About one in three children has a smartwatch
Currently, China is the largest consumer market for children’s smartwatches in the world.
There are approximately 170 million children aged 5 to 12 in China, with a market penetration rate of about 30%, meaning about one in three children has a smartwatch.
The golden age for children’s smartwatches began about ten years ago.
According to a report on wearable devices released by the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, the market size for smart wearable devices in China was 12.58 billion yuan in 2015, with a growth rate of 471.8%. Children’s wearable devices, as a branch of this market, have shown rapid development.
In 2015, children’s safety smartwatches experienced explosive growth. This year saw the emergence of the concept of “children’s phone watches,” which also included social features like micro-chat.
This year, the “Quarterly Tracking Report on China’s Wearable Device Market” revealed that the shipment volume of smartwatches in China reached 9.1 million units in the first quarter, a year-on-year increase of 54.1%. Among them, the shipment volume of children’s smartwatches was 4.04 million units, a year-on-year increase of 44.4%.
Why are children’s smartwatches becoming more like smartphones?
With the advancement of technology, the market for children’s smartwatches in China has undergone multiple product iterations over the past 20 years.
The children’s app market is on the rise, and the functionalities of children’s watches have expanded from making calls and positioning to include video calls, social interaction, and fitness tracking, gradually shifting towards entertainment and health, with dozens of downloadable apps available.
Initially, children’s smartwatches primarily used GPS positioning technology to achieve real-time tracking of children, along with calling and messaging functionalities.
With the advent of the 4G era, children’s smartwatches incorporated video calling features and added heart rate monitoring, sleep tracking, and more games and learning content.
Currently, children’s smartwatches support more applications and services, such as online education, and some even feature facial recognition and fingerprint unlocking.
Liu Quan, deputy chief engineer of the China Electronics Information Industry Development Research Institute, believes that although the trend of children’s smartwatches becoming more like smartphones is currently controversial, the advancements in sensor, battery technology, and display screens enable smaller devices to achieve more functions, making the smartphone-like evolution of children’s smartwatches an inevitable trend.
However, in recent years, technological innovation in the entire children’s smartwatch market has become less prominent, and there is significant homogenization. In response to this situation, some brands are trying to attract children with an increasing number of features.
He Yanzhe, deputy director of the Cybersecurity Assessment Laboratory of the China Electronics Technology Standardization Institute, has found that products priced around 200-300 yuan often emphasize “powerful features.” These smaller manufacturers are usually not well-known brands and often use terms like “genius kid” or “little genius” to market to lower-tier markets, leading to situations where children might even use these watches to play games like Honor of Kings.
Over 2,600 Complaints
The “5th National Survey on Internet Usage Among Minors” shows that by 2022, the number of underage internet users had exceeded 193 million. From 2018 to 2022, the internet penetration rate among minors increased from 93.7% to 97.2%, reaching a saturation state.
Over 20% of underage internet users are using new smart devices such as smartwatches, smart desk lamps, dictionary pens, and smart screens.
At the same time, the potential risks arising from the development of children’s smartwatches have attracted significant attention, with issues such as feature redundancy, inducement to consume, and privacy violations frequently occurring.
Many netizens have expressed that children’s smartwatches primarily rely on hardware to generate profits, but in today’s world where software demand is increasing, this business can easily go off track.
Searching on a complaint platform reveals that there are over 2,600 complaints about children’s watches, mainly focusing on quality inconsistencies, alleged false advertising, information security risks, and applications inducing children to spend.
One parent complained that the sugar cat children’s positioning phone watch purchased on an e-commerce platform was only used occasionally and was well maintained. However, the brand company announced it would stop services, causing the watch to suddenly become unable to access the system, make calls, or provide positioning.
Another parent complained that some applications on a particular watch induced children to consume and recharge memberships, such as listening to stories, where a QR code appears after a while prompting payment, or else the story cannot continue.
Additionally, some netizens have expressed concerns about the excessive number of ads in a particular children’s watch’s pre-installed software, worrying about potential harm to children’s healthy development.
The “Annual Report on the Status of Consumer Rights Protection in China (2023)” indicates that children’s smartwatches are continuously extending their functionalities, featuring photo-taking, question-answering, social interaction, and shopping games, with some advertisements and embedded game content conveying undesirable values that are detrimental to children’s mental health. The gamification of apps in children’s learning tablets and electronic watches is severe, and problems related to payment software inducing consumption are prevalent, along with personal information security risks.
Children’s Smartwatch Functions Should Emphasize “Suitability” Over “Quantity”
Professor Liu Peng from the School of Public Administration at Renmin University believes that on one hand, it is essential to recognize that the trend of children’s smartwatches becoming more like smartphones is a strategy for companies to enhance product competitiveness. It is unrealistic to expect companies to maintain product standards at the level of several years ago when children’s watches were just starting out and had not yet reached a smart level; however, on the other hand, companies should not compromise their bottom line for product competition by incorporating features that are unbeneficial to children’s development into the watches.
“Children’s smartwatches are not necessarily better with more functions; what is suitable is what is good,” Liu Peng said.
The national standard for children’s watches released in 2022 outlines requirements for static positioning, calling, electromagnetic radiation, information security, battery safety, charging safety, and wearing safety temperature for children’s smartwatches.
This March, the “Guidelines for the Protection of Personal Information and Rights of Children’s Smartwatches” were officially implemented. The guidelines state that manufacturers of children’s watches need to consider setting sufficient functionalities in guardian-controlled applications to ensure that guardians can appropriately control specific operations of children’s smartwatches, such as friend-adding functions, in-app payments, and content sending.
“If children’s smartwatches are equipped with too many features without corresponding protective mechanisms, it may lead to internet addiction, safety risks, and could inadvertently weaken children’s real-world social skills and proactive thinking abilities, which is detrimental to their healthy development.”
Liu Peng suggests that companies should consciously implement a minor protection network model across various terminals, establish effective anti-addiction systems, “carefully add additional features, implement strict application norms, and strengthen information security protection. At the same time, support parents in overseeing and optimizing the parental side to assist them in guiding their children correctly.”