CubbyWatch

Sooner or later your child starts making journeys without you. The walk to school. The way back from after-school club. An afternoon at a friend's house. Training on a Wednesday evening. You want to give them that freedom, and you would rather not spend the afternoon watching the clock. CubbyWatch was built for exactly that stage, the point where buying a phone feels far too early but going everywhere with them no longer works.

Let us be honest about the alternatives. A smartphone in a seven-year-old's school bag is fragile, expensive, easy to leave behind, and it opens the door to apps, videos and messaging. Give them nothing at all and you have no way to reach them. CubbyWatch takes a third route: a watch that stays on the wrist, that calls, that shows its position, and stops there.

In practice, the watch carries its own SIM card. It does not need your child's phone or the home wifi. On your side, you install the parent app on your own phone, add the numbers you approve, drop one or two zones on the map, and the system runs by itself.

The result: you stop asking "where are you?". You look, it takes three seconds, and you put your phone away.

Who is CubbyWatch really for?

We designed it for families whose child is starting to move around alone, usually between the ages of 5 and 12. Parents letting their child walk home from school for the first time. Separated families, where a child moves between two homes and being able to talk directly makes everything simpler. Parents who work across town and get home after the school day ends. Grandparents who look after the little ones midweek and want a quick way to let someone know.

It also suits children who lose everything. A watch strapped to a wrist does not get left on a bench, does not slip out of a pocket and does not end up forgotten in a sports bag. After the SOS button, that is the point parents raise with us most often.

We are equally clear about what it is not. It is not a toy, not a miniature smartphone and not a medical device. It is a link between you and your child, and like any connected device it depends on network coverage, GPS signal and battery level.

How does live location work?

The watch uses three sources to place itself: the GPS signal from satellites, mobile network masts and nearby wifi points. Outdoors, GPS gives the most precise position. Inside a building, where the satellite signal struggles, the watch switches automatically to the other two methods so it stays locatable, with a slightly wider margin.

That position travels to the parent app through the SIM card fitted in the watch. This is why a small data allowance is enough: each position update carries only a few kilobytes.

"Every parent who comes to us is trying to solve the same problem: staying in touch with their child without handing over a smartphone. Location, a direct call, the SOS button and zone alerts are the things that actually matter."
CubbyWatch product team

One honest note: no smartwatch works in an underground car park, in a tunnel or in a mobile blackspot. If the network drops out, the last known position stays on screen with its timestamp, and updates resume as soon as the signal returns. We would rather say so plainly than promise perfect coverage.

More freedom, and more peace of mind

Fewer checks, less mental load. The biggest change is not technical, it is in your head. You stop working out what time they should be back. The arrival alert lands on your phone, you glance at it, and you get on with your day.

A direct line, with nobody in between. Your child no longer has to borrow an adult's phone to tell you training finished early. They lift their wrist, tap your name, and you pick up. That matters even more when parents live in two different homes.

Independence that builds up gradually. Plenty of families tell us they use the watch as a step before a phone: the child learns to check in, to look after something that belongs to them, to keep to agreed times, without being exposed to apps and constant notifications.

Something they actually wear. This is the detail that makes all the difference in practice. A phone ends up at the bottom of a bag on silent. A watch stays on the wrist, charged, switched on, and it rings.

Our tips for a smooth start

Take the time to set everything up with your child, not for them. Show them where to press to call you, and try it out from the garden or from another room. A child who has tested the watch once in a calm moment will know what to do on the day it matters.

Explain the SOS button very clearly too: what it is for, and above all what it is not for. Most families run one controlled test over the first weekend, then agree together that it is only ever used for real.

For charging, the simplest routine is to keep the dock in the bedroom and plug the watch in overnight, every two or three days. You will get a low battery notification before it switches off anyway.

Finally, start with two or three zones only: home, school, and perhaps wherever they are looked after. Adding zones everywhere on day one produces so many notifications that you stop reading them.

Worth knowing: tell the school your child is wearing a connected watch. Many schools have rules about connected devices, and school mode is usually enough to settle the question.

Safety, data and privacy

Your child's position is sensitive information and it should stay that way. Everything exchanged between the watch and the parent app is encrypted, and your account is protected by your own login details. Only you, and the adults you invite yourself, can see that position.

The closed contact list plays its part in protection as well: the watch rejects numbers that are not on your list, which keeps out nuisance calls and cold callers. You can remove a contact at any time from the app.

One important point to understand: CubbyWatch does not replace the emergency services. The SOS button alerts the contacts you have saved and sends them your child's position, it does not call for help on your behalf. In a real emergency, 112 is still the right number. It is not a medical device either, and it is not intended for any kind of health monitoring.

Why CubbyWatch wins families over

More than 11,000 families have already fitted their child with one, with an average rating of 4.7 out of 5 across 2,309 reviews. What comes back most often is not the spec sheet: it is how easy the watch is to live with. Set up once, it fades into the background.

We also stand by what the product does not do. There is no browser, no app store and no feed. That is precisely what the parents who write to us are looking for: a device with a fixed scope that will not quietly grow with the next update.

Our support team replies in English within one working day, and every order is covered by 30 days to change your mind plus a 2-year manufacturer warranty.