Parents use smartwatches to track children

 Increasingly aware of the risks children face at school and elsewhere, parents are turning to technology for help.

Many are strapping smartwatches on children’s wrists to track their movement to school and back.Priced between Rs 2,000 and Rs 5,000, smartwatches have GPS tracking and two-way voice calls, and overall, fewer features than smartphones.

Parents prefer smartwatches to smartphones; the latter provide children with unfettered access to the Net, with all its potential dangers.

On smartwatches, parents can set up geo-fencing to get an alert when a child wanders out of a set area.The watch can also send out an alert if it is removed from the wrist. A button on it can send out an SOS in case of an emergency.

The watches require a GSM sim card and are controlled with the help of smartphone applications.Lipika Dutta bought a smartwatch for her nine-year-old daughter six months ago.

“The school bus has a GPS tracker but it doesn’t work well. Sometimes, the bus is delayed in traffic and we are left wondering why she has not reached home. The watch helps me keep track of her journey,” she said.

Many of her daughter’s friends also use such watches and the school approves of it. In Gear Innovative International School, children are encouraged to wear smartwatches.

“It is a good alternative to smartphones, which we don’t allow in school. Especially with all this talk about the Blue Whale challenge, smartphones have become problematic,” said M Srinivasan, the school’s founder and chairman.

The smartwatch, unlike the smartphone, is a simple tool with limited features, Srinivasan said.In his school, smartwatch users are mostly children below 10 years.

Smartwatches are not just for children at school. Parents find them most useful to keep an eye on children going out for tuition and cultural activities.The devices also help parents make sure children don’t get lost in crowded places such as malls.

“Our son goes for sports and music classes after school. We have hired a driver to pick up and drop him. He is trustworthy but we still prefer being able to get in touch with our child directly,” a working woman said. She is not comfortable with giving the boy a phone.