Hi, it's Rebecca from SafeWise,
and today we're diving into the TickTalk 4
GPS Smartwatch for kids.
This watch tops our list of kids' GPS smartwatches.
So I decided to strap it onto my niece
and take it for a test drive.
This seven-year-old
instantly fell in love with the TickTalk 4,
and her mom was not far behind.
In this review,
we're gonna look at the up-front cost,
the monthly subscription,
the unique features,
and we're gonna find out
what our kid tester and her mom
thought about the TickTalk 4 kids' smartwatch.
And if you want to know
how the TickTalk 4 stands up to other kids' smartwatches,
like the Angel Watch or the Verizon GizmoWatch 2,
read our entire roundup on SafeWise.com
And one note before we get started,
in order to respect and protect
the privacy of my testers,
their names won't be used,
and they declined an on-camera interview.
So I'll be passing along most of their input,
but you're still gonna get to catch
some glimpses of this watch in action.
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First things first,
before we dive into how much the TickTalk 4 costs,
let's review some of the specs.
Now this watch comes in pink, blue,
or black, like we got,
and it arrives in a box with a SIM card
and the charging cord.
TickTalk 4 has a free app
for both Android and iOS,
and it's compatible with either AT&T or T-Mobile
through Red Pocket Mobile subscription.
The TickTalk 4 uses 3-way smart GPS tracking,
and it includes more than 20 parental controls.
Plus, you're going to get two-way talk,
video calls, chat, greeting cards, kids music,
and an SOS button
that links directly to Mom, Dad, or 911.
One thing to note:
the watch is made for kids between 5 and 12 years old,
but it's pretty bulky on younger or smaller kids.
For the most part,
that didn't really bother my tester,
but she did end up taking it off
to do things like handstands.
I don't get it either.
This is something that you should be aware of
if you have a kiddo that might be prone to discomfort
and taking off the watch.
To help with this issue,
I would suggest finding a way to swap the band out
if you can
for something maybe a less bulky
and something that maybe is tamper-proof.
I didn't actually get the chance to try that out,
but I definitely think it's something worth looking into.
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Now, the TickTalk 4 is on the pricier side.
The watch is just under $200,
and that includes the watch,
the Red Pocket SIM card,
and that charging cord.
TickTalk also has some accessories available.
You can pick up some wireless headphones for around $35,
there's a charging power base that's $20,
and I think this is totally worth it.
The charging cord is weird,
and it's easy for the watch
to become disconnected from this cord,
and so I think for $20,
it's totally worth getting the charging base,
and then you'll know that it's always charged
and ready to go
when your kid is out and about.
You can also personalize your watch
with some decorative chums,
and those are about $10.
If you add your accessories at the time of purchase,
TickTalk gives you a bundle price,
and that's gonna knock off
at least $15 off your total price.
So that's something to think about.
Other smartwatches we've reviewed
range from $55 to $180.
So the TickTalk 4 still comes out
at the very top of that range,
but it really isn't super out of hand,
especially if you're looking for comparable features.
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The TickTalk 4 does require a monthly subscription,
but they make it pretty simple and affordable.
It's $10 a month, pay-as-you-go,
you can cancel any time,
and in the US, it works with AT&T or T-Mobile.
Now, international customers
are just going to have to add a line to their carrier
to get service for the TickTalk 4.
And one thing that I was happy to find out
is that you don't have to have an AT&T or T-Mobile account
to activate your TickTalk 4.
The SIM card that comes with the watch
is from Red Pocket Mobile,
and that is a company
that works with almost all major US cellular providers
to offer low-cost, no-contract service.
So all you have to do
is choose the provider you want,
and then activate the SIM card that came with your watch
and you're good to go.
One other important thing to note
is that in the US, the TickTalk 4 includes streaming music,
podcasts, and stories from iHeart Radio Family,
which is really cool,
and you can set daily limits for listening
to help preserve the battery life and the data usage.
Now, we didn't get to the point
where we had any overages on the data,
but I do think you could be at risk for extra charges.
So pay attention to your plan
when you activate the SIM card,
to make sure that you're not going to incur
like a surprise large bill,
because you have a kid that likes to take after Rihanna.
(light upbeat music)
The TickTalk 4 includes
all the standard kids' GPS watch features
like GPS location tracking,
geofencing, text communication,
two-way talk, parental controls,
reminders, and a do-not-disturb mode,
plus a closed network and closed contact list.
But TickTalk 4 throws in some extras
that are pretty awesome.
