The Fitbit Ace LTE is a good smartwatch for teenagers who aren’t fairly prepared for his or her first smartphone. It has cute video games, a enjoyable little exercise tracker, location monitoring, and it lets children name or textual content with preselected contacts. There’s no app retailer, no web entry, no smartphone connection, and no approach for them to get spam calls or texts. It’s right down to $170.95 from $229.99 on Amazon in each spicy (inexperienced and grey, with a purple and inexperienced band) and delicate (grey, with a grey and black band) through the present arbitrary purchasing occasion. My daughter has been utilizing one since this summer season, and we each advocate it.
The Ace LTE is a cross-platform standalone watch; mother and father or guardians set it up utilizing the Fitbit Ace app on Android or iOS. That app can be the place you select who your little one can name or textual content (these folks additionally want the Ace app), set college hours (no video games or incoming telephone calls), and examine on location (although location sharing additionally exhibits up within the Google Maps app, which is good). Calling, texting, and placement sharing require the Ace Go, which is $9.99 per thirty days and allows LTE entry. There’s no service integration required.
The watch additionally has interchangeable bands, at $40 a pop, that unlock new video games and actions when linked. It’s a shameless try to have interaction the gotta-catch-em-all mode — or at the least encourage watchband swapping at recess — and it’ll most likely work.
The Verge’s Vee Tune did a hands-on with the Ace LTE earlier this 12 months, and my household has been testing one since June. My favourite factor about it’s that it lets my nine-year-old textual content me, which I actually appreciated through the summer season when she was at day camp. She was in a position to inform me her brother wanted dry sneakers, for instance, or that the toys on the toy museum they visited seemed creepy and that the place smelled bizarre. It opened up a complete new approach of speaking in comparison with the preset textual content replies and 20-second audio clips she needed to work with on the Garmin Bounce.
The Ace LTE is greatest fitted to children between possibly 7 and 11 years previous, by which age they’ll most likely begin to chafe at its limitations in comparison with an Apple Watch or an precise telephone. However for now, I’m cherishing these limitations. Search for my full evaluation quickly.
