Best Kids Smart Watches in 2025

Options can feel slim for parents who need to stay connected to their kids. Smartphones can be distracting for younger kids, and GPS trackers can feel invasive for older kids. Smartwatches strike a balance between the two with kid- and parent-friendly features. 

The best smartwatches for kids track your child's location, send secure messages, and protect your child from unknown callers. They do all this while also offering fun features that help kids get excited about wearing the device. 

Based on our hands-on testing experiences, parent surveys, and years of research, we've chosen  the Bark Watch as our top pick to fight cyberbullying, with built-in parental controls and anti-bullying monitoring.  COSMO JrTrack 4 is our overall SafeWise Pick and the Pinwheel watch is a great option for older kids with a camera, kid-friendly GPT and talk to text.  Explore the pros and cons of each below to find best fit for your family.

The COSMO JrTrack 4 is our budget pick because it costs about $50–$100 less than other kids smartwatches but doesn't skimp on features. Designed by a father with the needs of both parents and kids in mind, this watch includes a camera, music, a full-text keyboard, and a full roster of safety features. 

We're especially impressed by the COSMO JrTrack 4's SOS mode. When the home button is pressed three times, the watch immediately shifts into live-tracking mode and will automatically answer calls with the caller muted for safety. This lets parents listen in to learn more about the situation. Kids can unmute the caller if it's safe to talk. We haven't seen any other kids smartwatch with such a thoughtfully-designed process. 

• Go ahead and buy the Cosmo Jr Track 4 if robust emergency and communication features are important to you.
• Keep shopping if you want to encourage movement through games.

According to our 2024 survey, inappropriate content is parents' number-one child safety concern. Cyberbullying is fourth.¹ If these issues are top of mind for you too, you may appreciate the Bark Watch. It's the only kids smartwatch that notifies parents about problematic messages and photos, so it's a great choice for nipping cyberbullying and abuse in the bud.

• Go ahead and buy the Bark Watch if your kid is very social and loves to connect with their friends, or if you value an excellent SOS system.
• Keep shopping if you're looking for a watch with games or activity tracking. 

The Bark Watch also stands out for its unlimited contact slots. Contacts must be parent-approved (as usual), but they don't have to log in to an app to call or message the Bark Watch. This makes it much easier for kids to connect with each other through their smartwatches or phones, which may not support third-party apps. 

The potential for so much peer-to-peer interaction makes the Bark Watch's cyberbullying protection even more important, and we're glad to see it. 

The Bark Watch is currently with our testers, and we'll share their insights soon. We have high expectations based on our positive experiences with the Bark Phone and Bark parental control app. Both earned Best Overall in their category in our second annual Kids Safety Awards.

We recommend the Pinwheel Watch for older kids (starting around age 9 or 10) because one of its main features is a custom, kid-friendly AI chatbot. Known as PinwheelGPT, it allows kids to ask questions and get quick answers. It's sort of like letting your child access Google without showing them any websites. 

PinwheelGPT requires strong reading skills because its answers are usually in paragraph form and include upper-level vocab. Older kids will probably get the most benefit out of it. Plus, we think it's smart to introduce kids to AI only when they're mature enough to understand what it is and how to use it responsibly. 

• Go ahead and buy the Pinwheel Watch if you don't want your child to have full access to the internet but think they would enjoy interacting with PinwheelGPT.
• Keep shopping if you want video calling or features that cater to younger kids.

Testers were pleased to find that more than one parent can be an admin on the Pinwheel account, which is not always the case with other kids smartwatches. Plus, parents can read all texts and limit who's allowed in a group chat. Most kids smartwatches don't include this level of supervision.

Our testers noticed that the Pinwheel Watch's battery lasted all day, whereas the Pinwheel website says it has a maximum battery life of 10 hours. Battery life varies depending on settings and how often the watch is actively being used, but our testers said charging it each night worked fine for them. 

Testers also noted some problems with GPS accuracy but received a same-day response from Pinwheel customer service, and a recent update seems to have fixed the issue. 

