit odd to stop reviewing the watch itself and start talking about the companion app, but if you’re a parent, then the app is extremely important because it’s the primary method that you use to keep track of your child’s watch. The app will track where your child is, using the GPS.
The app is very well-designed. It works on every major smartphone, regardless of whether it’s an Android or an iPhone. The app is also very easy to navigate through. You can easily and quickly find any particular function that you want. Want to call your child? Just click on the phone icon. Want to message them? Just click on the ellipses icon. The app is also what allows you to track your child’s location while they’re wearing the watch. So, overall the app is just as well-designed as the watch itself.
Easy Set-up
Another aspect that we should consider is how easy it is to set up the watch. A lot of times these watches are very difficult to set up, but that isn’t the case with the TickTalk 2.0 It comes with very detailed instructions that will help you to set up every aspect of the watch. Likewise, the watch itself walks you through a lot of it. So, even those of you aren’t particularly good with technology can easily get this watch up and running.
Very Affordable
Finally, we should mention the overall affordability of the watch – check the lastest price. The watch itself isn’t particularly expensive (although this does depend partially on the sort of budge that you operate on). It’s roughly what you would spend on a cell phone anyways. The pay as you go plans are also fairly affordable. You can get a good plan for this watch for under $10 a month.
Cons
We want to make it clear, overall, we think that the TickTalk 2.0 is a great product. It’s helpful both for your child (by helping them to keep to a schedule and giving them limited communication abilities) and helpful for yourself (by giving you the ability to track your child and keep in contact without needing to invest in a cell phone). However, there are a few issues with it that we feel need to be mentioned.
T-Mobile Only
Firstly, the watch relies on T-Mobile’s 2G network. While T-Mobile has fairly comprehensive coverage, it does mean that this watch is a waste of money if you don’t live in an area with 2G coverage. It would have been nice if it ran on a more modern network, such as a 4G one. But, given that this is not a particularly pricey watch and given that it’s meant for kids, it’s somewhat understandable.
Laggy GPS
Secondly, certain functions on this watch seem a bit slow. The watch itself is fast, but certain functions just don’t work in a timely manner. A good example of this would be the GPS function. The GPS function of the watch is very slow to update. When you open the app, the location of the watch will often be severely out of date. You will then have to manually update the location by clicking the “locate watch” button. This also takes a while and you will often have to press the button multiple times to get an accurate read on where your child is.
We should also mention that it can be a bit difficult to add this to an existing T-Mobile account. You may have to end up adding another line entirely, which will cost way more than $9 a month of the pay as you go plan. If you are wanting a smartwatch that doesn’t need to have calling or GPS, then take a look at our review on the VTech kids smartwatch.
Average Battery Life
The battery life on this watch also needs a bit boost. A fully charged TickTalk 2.0 will only really end up lasting for half a day to a day at most. This means that you will have to get into the habit of charging it daily (or getting your child to charge it). While that isn’t a huge deal, it does mean that if you accidentally forget to charge it or that if you’re away from your home for most of the day, then the watch will likely die on you, leaving your kid without a way of calling you.
Conclusion
While the TickTalk 2.0 is far from perfect, we still have to admit that this is an overall great product. If you don’t want your young child to have a cell phone just yet, this is a good alternative. The GPS is an added security feature for parents. Also, knowing that the smartwatch is entirely safe for kids to use will give parents extra peace of mind.
Some other ways to keep in touch with your kids are using walkie-talkies. We made a list of the best 5 walkie talkies suitable for young kids.
