I'm Richdimiro and this is Rich on Tech Daily. So I had a cool device come my way called the Kids Connect Phone. This is an interesting little gadget for parents who want to keep in touch with their kids and also keep track of them on a map. So it's a very simple cell phone. It only has a touch screen and then four buttons on it. In fact, there's not even an easy way for a kid to figure out how to turn this device on or off. So the touch screen can store up to fifteen phone numbers.
You pre program those in. And the thing about this phone is that it can only make or receive calls and texts from numbers that you preapprove, so you have to add them to the address book, and then and only then can the phone get calls from them, make calls to them, or of course the same thing with
text messages. So that's kind of cool. So first and foremost, it's a GPS tracking device, so you can always see where your kid is on a map, and then you have a location history so you can see where your kid has been on a map. There's a feature called SOS. So this is that fourth button I was telling you about. So if you press and hold that button, it will get in touch with up to three people that you determine. It will also send a text message to them with
the location of the phone. Then there's a geo fencing feature which lets you set an area around their school or wherever you want the kid to be, and if they enter or leave that area, you will get an alert that says, hey, the kid entered or left that alert that area. And finally, this one's really interesting. It's
called voice monitoring. So this allows you to send a text message to the child's device and then the device will secretly call you back, so it doesn't light up, it doesn't ring or do anything fancy to let you know that you're listening in on your child, so you can pick up your phone and hear what's happening around your child. So the Kids Connect phone again as it's called, is one hundred and thirty dollars. You do have to pay a monthly fee of thirteen dollars a month minimum
for their service. You cannot add this as a separate line to your current phone plan with say Verizon, their T Mobile, or AT and T, although the service for the Kids Connect phone is provided by T Mobile. Now the software on the back end not so pretty. You know, this is an independent company. It's definitely not up to the standards that we're used to of say Facebook and
Instagram and how slick all their apps look. So I found it to be a little bit wonky on the back end to try to figure out how to do things, and it just doesn't have that like slick look to it. But I think the company's onto something. Parents definitely want a device that's easy for their kids to use. This can be for kids ages four and up, and also just something that would have the battery last a really long time. This has like maybe two days of battery life,
three if you really stretch it. But we need something that lasts like a week, so you can put it in your kids backpack for the week, forget about it, and be able to get in touch with them at the same time. So I'm glad that kids Connect is working on this. I think this is a good start. I think that if a company like at and T or te Mobile, or if Verizon eventually sold these phone in their store and you can add it to your plan,
that would be really nice as well. So if you want to see the video I did on the kid's connect phone. You can see it on my Facebook page. Just go to facebook dot com slash Rich on tech. A lot of people kind of mixed on this thing. Some of them are saying, you know what, just get your kid a real phone, or you know, maybe you don't need a phone for your kid at all. This is all too much, so you can voice in with your opinion on my Facebook page. Thanks so much for listening.
I'm Rich Demiro. I'll talk to you next time.