Many children have such a lot of energy, but they also have a million indoor (mostly digital) distractions. These often prevent them from engaging in more active pursuits. So, we’re going to look at some of the best kids’ Fitbit watches.
By inspiring kids to stay active and get the rest their developing bodies need, an activity tracker will help them develop healthier behaviors.
As the leading fitness tracker manufacturer, Fitbit is a solid and well-known choice that parents should rely on.
The Fitbit tracker and its smartphone app encourage kids to get going, mainly to meet the required 60 minutes of daily activity. With prompts to remind them to take 250 steps every hour as a minimum, which can be customized during school hours.
Fitbit fitness trackers are an excellent way to track your every day steps and become more mindful of your level of activity during the day. Some versions have additional features for more intensive running and exercise and inspire you to do more.
The exciting Challenges and Adventures and the competitive leaderboard are perfect motivators for the entire family.
Which Fitbit is best for kids?
Fitbit offers five major products, ranging from simple trackers to feature-rich smartwatches.
A Fitbit packed with features isn’t needed for children. Parents can be reluctant to waste money on a fitness tracker—especially given that their children won’t wear it for long due to their short attention spans.
If they want to track their activity, though, it should be welcomed, and there are specific Fitbits that are appropriate. If you have a Fitbit, you can correlate your own activity with theirs and inspire them to stay active.
The Fitbit Ace 3 is designed specifically for kids. Personal Fitbit accounts are not permitted for children under the age of 13 as far as we can tell, at least for US federal privacy purposes. For Ace 3, the minimum age is now 6. However, many parents register younger children as 13 to get around this clause. So you can look at any of the Fitbits if you want to.
Although four of our picks are still available today, we’ve also included some recently retired ones. However, they are still available online, just not directly. In our detailed expert roundup, we compare all Fitbits.
To find the best kids Fitbit, we will consider a mix of price, design, and functionality.
Benefits of smartwatches for kids
Track where your children go
While your child’s privacy is crucial, knowing where your children are at all times may help you be a better parent.
Some individuals find that just having the ability to monitor their children through built-in GPS trackers on smartwatches is enough to alleviate their anxiety and concerns, particularly if their children are in a new environment.
If your children want assistance, some wearables have a button that can send a distress signal back to you and the necessary local authorities.
Boost their confidence
Because you can see where they are at all times, you may feel more at ease allowing your kid to walk about your neighborhood or spend time with youngsters who live nearby.
When you don’t need your child to continually inform you of their whereabouts and activities, they may feel more autonomous. They can enjoy the fact that you trust them to make their own judgments and, as a result, grow more confident in making their own.
Communicate
Some parents may be reluctant to give their children a smartphone. Whether it’s a budgetary issue or a realization that their youngster lacks the feeling of duty to care for a phone, a smartwatch may help.
Wearables for children are not only more durable than smartphones, but they are also quite inexpensive.
The best smartwatches for kids include voice and messaging call capabilities, text messaging services that enable parents to pre-set material to send, and real-time location sharing.
Wearables are also less likely to be damaged or lost by children since they remain in one location – on their wrists.
Encourage exercise
The World Health Organization (WHO) identified inadequate physical activity as a substantial and worldwide risk factor for mortality in recent research; more than 80% of young people aged 11 to 17 are not physically active enough.
There’s a wider picture here that entails treading a fine line between encouraging youngsters to be physically active and maybe establishing bad attitudes about body image and self-worth.
The best smartwatches for kids, on the other hand, merely give an objective approach to drive action, notably via step counting and other functions.
Help them sleep better
Another fantastic feature that most wearables, even those for adults, offer is the ability to monitor and adapt sleep patterns. We already know that parents can examine data from their children’s smartwatches. This covers sleeping habits as well.
You can set bedtime reminders and quiet wake-up alarms on many of the finest smartwatches for kids. Some programs enable youngsters to earn virtual incentives or badges for adhering to a regular sleep pattern.
Encourage healthy habits
You may have already experienced this if you use a smartwatch. Those badges and awards for sleeping well are often part of a wider gamified system that encourages good behavior. Many individuals, for example, increase their workout regimens when they begin using fitness trackers.
Children may be more motivated to do more than just exercise more or have a normal sleep routine. The best smartwatch for kids may even help them complete additional tasks at home or complete their schoolwork on time without needing to be reminded by you.
Bond with your kids!
Almost all kid-friendly technology exists because youngsters are interested in imitating adult behavior. You may have spent your childhood playing with toy record players or kitchen sets. Children now witness their parents constantly using cellphones and fitness monitors.
When you offer them their own wearable gadget, you have the opportunity to connect with them over something they are passionate about. Children are already aware that you possess wearables, so they will naturally seek your assistance on how to utilize theirs.
