As an adult, We’re all used to the gamification of fitness trackers — fun little incentives to get more steps and move more — and since most kids have loads of energy to begin with, it’s amazing to see them experience gamification of fitness for the first time.
Fitbit’s new kids’ smartwatch, the Ace LTE, is designed to incentivize kids ages 7 to 14 to wear the device, which combines a fitness tracker, location sharing and a communications device with a proprietary gaming studio called Fitbit Arcade. Kids can unlock activity-based games by achieving a certain number of steps, but they can only play for a few minutes at a time because they’re time-limited.
It also has an eSIM with built-in LTE connectivity so you and your kids can text and call, and see where they are on Google Maps. Tap to Pay via Google Wallet is coming soon. This watch solves a lot of problems for me and my elementary school-aged kids, although I’m not sure Google’s beta testers have prepared their software engineers well enough for my two kids. When my kids find out they need 1,500 steps to unlock a game, they sprint around the house for 20 minutes until they unlock it.
Mild or spicy sauce
The Ace LTE smartwatch comes in two colors, Spicy Pebble and Mild Pebble. Both have a stainless steel case with plastic buttons and a braided polyester strap with a plastic clasp. At 41 x 45mm wide, it’s fairly large, but not so large that my 7- and 9-year-old sons find it unwieldy. The only time my son wants to take it off is when he’s playing the violin. Because it’s a Fitbit, it works with both Android and Apple smartphones.
Photo: Adrian So
It’s water resistant to 5 ATM, meaning it can withstand water pressure up to 50 meters. However, while it does offer some protection, it’s not dustproof. The screen is made from Corning Gorilla Glass 3, and the OLED panel is bright enough to be easily read in natural light. It also comes with a protective plastic bumper, but when I asked my daughter if she wanted to remove it to make the watch look a little more grown-up, she said no.
It’s a kid’s smartwatch, but it’s a Fitbit and has all the sensors: accelerometer, optical heart rate sensor, magnetometer, ambient light sensor, gyroscope, etc. I’ve had several people ask me in disbelief if it’s accurate when it says my son is taking 16,000-20,000 steps a day. Let’s just say that if you saw him playing on a trampoline, you wouldn’t be asking that question.
At the end of the day, when the kids use it from about 6:30 AM to 7:30 PM, the battery is down to around 13-20 percent. That’s a bit less than the 16+ hours that Google advertises, but it’s plenty good enough for us. I put it on the charger every night after the kids go to bed at 8 PM, and it’s always fully charged by the time I go to sleep around 10 PM.