In fact, "awesome" is the word my tester used most often
to describe this watch
and everything that it does.
Some of these super awesome extra features
are a video chat feature.
This is like FaceTime,
so the kid can call Mom, Dad, family,
and have a little video chat.
You can also send a video and photo messages,
and you can set up a wallpaper on the watch
with your favorite photo,
which my tester loved doing.
She thought that that was really fun.
You can also send greeting cards
that you're able to customize
and send to your kiddo,
and they can return the favor.
I have to say that when we were testing this watch
for the first time in August,
we had a lot of fun sending each other
Thanksgiving and Christmas cards back and forth
during, like, 100 degree weather.
She thought that was pretty hilarious.
Finally, the music, podcasts, and stories from iHeart Radio
were super, super popular
with my tester and her two-year-old little sister.
And I have a flash-alert update.
There was actually an app update to the TickTalk 4
between my first test in August
and my follow-up in October,
and it's a really cool feature.
It's called talk-to-text.
And I didn't even realize that this had happened
but within about five minutes
of strapping this thing onto my niece's wrist,
she figured it out.
What talk-to-text does
is it lets your child use their voice
to create a text message,
and this was really cool
because the watch does not have access to a keyboard,
so the only text messages available
either preset from the factory settings,
or you had to add them in as a caregiver in the app
to have customized text messages.
But now all they have to do is record their voice,
and it'll send it in a text message.
So it gives them the opportunity to communicate more things
which could be very important.
Now, while video chat and music
and things like talk-to-text
make the watch really fun for your kiddo
and do provide some safety functions,
the features that really add to that sense of security
for both you and your little one
include the SOS 911 button
and the listen-in function.
First, let's talk about the SOS button.
Now this button is a direct line to help,
as we learned first hand.
We let my tester's two-year-old sister play around
with the watch,
and I did not realize that the watch was set
to call 911 if the SOS button was hit.
So she did that,
and fortunately we were able to explain
to the 911 operator what happened,
but I sure didn't want that to happen again.
So I found out
that you can go into the settings in the app
and change how the SOS button works.
So I deactivated Call 911,
and instead, I set the SOS function
to call Mom and Dad instead.
TickTalk isn't the only GPS tracker with one-way listening,
but this is a less common feature,
so it's definitely worth noting.
This is how the listen-in function
on the TickTalk 4 works.
You will call the watch from the app,
and you'll do it in the listen-in mode.
And then, that sends a signal to the watch
to call your phone back.
All of this happens silently,
so nobody is going to know what's going on.
Neither your kid or anyone around them will know
that the watch has been called.
When you answer that return call,
you're able to hear what is happening around your child.
Now, this is a really good way to check in
to see if your kid is with who they're supposed to be with.
And if you're worried about something scary going on,
like some bullying
or other dangerous situations like that,
this lets you kind of listen in and check in
and make sure that everything is cool.
If you let that call back from the watch
after you ping it for listen-in
and it calls you back if you let that go to voicemail,
that voicemail is going to capture and record
what you would be hearing when you were listening in.
So obviously you wouldn't be hearing that live,
but you'd have a recording of what was going on
in case you needed it.
And obviously this is a less likely scenario,
but if your child were to be abducted,
you would be able to use this feature
to hear what was happening around them,
and that could be very useful
in a scary situation like that.
(light upbeat music)
All right, here's where the rubber meets the road.
What did our tester and her mom
think about the TickTalk 4?
Well, it turns out, yay,
that they agreed with our assessment,
and they loved the TickTalk 4.
The kid-favorite features were the music, obviously,
the video chat,
the text-to-talk,
greeting cards, and the activity tracker.
Now, I didn't mention this earlier
because I didn't know what a big hit it was going to be,
but you can set daily goals for your child
for steps taken and hours active and moving.
And then when they meet their goal,
they get a little celebration,
and it's a little toodle doodle doo sound that goes off,
and she really, really liked that.
I kept upping her goal
because my kid didn't have a hard time
racking up those steps,
and that kind of like aggravated her.
But I enjoyed it;
it was fun. (chuckles)
Mom loved the listen-in feature.
She thought that was very cool,
and she felt that that was super valuable
in this watch.
She also liked the do-not-disturb function.
Now, the mom, our tester mom is a teacher,
and so she was acutely aware of making sure
that this watch was not going to cause any problems
for her kid or classmates
while she was at school.
So our mom was able to restrict the function of the watch
so that our kiddo could only use it at lunch time
and before school and afterschool.