Some smartwatches for kids even offer features that enable the whole family to join and compete in completing daily or weekly physical activity objectives.
Incident Detection
One feature that is great for keeping children safe is fall or incident detection. This modern software can recognize when the wearer has had a fall and it will call emergency contacts to notify them.
How Does This Feature Work?
This works through extremely sensitive monitors built-in to the smartwatches. These premium sensors can detect when the user has stopped moving and taken the impact of a fall. When the watch realizes you’ve fallen it sets off an alarm that you can disable if you don’t need assistance. If you don’t disable the alert in a set time frame, the local authorities or emergency contacts will be notified to keep you safe. The SOS function/button uses the same technology, but it allows users to deliberately call their emergency contacts or 911 without falling. It can also put the watch into a battery-saving mode too.
Does Fitbit Offer Fall Detection?
Though this software would put many parents’ minds at rest, unfortunately, Fitbit is yet to add this to their devices.
Fitbit focuses on health and fitness, but not safety. This means that consumers that want added safety features need to consider alternative smartwatch options or they can investigate third-party safety apps that replicate fall detection. Fitbit would need to expand their company infrastructure and design teams to add more safety features into their watches, so it’s not quite possible right now. This is frustrating for many Fitbit fans, as the company offers advanced technology that’s only lacking in the safety area.
If incident detection is a high priority for you, you can consider installing added incident apps into your child’s Fitbit. Note that Better Alerts is only available for the first generation Fitbit Versa and Fitbit Ionic. You can also investigate other smartwatch brands such as Garmin and Apple as these currently do include this safety software. The only downside to these alternatives is that they’re often not optimized for children and they can often cost more too.
While Fitbit does lack these features, they’re still one of the best smartwatch manufacturers around and their watches are great options for children. Keep on reading to explore the benefits of a Fitbit watch for your child’s development.
Fitbit Ace 3 & Minions Edition
The Fitbit Ace 3 is recommended for kids six and over. It measures steps, Active Minutes, and simple sleep stats. And if they don’t have a smartphone or tablet, you can keep track of their success on your device. This will ensure they stay involved.
The Fitbit Ace 3 Special Edition: Minions is the newest Fitbit designed just for kids! The round shape and bright yellow/blue design make the watch resemble the popular Minions characters, who show up on the screen too. Kids can have fun customizing their watches as you shop together for silicone bands embossed with Minion designs. These “Despicable” designs are sure to capture the imagination of any little one who wants a watch just like mom’s or dad’s.
Besides the Minions Special Edition, the Ace 3 also comes in Black/Red, or Blue/Green.
Through several features on the Ace 3 you can teach your kids about time, health, fitness, and sleeping. The unique part of the Ace 3, when you look at other Fitbit trackers, is the animated character on the screen who moves in order to motivate your kids to move! In the case of the Minions Ace 3, this child-friendly model positions the wearer as the Minion’s “boss,” motivating them to get active with the characters. This watch includes fun workouts, such as dancing and running, to keep kids entertained while moving.
With eight days of battery life, your kids can keep the momentum and movement for about a week before needing to charge their watch. The motivation doesn’t stop with the long-lasting battery, either, as the Ace 3 (and the on-screen characters) give your kids reminders to move or daily goals to achieve.
The Ace 3’s sleep monitoring features are a great way to teach young kids about the importance of sleep, a sleep routine, and the different ways we sleep.
Fitbit provides parental controls and family accounts that allow parents to approve their child’s connections. The watch also comes with a Fitbit App Kid View connection, allowing kids and parents to review their progress, clock faces, and badges in one protected place.
Fitbit Inspire 3
Fitbit’s newest tracking band, their Inspire 3, might be one of the most appealing options on this list for older kids and teens. The simple yet stylish fitness bands have three color combo options, as well their line of Translucent Bands. The new Inspire 3 is only available for pre-order now, but there are a lot of features for kids and adults to look forward to between health, mindfulness, and tracking.
Kids will receive in-depth tracking when considering smart bands in general now on the market. But these features aren’t so complex that they would confuse young teens- Fitbits are user-friendly bands with basic touch-screen controls. The simple look and UX design of the Fitbit Inspire 3 makes it surprising to find out exactly what it can do for your kid.
Inspire 3 boasts smart features like Find my Phone, or call, text, and other app notifications. In order to sync all this data and the workout or sleep information to your kids’ phone, they’ll need Apple iOS 14+, or Android OS 10+.
If you’re considering an Inspire 3 for your child, you can also look to the numerous health tracking features for both mental and physical health. And as the band is so easy to use, this can be a good way to get them started before they track their health more in-depth with a smartwatch (maybe the smartwatch can wait for when they get their first job!).
