LG Kizon is a wearable to track your kids (hands-on)
Anxious parents can use this device to find out where their child is at all times.
BERLIN -- This is either incredibly useful or tremendously scary: I can't decide. But having used it for a brief period at IFA, I am very intrigued.
Intended for worried parents who want the reassurance of knowing where their children are at all times, the Kizon is a simple strap designed to be worn by kids. It's aimed at very young children -- the ones too young to have smart phones, but might be attending kindergarten.
It's a basic product with just one button. There's an app that runs on up to two Android phones: pressing the search button locates wherever the Kizon is right now. It does that by sending an SMS message to the device, which has a SIM card inside it. The band uses a combination of GPS and Wi-Fi to work out where it is in the world, and texts the co-ordinates back to the app, which translates them into a map location.
The SIM card means that the child can call their parents by holding the button down for 1 second. That dials the parent's number, and if they accept the call, their voice comes out of the speaker on the front. The light round the edge of the button changes colour to let the child know the call is going through.
If you call your child's Kizon and they don't pick up within 10 seconds, it automatically connects the call so you can hear what's going in the background.
The whole thing can be configured via the app -- the setting screen allows you to change things like the volume of the voice coming out of the Kizon speaker, and whether or not to reject calls from your kids automatically. The app also lets you know when the Kizon needs to be recharged, which according to LG is every 36 hours or so.
The Kizon is out in Korea now, and will come to Europe at some point, but no price has been announced yet.
