Xiaomi’s $45 Mi Bunny Smartwatch For Kids Has Panic Button For Hovering Helicopter Parents

Over the past couple of years, the availability of smartwatches has simply exploded. There's no shortage of good watches out there that suit a variety of purposes, with a major overall focus being on fitness. In fact, the selection that's out there might prove so overwhelming, that choosing one could feel like an "exercise" in patience. However, with as popular as smartwatches over on these shores have become, there's one market that Asian vendors are tackling that seems to be largely ignored over here: smartwatches for children.

Why would a kid ever need a smartwatch? That's simple: when children are too young for a smartphone, a simpler smartwatch can be given to them instead. With it, they can keep in contact with their parents, and their parents can relax, knowing that their kids are safe.

A great example of this targeted technology can be found with Xiaomi's new Mi Bunny smartwatch, which the company calls a "Baby Bodyguard". Available for 299 Yuan (~$45 USD), the Mi Bunny will allow kids to call their parents whenever they need. Because this is such a specific-use device, kids are not going to be able to call anyone they want; instead, the watch can be preprogrammed with up to 12 phone numbers. With this device, parents can feel a bit of relief in knowing that they don't need to purchase another cellular plan to use it; Xiaomi provides flat rates of 0.1 Yuan ($0.02 USD) per minute of talktime, or per megabyte used.

There are a couple of features that really helps the Mi Bunny give parents some peace of mind. For starters, the watch will receive notifications whenever a child walks into a secure zone, such as the home, and second, in the event of an emergency, the child can hit a panic button that will immediately send the parents location data, while sounding on alarm through the target smartphone to make sure it's not easily missed.

Fortunately, the Mi Bunny is one of the rarer smartwatches that can last for almost a week, with its 300mAh gel polymer battery able to sustain its life for 6 days.

At the moment, and as you've probably guessed, the Mi Bunny is not available outside of Asia. With the popularity of such smartwatches there, though, we could very well see them become more popular on these shores. And there's really no reason to believe that they shouldn't be: smartwatches like these can provide peace of mind, for both the parent, and the kids. That alone would be well worth the cost of the device.