Xplora, the popular Norwegian smartwatch company, today announced that the X5 Play smartwatch for kids is now available in the US. The Xplora X5 Play, based on the Snapdragon Wear platform, is designed for tech savvy children and offers parents’ true peace of mind.
It is a good first phone for children aged 4-11 and is the only smartwatch for kids with gamification and a step tracker to help drive more physical activity. The Xplora X5 is available in black, blue or pink from the Xplora website now for £159.99 and in the US from the Xplora website for $149.99.
With the X5 Play, children can make and receive calls from up to 50 approved contacts, while parents can be confident in knowing their child’s location at all times. Kids can take and store up to 1,000 pictures, play games and track their steps to earn prize incentives through the Xplora Goplay platform which encourages children to be more physically active.
“Two questions that almost every parent asks themselves are, how can I better communicate with my children, and how can I get them more active,” said Sten Kirkbak, CEO of Xplora. “That is what drove us to create the Xplora smartwatch for kids. Estimates predict more than 100 million smartwatches for children will be shipped in the next two years, so we realized our product and service platform would need to stand out and address these questions. No other smartwatch for kids provides the combination of phone, smartwatch, activity tracker, safety and a Goplay platform with the incentives needed to get kids up and moving.”
What’s New in the X5 Play:
The market for children’s wearables is exploding. Xplora products already have 11% market penetration with children 4-11 in Norway. Now, the X5 Play makes Europe’s most popular smartwatch for kids brand available in the U.K and includes several hardware and software upgrades. The X5 Play includes only those smartwatch features that are appropriate for young children. These features help parents and kids:
- Stay connected – The X5 Play is the ideal first phone for children. It works everywhere a smartphone works. It keeps parents and kids connected while giving parents complete control over what their child can do and who they can communicate with.
- Stay safer – The X5 Play uses GPS in combination with GSM and WIFI triangulation to keep parents informed where their children are at all times. Additionally, parents can easily set up safe zones via a Google Maps integration, and they will be alerted when their children enter or leave the safe zones.
- Stay active – The X5 Play encourages kids to be more active. It includes a step counter, rewards for every 1,000 steps taken, and interactive gamification experiences, including the integration with Doctor Who and Dora and the Lost City of Gold on the Goplay platform.
- Stay curious – The X5 Play encourages children to explore their environment and record their adventures with a 2MP camera that stores up to a thousand pictures on the device.
- Stay secure – Xplora and the X5 Play comply with the strictest security and transparency standards in Asia and Europe, including GDPR compliance, to ensure that all the data is well protected from misuse and exploitation. It is also CPRA and CE/FCC compliant.
“Smartwatches for kids is one of the fastest growing segments in the wearables space today,” added Pankaj Kedia, Sr. Director & Global Head, Smart Wearables segment, Qualcomm Technologies. “We are delighted to be collaborating with Xplora to fuel this growth with innovative products that kids love and parents desire. Our Snapdragon Wear platform, the heart of Xplora’s X5 Play smartwatch, is making it possible to deliver rich, interactive experiences while staying connected with 4G LTE, staying safer with GPS, and delivering extended battery life.”
The X5 Play Gets Kids Moving
Xplora gets kids up and moving. Xplora is more effective than traditional fitness and GPS trackers because it encourages kids to move through fun activities and gamification, in order to build a better balance between screen time and activity.
The Xplora Goplay platform includes popular gamification content launched in collaboration with BBC’s Doctor Who, Sony’s Peter Rabbit 2 and Paramount’s Dora to name but a few. Children earn one coin for every 1000 steps they make and these coins can be used to claim merchandise from these shows and movies. If they achieve a top 10 placement on the weekly leaderboard kids can also receive exclusive prize bundles which could include Bluetooth speakers, action cameras and Amazon gift cards! All collaborations are specifically designed to keep kids motivated, engaged, and moving.
“Getting kids moving is more important than ever,” said Kirkbak. “During the pandemic, kid’s screen time is up 500% and parents need to find new ways to motivate kids to move or replace the activity they would normally get in a physical education class at school. The X5 Play and Goplay is a great way to do so.”
Children who wear Xplora smartwatches and engage with the Goplay platform typically take up to 300% more steps a day than regular users. Each week, Xplora users in Europe walk more than 2.5 billion steps, which is the equivalent of walking around the world five times every day.
The Xplora X5 is available in black, blue or pink in the US from the Xplora website for $149.99
