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 youngsters name or textual content with preselected contacts. There’s no app retailer, no web entry, no smartphone connection, and no manner for them to get spam calls or texts. It’s all the way down to $170.95 from $229.99 on Amazon in each spicy (inexperienced and grey, with a purple and inexperienced band) and gentle (grey, with a grey and black band) in the course of the present arbitrary buying 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; dad and mom or guardians set it up utilizing the Fitbit Ace app on Android or iOS. That app can be the place you select who your youngster 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 sweet). Calling, texting, and site sharing require the Ace Pass, 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 related. It’s a shameless try to interact 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 Song did a hands-on with the Ace LTE earlier this yr, 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 in the course of 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 an entire new manner 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The Ace LTE is finest suited to youngsters between perhaps 7 and 11 years outdated, by which age they’ll most likely begin to chafe at its limitations in comparison with an Apple Watch or an precise telephone. But for now, I’m cherishing these limitations. Look for my full assessment quickly.
