Over at Motherlode: Adventures in Parenting, Lisa Belkin spotlights Lok8U, a British manufacturer of a watch, called Num8, that will track your kids. From its website:
num8 is the world’s first GPS locator device that has been specifically designed with children in mind. It tells you exactly where your child is…
And unlike similar locator products, num8 has been cleverly concealed in a child’s digital watch that is securely fastened to your child and cannot be removed or deactivated without your knowledge…
Another great feature of num8 is the ability to set up a virtual fence as a ‘safe zone’. If your child steps outside this zone you’ll know straight away.
It sends you an email or text message telling you, within a few yards, where your kid is. Belkin finds it all a little creepy:
[T]o me it sounds a bit like a house arrest ankle bracelet, or, to use a more domestic and less criminal analogy, a nanny cam disguised as a teddy bear. I never felt right about nanny cams. If you felt you needed one, that was probably your gut saying you had the wrong babysitter.
While I agree with Belkin — the watch is ugly too — that’s not all that makes it a bad idea. No, what makes it a really bad idea, and what Lok8U has apparently failed to notice, is…
Kids don’t wear watches anymore!!!
Nearly three years ago Chartreuse observed that watches were going the way of the landline telephone:
Have you looked at any kids lately?
I mean really looked at them.
Have you noticed anything different?
They don’t wear watches.
Really.
Ask someone under 25 for the time and they’ll pull out a cellphone.
If they do own a watch, they got it as a gift.
Young people aren’t buying them.
And even if they’re given one they can’t give it away fast enough. I know. I have a Starbucks limited edition wristwatch that was given to my nephew as a gift. When he got it there simply was no question: he would never wear it.
More fashion statement than viewable timepiece, even I find myself pulling out my iPhone to see the time rather than looking to its unreadable dial. But don’t just take it from me.
No less a tech eminence than Martin Reynolds, Managing VP & Gartner Fellow, agrees. From his podcast, the demise of the wristwatch:
“Sales of wristwatches [are] declining as people shift to new ways of telling the time. They’re moving to their cell phones, they’re moving to their iPods, they’re looking at their computer.”
So for those of you who want to spy on your kids I have to say I agree with Ms. Belkin:
if you expect your child will be ditching your electronic surveillance, odds are you have problems that a watch can’t fix.
And they for sure sure won’t be using it to tell time.
RELATED: One of the biggest buzzes at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show, a 3G-enabled touch-screen wristwatch that makes phone calls and plays music. Maybe the kids will wear that?