XPLORA X5 Play – Smart Watch for Kids Review
When Xplora got in touch to ask if I’d be interested in reviewing their X5 Play smart watch, I instantly knew my middle son would be delighted to review it! Keeping in touch with my son while he’s out with his friends, has been something we have been talking about for a while. He is 10, and has another year of Primary school. As we have to drive to school, I’ve always said he doesn’t have a real “need” for a phone yet. But, he often argues that he needs to be able to stay in contact! A phone I worry he will lose, or drop and break. But a piece of wearable tech? That could be the ideal solution for us.
Xplora X5 Play Smart Watch – Features Parents Want to Know about!
The Xplora smart watch importantly holds a sim card, so you can stay in touch. Do make sure you activate the sim before you put it into the watch! You can also connect the watch to your wi-fi, this is especially helpful if you have poor phone signal at home. I downloaded the Xplora app on my phone. The app allows me to send and receive messages easily with the watch. I can add the contacts my son is allowed to contact via the app. This I think is a good safety feature. I also get alerted every time he texts or calls anyone. The Xplora X5 text features are limited to certain phrases, emojis or voice messages.
The XPLORA app importantly also allows me to see where the watch is – using the GPS in the watch. The reliability of the GPS is dependent on where you are. Where we live we have found the accuracy to be very good. However, we discovered that the GPS was not quite so accurate when the watch got lost. Thankfully we did manage to recover the watch! But I feel it would be handy to show where your phone is on the map as well as the watch. This could help guide you to the watch if necessary. It is possible to set safe zones using the app too, but we haven’t played with this yet – will update when we do! One important thing to mention, if the watch does get lost you can block the IMEI with Xplora!
XPLORA Activity Tracker
XPLORA hopes to create a balance between screen time and physical activity. So there is a big focus towards keeping active with the XPLORA watches.
Using the XPLORA App, I can see how many steps he has done. I am also able to remove the step counter if I want to – something which is useful if your worried your child is getting to focused on hitting those steps. The step counter is neatly displayed on the watch, and my son enjoys seeing how many steps he has managed to do. We often have long family walks and so he loves wearing it and seeing how many steps he has achieved on the walks! Steps means prizes, and there are themed challenges to join each month. Those with the highest number of steps get a high score – and the potential to win prizes!
They don’t have to join challenges to be rewarded for keeping active. Steps turn into coins which can be spent in the XPLORA store on all sorts of items – from trampolines to a Nintendo Switch. I would imagine for the bigger items it would take over a year to save up for them. But, it certainly seems a good motivator for my son!
XPLORA X5 Play – What the children want to know!
There’s a camera which enables selfies to be taken – great for snapping a photo with a friend while out and about.
Voice messaging, this has been used the most frequently of all! Recording a short voice message and sending it is a handy feature, and easier than trying to text on the go! Calls are easy to make, and actually the quality is very good. It’s easy to hear people through the watch, and the mic in the watch is great so the voice call is clear to both.
The ability to see how many steps is fun and the challenges add a competitive element to it all. That extra run around the park may make all the difference on the leader board!
The watch is really easy to use once set up, the battery charge lasts ok – a couple of days average. Although if it’s been used a lot for calls, I’d say it needs more of a daily charge.
The face of the watch is quite large, but it’s really comfortable to wear. Even with quite small wrists it doesn’t feel bulky to wear.
