Press it a third time to get the dad channel. Press the button on the device once, and you might get the family channel. If soccer practice ends because of rain, but mom is away on a work trip, the child can select the appropriate channel to contact their dad for an earlier pickup, for example. "Parents can configure it for their own situation," he said. Through the app, parents can set up exactly who their kids can contact via the device. Strangers won't be contacting your kids through their Relay. When parents contact their child through the app, their child just starts hearing their voice coming from the device. Kids press a button and speak into the device. "We didn't want kids to have to remember phone numbers." "We wanted it to be really simple for kids to use," he said. Here are a few highlights for the Relay, which are designed for kids ages 6 to 11. I know where my kid is, and I can talk to them immediately." "Relay makes them feel like they can give their kids some freedom because it helps them feel that piece of ind. "We tried a lot of different solutions on the market, but we felt like we could do something that was new and different and fresh and be a real solution for this conundrum that parents are in," he said. They also partnered with a couple of local elementary schools and heard from teachers that the watches often were a distraction during class. "We made the smallest device that we could that still maximizes coverage," he said They wanted to build a product that offered the best coverage and worked in most areas. And, of course, others let them go out into the world without any kind of tracking device.īut for families who wanted a digital solution, Schniepp said Republic Wireless worked to offer a better one. Some rely on other wearable devices on the market, including Verizon's GizmoWatch. One study found that 25 percent of kids under six years have a smartphone. Some young children get their own phones or tablets at a very young age. Parents already try to solve this problem a variety of ways. How can we be a tech company that's part of the solution?" New, different, fresh And we're looking at these two problems and seeing them in our own houses and just trying to do something good. "We're a tech company, and we have a seven-year history in the Triangle.
"Screen addiction is out there," he said. I have a six-year-old son, and it still makes me nervous to have him run down the street and go to a friend's house that is 100-feet away."Īt the same time, he didn't want to get his son hooked on a smartphone either. "We saw this growing problem of both wanting to give our kids more freedom, but not feeling super confident about it. "We are a bunch of parents ourselves here at the company," said Jon Schniepp, Republic Wireless senior vice president of product and marketing. And it includes GPS tracking, so parents know where their child is at all times. Parents also can communicate with their kids through the app. On the small device, kids can simply press a button, say something and be heard on their family members' smartphones through an app. Last year, the company launched Relay, a cell-based, nationwide device that operates essentially like a walkie-talkie.
So the team at Republic Wireless decided to come up with an alternative. At the same time, campaigns like Wait Until 8thencourage parents to not give their kids a smartphone until at least eighth grade. The question came as research continues to find troubling associations between smartphones and the kids who use them, including an increase in diagnoses of depression and anxiety and worries about smartphone addiction. By Sarah Lindenfeld Hall, Go Ask Mom editorĪ few years ago, the team at Raleigh-based Republic Wireless, a low-cost wireless provider, faced one of today's most common parenting conundrums: They didn't feel like their own young kids were ready for a smartphone of their own, but without a way to connect with them, they didn't feel comfortable giving them the freedom to roam the neighborhood or ride their bikes on their own.
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