She also figured out
that she could give herself some peace and quiet.
When this kid first got this phone,
she was just texting and calling
and sending cards nonstop,
and so we added in a mom's nap time "do not disturb"
so that we could all get a little break.
Our mom also loved the messaging function
where she could check in with her kid,
and the kid could respond to say that she was fine.
I was there on Halloween,
we were testing it most recently,
and my niece and her friends were "booing" each other.
So it's where you get a little bag of candy,
and you go and leave it as a surprise
on your friend's doorstep,
you knock and run away.
And I was running everywhere in the neighborhood
doing that with her
but believe me, I slowed her down,
and so we let her go do a couple on her own
with the watch on,
and she was able to just let us know
that she delivered the package
and she was on her way back home.
We can also see where she was as she was going.
It wasn't very far,
but it's really reassuring to test and find out
how useful these functions can be.
One more feature that our mother loved was reminders.
You could set reminders to clean your room,
brush your teeth, do your homework.
I set patience, kindness, and gratitude reminders.
I thought it'd be kind of cool
for her just in the middle of playing
and doing what she does,
to get a little reminder to go,
go tell someone what you appreciate about them,
go do something kind for somebody,
remember to breathe.
We have to be patient
because we can't always get what we want.
She rolled her eyes a little bit at that
and thought that it was kind of a "Oh, Aunt B,"
but, you know, I thought it was cool.
So that's a little extra bonus tidbit for you
if you want to do something like that.
And, finally, the last two things
that really made this watch a winner for our mom
were the closed network and the control
that she had in the app.
So this watch has a firewall
that prevents all unknown callers
because it has the phone number like a regular phone,
and so you could be getting spam callers
and all of that.
But this number is completely blocked from those things.
And you are able to add up to 53 total contacts
within your family and friend group.
Only the contacts that you've entered
are gonna be able to communicate with your child,
and those are the only ones
that your child will be able to contact as well.
And, best of all,
there's no internet access on the TickTalk 4 watch,
so that means you don't have to worry about your kid
getting into social media,
getting into the wrong stuff on YouTube,
or just anywhere on the internet.
Any inappropriate content and things like that
that you're worried about,
it's not even an issue
because there's no internet access.
And this really blew me away,
you have total control of this watch through the app.
You control everything.
There's nothing that can be done on the watch
that isn't tied to something that you're doing in the app,
and I haven't seen anything be that seamless.
And you can see all the communications
that are going in and out,
you can see the travel of where your kid is going.
Everything is for you in the app,
which is really, really cool.
And the mom loved that.
However, it is not all sunshine and rainbows.
There were a few pain points.
As noted before,
our kiddo felt that this watch was too bulky sometimes.
But honestly, I mean the only time she really took it off
was when she was doing handstands,
which I still don't understand,
but other than that,
I mean, she wore it around the house,
she wore it at the park,
she wore it on the monkey bars,
she wore it and ride in her bike.
She pretty much wore it everywhere.
And mom's only hiccup
was when we went to add other users to the app.
If you want to activate video chat
or texting with a new user,
they actually need to be physically present.
They can scan a QR code that's on the watch.
And this is a security feature to make sure
that someone random can't pair to the watch,
but it was kind of a bummer.
We went to set up the watch with Grandma
who lives across the state
so that niece could call and chat with Grandma,
but we weren't able to set up that feature at that time.
But the video call was able to work,
we were able to get Grandma set up
to be able to track where the kids going
and stuff like that.
So it's useful for the safety and emergency function,
but for that connecting with family function,
just hit Grandma up when she's in town next.
(light upbeat music)
All right, overall, our kid and our adult tester
both loved the TickTalk 4.
And we got to see how this favorite pick works in the wild.
The biggest drawback to the TickTalk 4 again,
is that up-front cost of nearly $200.
But it's really the best
and easiest to use smartwatch for kids
that I have tested thus far.
So this reviewer gives it two thumbs way, way up
or, you know, to sum it up
the way that my seven-year-old tester did,
"It's super awesome!" (laughs)
However, if you're still not sure
or you want to see what other GPS tracking options
are out there,
check out our video
that goes into all the different types of GPS trackers
and the pros and cons of each
so you can figure out
which one works best for you and your family.
And you can catch more of the TickTalk 4 in action
when you subscribe to our channel
and our other social platforms.
So until we meet again,
keep track of those kiddos, and stay safe.
(light upbeat music)