Parenting tech tips: Wearable products

The start-up hereO , launched a children’s smartwatch that also includes a GPS tracker . The watches come in a wide variety of colors and designs that resemble the typical children's watches with one difference, the devices interact with a GPS app that gives parents information of the location of their child. The watch and app combination also provides a panic alert, a tamper alert and directions on how to travel to the child’s present location.

Another company currently looking for funding on Kickstarter is Tinitell. Their wearable mobile phone and GPS tracker lets your kids call an assigned number based on a pre-recorded voice label. Contacts are added via Tinitell’s app or website, this also allows parents to manage who can contact their child’s device, and also locate it on a map in case they need to. Tinitell takes a 2G GSM SIM for connectivity, to power the voice calls and GPS tracking.

Leapfrog unveiled LeapBand, a wearable activity tracker for kids between 4 and 7 years. It encourages healthy habits and an active playtime. Kids pick a pet to play along with and take care of. Together they do fun activities like: “Wiggle like a worm!” “Pop like popcorn!” they move with their pets, feed them healthy snacks and learn about nutrition with fun facts. Parents can program up to 50 different activity prompts and set “quiet time” modes for sleep and school. Kids can track their progress on an energy bar on the screen and parents can see how things are going through an app or website.

Moff is a product by a Japanese company recently funded via Kickstarter. The wearable slap band links up to an iOS device via Bluetooth 4.0 .The band contains accelerometers and gyros so it can sense a range of movements of the Moff wearer and translate them into sounds like an air guitar strum, a magic wand twirl, a toy gun recoil, and so on. The band contains an exchangeable coin battery that is good for 30 hours of play. There will also be an SDK and an app store where developers will be able to sell apps for Moff . Learn more about this product at our conference in San Francisco in July!

For teens Ringblingz ,a ring we recently featured in another article is a great option. It allows your teen to check their social media channels and yourself to check where they are.