After 10-plus years of testing and wearing family safety devices, we know what makes a kids smartwatch stand out (or not). Here's a peek into our evaluation process and a look at popular features to consider when choosing the best kids smartwatch for your family.

• Price and monthly costs: Most kids smartwatches cost about $150–$200 upfront plus a monthly service fee, but more affordable options are available.
• Communication options: Full-text keyboards are pretty common in kids smartwatches these days. You can also look for video calls, voice calls, voice messaging, and voice-to-text to suit your child's needs.
• Contact options: Some kids smartwatches only receive calls and texts sent through the brand's phone app, which can limit communication between friends. Regardless, parents should be able to control who can call or text their child's watch.
• Location tracking: Most kids smartwatches offer this important safety feature, but some go a step further and provide safe zone notifications and live updates upon request.
• Emergency features: Most kids smartwatches have SOS buttons that call a parent or guardian, and some will call secondary numbers if the first emergency contact doesn't pick up. Other helpful emergency features to look for include automatic call pick-up, audio drop-ins (so you can discreetly hear the child's surroundings), removal notifications, and the ability to dial 911.
• Entertainment: There's got to be something in it for the kid, right? They may be more likely to wear it every day and keep it charged if it includes fun features like arcade games, music streaming, or audiobooks. 
• Games that encourage movement: Many parents are understandably worried that technology could promote a sedentary lifestyle. Some kids smartwatches tackle this issue with creative games that reward movement. For example, the child may need to log 500 steps to progress in the game.
• Bluetooth support for headphones: This is especially useful for listening to music, streaming an audiobook, listening to game sound effects, or having a call.
• Useful apps: An alarm clock, flashlight, to-do list, and weather app make these watches far more useful. Some also come with a calculator.
• Parental controls: Some kids smartwatches allow parents to set screen time limits, remotely shut down the watch, and set up School Mode or Focus Mode. 
• Ease of use: The watch should be intuitive to navigate and include a responsive touch screen. The parent app should also be easy to use.

In addition, it's important for parents and caregivers to have an open, ongoing dialogue with the children in their lives about their goals for getting a smartwatch and how to use and take care of it responsibly. 

We also surveyed 1,000 parents in May 2024 in order to understand their top kids safety concerns, which included:

• Access to inappropriate content
• Abduction
• Accidental injury
• Cyberbullying

The survey results helped us hone in on features that keep kids off the internet, track their location, prevent harmful messages, and give both kids and parents access to emergency tools. We ultimately came up with a list of 45 criteria for comparing kids smartwatches and narrowing down the top candidates.

Once we determined which kids smartwatches had the best features, we tested them hands-on with parents and kids. Brands we've tested include TickTalk, Gabb, Bark, COSMO, AngelSense, Angel Watch, Apple Watch, T-Mobile SyncUp, and Xplora. Tests are ongoing, and we'll have insights to share about more brands, like Garmin, very soon. 

Our tests focus on ease of use, comfort, and durability. Testers use the watch daily for at least one to two weeks, then report back on their likes and dislikes. We also keep tabs on families that adopt any of these watches to see how they perform over time.

We also read hundreds of user reviews to look for trends in performance and customer service. On top of that, we speak regularly to many of these companies to learn about how the technology is developed, why they choose the features they do, and what's coming next.

Our favorite kids smartwatches meet in the middle between "fun gadget" and "safety device." Kids love having a direct line to their loved ones, and the games and fun features certainly don't hurt. Parents love giving kids more freedom while drawing fair boundaries. 

From our tests with parents and kids alike, the Bark Watch came out on top for its unprecedented cyberbullying and content protection. We love the Cosmo JrTrack 4 for its affordable pricing and the PinWheel watch is a straight forward a great option for older kids that are ready for a camera.

1. SafeWise, "SafeWise Kids Safety Survey: 2024 Results," Aug 2024. Accessed August 18, 2025.
2. Wall Street Journal, "Smartwatches: The New Classroom Nuisance," September 2021. Accessed August 18, 2025.