I’m no stranger to reviewing smartwatches.
As a tech reviewer I’ve always gotten asked to review this and that smartwatch.
Some claim they have a good number of innovative features but turns out to be just like other
mediocre ones that look cheap and boring and end up in some corner accumulating dust and
I will never touch a second time.
They all have pros and cons, and almost exclusively they’ve been designed for adults.
So when imoo, the number 1 kids smartwatch brand from China, reached out to me to see
if I’m willing to take a look at their imoo Z6.
I said why not?
If you walk on the street or in the metro, especially in mega cities like Shenzhen, if
you see kids happily talking to the smartwatches on their wrist, chances are that they are
wearing an imoo watch.
In nearly all shopping malls, there is always an imoo shop to let you have a good look of
their smartwatches or other kids-related products.
The newest survey by counterpoint suggests that imoo is the fourth largest smartwatch
brand in the world and rank number 1 in many eastern Asian countries.
That’s something remarkable.
So what makes imoo brand so outstanding?
I’m really eager to find out.
Let’s start with unboxing.
In the box is the watch itself, a USB-A to proprietary magnetic charging clip, a few
simple instructions and that’s it.
BTW the one I’m reviewing is the Chinese version so don’t be surprised if you see
Chinese characters here and there because I just switched the watch and phone language
to English for reviewing purpose, the international version shouldn’t have any of that issue.
There are two color options on sale at the moment, a green-shaded arrangement, and a
purple one with pink accents.
We’ve got the latter and it looks rather good – it’s definitely not a “girls
watch”, though it matches my daughter Cristina perfectly, she is so happy with it.
Inside is a 1.41-inch AMOLED display running at 320 x 360 pixels.
It’s quite bright enough and works as well indoors as out.
Out of the box, there’s a screen protector applied on top of Corning Gorilla Glass, so
this watch will take the beating your kids will undoubtedly mete out.
It’s a bit chunky, compared to some other smartwatches, but not overly so.
It’s not the first smartwatch to feature a camera, but it does do it differently; if
you want to allow your kids to make video calls to you, they can flip the watch up so
it stands perpendicular to the wrist, making a much more natural position for those calls
or taking a photo.
Being that there’s an 8MP rear-facing camera too, kids can show you what they’re looking
at, instead of just looking up their noses.
I’ve tested the call quality in various scenarios like in the metro or in remote mountain
areas, all seem smooth and clear.
So far as the interface goes, there’s just one button – a power key – and the rest
is done using the touch interface.
The UI is fairly intuitive, you just swipe and tap much like using a smart phone.
In fact, that kids can pick it up without any real instructions needed.
You can swipe down to see notifications, swipe up to access some shortcuts like Wi-Fi, screen
brightness, or volume.
Swiping right to access contacts, left to reveal a number of apps.
Speaking of apps, I’ve got to say they are undeniably rich and useful.
There is a Chat app here.
You can chat with your classmates, family members.
We see Steps, Camera, AI scanner.
Translation.
It recognizes the word and reads automatically, perfect way to learn English.
Dialing, you kids can dial numbers if needed.
Even a Tello app, with it, you can control Tello drone from your watch, it’s so fun.
The question you might have is how a smartwatch can control a drone.
That’s what we are talking about now.
imoo teamed up with some high-tech companies like DJI Tello to offer this kind of exclusive
apps for its kids, which you can find more from the phone app.
Speaking of the phone app, imoo has a dedicated companion app that you can install on your
Android or iPhone.
The main features include Chat.
You can make videos calls to your kids or check other messages your kids might have
sent to you.
Location tracking, so you can make sure your kid is where they’re meant to be, and if
they’re in trouble, they can call you and you’ll see where they are to go help.
It’s pretty accurate, too.
Phone call.
And More.
The best part of it is through the companion app you can change virtually all the settings.
Want to let your kid run riot?
You can, and turn on every feature.
Want something a bit more privacy conscious?
You can lock down just about every feature and leave it a little more than a fancy-looking
watch.
There is a class mode (for use during school hours), which disables virtually everything
except telling the time – no calls, no SMS, no apps, nothing.
I like that!
However, there are a number of apps are only really useful if your kid has friends with
an imoo Z6 as well, I’m pretty ok with it since most of my daughter’s classmates have
this watch and they can always chat.
For others that may not have is not a bad thing bc maybe most of the time you want from
this watch is to stay in touch with your kids and make sure they are where they’re meant
to be.
The battery life is excellent for a mostly full-featured Android smartwatch; a few days
is easily achieved, with a 680 mAh battery you’ve got power to spare.
You see, for imoo z6, it’s not just a smartwatch.
It’s an Android-powered wearable that’s almost a full-featured smartphone, in a wrist-sized
form factor.
It’s an Android phone, in a watch, and it’s designed to be super easy (yet powerful) for
kids of all ages to use.
It has numerous useful apps to help you stay in touch with your kid without giving them
a smartphone easily lost (or not appropriate for younger kids).
And most of all, it has dedicated features to provide an excellent safety net for the
nervous parent, like geo-fencing feature, you can set pre-defined areas from the imoo
app.
This will alert them when the child enters or leaves an area like the school, the playground,
hawker center, or a friend’s house.
It’s super durable as well, yeah, I tested that.
For me, a smartwatch doesn’t change good parenting, but it can assist, and for that,
imoo Z6 did an excellent job.
If you have to ask me does the imoo Z6 worth the money, my answer is if I had to make the
decision today, I’d still definitely spend the extra cash to get the imoo Z6 all over
again.
Thanks for watching, I hope this video has helped you in some way.
If you are interested in this smartwatch, definitely go and check out!
Link is in the description.
I’m Sami and I will see you in the next one.