Fitbit’s Inspire 3 can help your child learn about positive mental health habits like good sleep, relaxation, stress management, and mindfulness. In terms of physical health tracking (and let’s face it, this can help lead to better mental health), the Inspire 3 comes fully loaded. Your kid can safely bring it swimming and track their time in the pool, or they can track 19 other workouts! The workout modes are impressive when compared to a Fitbit Luxe, which is a little bit more expensive than the Inspire 3.
The scientific sleep tracking information your kid can receive from their Fitbit band can teach them a lot, too, about their waking patterns, or if they need to get to bed earlier. They can also set a smart wake alarm, which uses the sleep information to help set an appropriately timed alarm. Fitbit is selling a 10-day battery life on the Inspire 3, but this number can only be expected to decrease if your kid frequently used their watch for Bluetooth calling or workout and GPS tracking.
Fitbit Inspire 2
We wholeheartedly recommend the Fitbit Inspire 2 as one of the best kids’ Fitbits because it’s inexpensive, stylish, and easy to use. Furthermore, the Inspire 2 can offer more than a Fitbit Luxe can for your kids- and at a cheaper price! And if we want to continue the comparisons with the Luxe, the Inspire 2 has more workout modes, and more design options.
The Inspire 2 tracks the basics in terms of health and fitness: steps, distance, Active Zone Minutes, calories burned, and menstrual cycles. The sleep tracking is also what you can expect from current Fitbit bands: detailed tracking for your kids’ sleep stages, the display of a sleep score, and quietly vibrating alarms.
It has a heart rate monitor, which will help motivate your child to do more intense workouts. For real-time stats during activities, there are over 20 sport modes your kid can pick to track like swimming, running, biking, or yoga. SmartTrack recognizes and registers the exercises automatically.
Your kid can learn a lot from the Inspire 2 like their sleep patterns, their menstrual health, their physical activity levels, time management (they can stay connected with smart notifications), and mental health. All the education seems worth the price!
Fitbit Charge 4/5
The Fitbit Charge 4 is a definite upgrade from a few other Fitbit models, like the abovementioned Inspire 2. The Charge 4 gives your kids the basic features and more in a unique and stylish design. You can consider it an upgrade thanks to the built-in GPS. We think the newest from Fitbit, a Charge 5, is overkill for a kid (at $180)- but you should compare prices before you buy the 4. Should your child not want the Charge 5, you could always use it for yourself…
The Charge 4 may be top-notch in terms of fitness band features, but those come at a slight cost in terms of batter life. Where some bands can boast up to a week of life, the Charge 4 comes in at under a week with regular usage.
The tracking in the Charge series is built with health in mind, offering you an easy chance at teaching them about: steps and distance, Active Zone Minutes or calories, their sleep patterns, their heart health, as well as their stress and mental health.
If your family isn’t “outdoorsy”, you won’t need the built-in GPS. Instead, you can rely on the GPS on your smartphone and help save watch battery. The included altimeter (which isn’t available on the Inspire 2) tracks floors climbed, but because this isn’t an important statistic, you can save money by skipping it.
Some other features that will get your kids on board with health and movement include Spotify controls from their wrist, the receiving of smart notifications, and the ability to track 20 different workouts.
Compare prices and choose your favorite merchant in the table below.
| Product | Supplier | |
| Fitbit Charge 5 | Amazon | View Offer |
| Fitbit Charge 5 | eBay | View Offer |
| Fitbit Charge 4 | eBay | View Offer |
| Fitbit Charge 5 | Fitbit | View Offer |
Fitbit Versa 3/4
If you’re willing to spend a little extra money on a smartwatch with a lot of features, the Fitbit Versa 3 and also the Versa 4 are great option.
Again, you get the usual basic tracking metrics, as well as automatic activity and sleep tracking. Also, you get the move reminders and smart features we’ve already mentioned on the models above.
What’s cool is that it uses Fitbit’s new PurePulse 2.0 wrist-based heart-rate sensor, which can be utilized to increase the quality of your kids’ fitness, exercise, and sleep while still measuring their heart health.
It’s compatible with Google Assistant and Amazon’s Alexa voice assistants if you’re a teach-savvy family.
By opting for a Versa 3, you can save money (however, you’ll lose a few features). The older versions have been phased out, but you can still find them online if you look around and perhaps also find cheaper ones in a good used condition.
That being said, the Versa 3 outperforms them both in terms of features and battery life.
| Product | Supplier | |
| Fitbit Versa 3 | Amazon | View Offer |
| Fitbit Versa 3 | eBay | View Offer |
| Fitbit Versa 3 | Target | View Offer |
| Fitbit Versa 3 | Best Buy | View Offer |
Fitbit Versa 2
Fitbit’s entry-level fitness smartwatch, the Versa Lite, was discontinued but is still available online.
The Fitbit Versa Lite tracks steps, distance, calories, sleep and Active Minute Zones. On-wrist smart features include Caller ID, emails, and calendar updates, as well as move reminders to get those 250 steps in per hour.
