Pinwheel introduces a smartwatch for teenagers that features an AI chatbot
As a father or mother, it may be daunting at hand over a wise gadget to their tween when a myriad of on-line risks exist. Pinwheel, a kid-friendly tech firm, is introducing a brand new resolution for fogeys who need to keep related with their kids with out giving them a cellphone.
The Pinwheel Watch is a not too long ago launched smartwatch designed particularly for teenagers 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 digicam, voice-to-text messaging, enjoyable mini-games, and — right here’s a shock — an AI chatbot.
The smartwatch itself includes a glossy black design and a display screen 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 commonplace set of parental controls, the function some dad and mom is likely to be cautious of is the watch’s AI assistant, “PinwheelGPT.”
PinwheelGPT is designed as a safer various to typical AI chatbots, enabling children to ask questions on varied subjects, together with on a regular basis curiosities, social interactions, and homework-related questions, the corporate claims.
Nevertheless, dad and mom could already be cautious about AI chatbots, as they’ll 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 partaking in face-to-face interactions with household and pals.
The corporate defined to us that safeguards are in place; the AI is skilled to acknowledge subjects which may be delicate or inappropriate for kids, opting out of those conversations and inspiring children 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’ve got not obtained any pushback from dad and mom as a result of it’s potential, if they’re involved, to take away the PinwheelGPT from the watch or flip it off by way of your personal controls,” mentioned founder Dane Witbeck, who’s a father of 4. “We don’t use any private knowledge offered by any customers, minors, or adults, in coaching AI fashions,” he famous.
Witbeck’s firm launched its first child-safe cellphone in 2020 and, 4 years later, ranked No. 212 on the Inc. 5000 record 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 good wearable market in opposition to main manufacturers like Apple and Fitbit. Pinwheel believes it’s strategically positioning itself by focusing particularly on the children class.
It additionally differentiates itself from different comparable gadgets, comparable to Fitbit’s Ace LTE, which focuses extra on monitoring location and well being metrics.
Along with the AI function, children and tweens could make calls and ship texts on the watch through the use of voice instructions or a keyboard. There’s additionally a digicam for video calls and selfies, together with a voice recorder app. Different apps embody an alarm, calendar, calculator, and mini-games, comparable 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 cellphone numbers from being added to the record.
Moreover, a Schedule tab lets dad and mom arrange totally different modes to make sure that children keep off their gadgets throughout particular instances, like after they’re in school or summer season camp. As an example, they’ll select to restrict contacts to solely emergency numbers in the course of the day and change to “All mode” later within the day, permitting their children to entry every part freely.
If desired, dad and mom have the choice to observe textual content messages, which could possibly be significantly helpful for these with youthful kids. Right here, an AI textual content abstract function provides dad and mom concise overviews of children’ textual content message threads.
The Pinwheel Watch is offered now within the U.S., Australia, Canada, and the U.Ok., with plans to develop into further markets quickly. Will probably be obtainable on Amazon later this summer season, although the corporate has not offered a selected date.