Kurio Watch for kids review: Entertainment on your wrist

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Smartwatches haven’t really taken off like the industry thought they would, they’re mostly expensive and add little value to the user experience. The Kurio Watch is a little bit different as it’s designed with kids in mind. While Apple and Android may be struggling to sell their wearables, the Kurio Watch could be that affordable Christmas gift you’re looking for. Read on for the full Kurio Watch review.

Specifications

  • The Kurio Watch has the following features and specifications:
  • 1.54″ Touchscreen display 240×240 resolution
  • Built-in camera
  • Built-in motion sensor
  • 400mAh battery
  • 256Mb internal storage
  • Micro SD slot up to 32GB
  • Micro-USB for charging
  • Bluetooth 3.0
  • Built-in speaker and microphone
  • Vibration motor
  • USB cable included

Kurio Watch

Design

Just as you would expect the Kurio Watch is very bold and colorful, after all, it is designed for kids. The watch is pretty much constructed from high-quality plastics with a TPU style band. There are three colors available: purple, pink, and blue. The front face of the watch looks and feels like it’s made of glass but not a high-quality Gorilla Glass so care should be taken for scratching.

On the right side of the watch is where the Micro SD card slot and home button reside. Around the left side is where the microphone, Micro-USB port, and speaker are located. The camera is located on the front of the watch along with the Kurio branding. The watchband is soft and comfortable and the clasp is very much like that of the Apple Watch.

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The watch is pretty chunky and big, especially on a small child’s wrist but I think this design is intentional. Overall it’s a very kid-like design as well it should be, since that is the target audience in the first place. It’s a solid build and can take some drops as my kids have dropped them more than a few times. Since these are kids playing with these, expect that the screen will get a little crusty, I don’t ask how or why.

Software/Ecosystem

The software on the Kurio Watch is Kurio’s own creation and does not require a smartphone to work. The software does allow multiple Kurio Watches to be paired and communicate with each other, which is part of the broader fun here. We had two watches here for review and the kids were able to play games with each other after the watches were paired to one another. The watches can also send text messages to each other, allowing for some sneaky conversation while mom and dad are unaware. The Kurio Watch comes with the following games and apps pre-installed.

  • Camera
  • Messages
  • Photo Filters
  • Music Player
  • Phone
  • Snake (game)
  • Tic-Tac-Toe (game)
  • Ninja Roll (game)
  • Pirates Battle (game)
  • Sport Challenge (game)
  • Drawing (game)
  • Fitness Tracker
  • Air Music
  • Translator
  • Alarm/Stopwatch
  • Calendar
  • Calculator
  • Contacts
  • Gallery
  • Reminder

The Kurio Watch also can be connected to a parent’s phone allowing your child to place calls and send text messages using their watch. The one issue to be aware of here is that the watch will have access to the phone’s contact list. You are able to assign them contacts in an area of the watch but they can still get access to the contacts list from the phone. The user interface is very kid friendly with bright colors and easy to read fonts and large graphics. Overall the software isn’t the most elegant in the world but after giving the kids these to play with, they don’t seem to care and had a blast with them.

Ease of Use

Setting up the watches is fairly easy. If you can set up a Bluetooth device you can setup a Kurio Watch. Though you might have some issues when typing on these watch faces as they’re made for little fingers. My sausage fingers were typing all sorts of wrong letters but the kids had no issues with their smaller hands and fingers.

Performance

The performance is acceptable for what these are, toy smartwatches. Adults would probably get frustrated with these but kids don’t seem to mind and have tons of fun with them.

Battery Life

This is going to entirely depend on how much your kids use these. My kids used these on and off for a couple of days before they needed recharging.

Price/Value

The price point of $59.99USD is a little aggressive I thought, but you can score them on Amazon for $49USD at the time of this review. $49USD is a bit more reasonable.

Wrap Up

The Kurio Watch is a fun kids smartwatch that probably is more fun when you have multiple watches paired. We found the kids had a better time when they played the watches together rather than alone.

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*We were sent a sample of the Kurio Watch for the purposes of this review.

Last Updated on January 23, 2017.

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