The Lite Edition loses its ability to count the number of floors climbed (because it doesn’t have an altimeter like the more comprehensive Versa 2 or 3). Also, it can’t stream music (though it does offer music playback). And it can’t only show on-screen exercises via the Fitbit Coach app, which is a fantastic collection of health and wellness stats, but you’ll need a newer version to enjoy them.
While it is waterproof, it does not log swimming as an activity.
Alternative to Fitbit
Amazfit GTS 2 Mini
The Amazfit GTS 2 Mini is a smaller version of the GTS 2, which is Amazfit’s top square smartwatch in the fashion watch category.
Huami has reduced the price of the square watch to under $100 making it a more inexpensive choice that does make some compromises in terms of functionality and appearance, however, it still retains many of the capabilities that the Amazfit GTS 2 offers.
While there is now a 40mm casing, it still employs the same titanium alloy and plastic case combination, however, there is a bit more plastic on display. It’s been downsized to a 1.55-inch AMOLED screen, which has a lower resolution but still provides a bright, colorful display for checking your fitness data and weather updates.
Features
It has the same health and fitness features as the GTS 2 and GTS 2e, including Huami’s newest BioTracker health sensor, which is designed for continuous heart rate monitoring rather than watching your heart during high-intensity activity.
It excels at 24/7 fitness tracking and outperforms the top Fitbit’s extensive sleep monitoring capabilities in terms of accuracy. Built-in GPS works well for sports monitoring in general, while certain extra stats seemed a touch off on the accuracy front. If you want your data to reside somewhere else, it’s great to note that it works with third-party programs like Strava.
The offline voice assistant, built-in music player, and ability to accept Bluetooth calls that were all available on the GTS 2 are all gone. Notification support, albeit simple, is functional, and music controls may be utilized during workouts. There’s also a decent selection of customizable watch faces here, as well as a new Pomodoro tracker if you’re having trouble staying productive throughout the day.
Huami claims that with heavy use, you should receive a week’s worth of battery life, which users claim is closer to five days. If you eliminate power-hungry functions like continuous heart rate monitoring and sophisticated sleep tracking, you’ll get closer to the stated seven days and maybe even double-digit days in normal usage, but even that seems ambitious.
The GTS 2 Mini offers a lot of what the more costly GTS 2 and GTS 2e, which sit above it, have to offer for the money.
Kids smartwatches FAQ
Do I need GPS?
Our greatest concern as parents is that something bad will happen to our children. We’ve all felt the terror that comes over you when you don’t know where your kid is at least once or twice. This is a nightmare that no parent wants to have to go through.
Fortunately, there are several GPS-enabled watches for kids on the market now, enabling you to follow your child in real-time. Simply download a parental monitoring tool, such as Find My Kids, and link it to your child’s smartwatch. You’ll never have to wonder where your youngster is again thanks to accurate global location.
Geofencing, a useful tool that enables you to create geographical restrictions for your kid, may be available in certain applications. When your kid passes a geofenced border, such as when they leave the home or are discharged from school, you will get an immediate alert.
SOS Alerts One of the most significant functions of a smartphone watch is its ability to send out SOS alerts. If your kid is in a perilous position, they can press or hold a button to transmit an emergency alert to your phone (through the app), which will ring three or more preset lines continually until the call is answered. The peace of mind that the SOS alert provides is invaluable and essential. When shopping for a GPS watch for your youngster, look for this useful function.
Do I need two-way calling?
Whatever you wish to say, two-way calling isn’t required. In reality, not all smartwatches have two-way communication capabilities. This function enables your youngster to contact you and other pre-programmed numbers, as well as receive calls from them. You must select whether or not you want your youngster to have access to this capacity.
In most circumstances, you’ll need to buy a SIM card and sign up for a mobile plan in order for two-way calling to function. Many parents prefer T-“SpeedTalk,” Mobile’s which work in practically any nation.
Should I get a smartwatch with a camera?
A camera on a child’s smartwatch is only for enjoyment and provides no safety advantages. Most youngsters, on the other hand, will like having a camera to play with, and it may encourage them to remember to wear their watch at all times.
Is it necessary to buy a waterproof device?
While safety is important, you also want a watch that can survive a lot of wear and tear, particularly water damage. If your family spends a lot of time at the beach, waterpark, or pool, this function will come in helpful.
Conclusion
The great thing about ever-evolving technology is that the older versions of a device are a great way of introducing kids to gadgets. Not only will they quickly learn from them, but you have peace of mind knowing that if they break them (which is somewhat inevitable), you haven’t paid a lot of money.
While you’re here, take a look at these awesome GPS watches for kids and our pick of the best Apple Watches for kids.
Last Updated on December 12, 2022
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