23 Jul 2016

A smartphone for children

From This Way Up, 1:35 pm on 23 July 2016
The Octopus Smartwatch

The Octopus Smartwatch Photo: Supplied

Wake up, get dressed, eat breakfast, brush teeth, brush hair, feed the chickens, pack a bag, put shoes on, find a coat and walk to school; and it's still only 8:30am!

Teaching kids to manage themselves and develope a routine can be a real challenge. Sam Hickmann has 2 children aged 4 and 12 and he was finding it tough to juggle work and parenting. His answer? A brightly coloured smartwatch called the Octopus that's targeted at children and designed to prompt and nag them into doing what they should.

The Kickstarter campaign to build the Octopus watch has just closed and it's raised more than a million dollars, about $930,000 more than the original goal.