There were initial rumours flying around that Fitbit was toying with the idea of a kids smartwatch before we knew about the Ace. It doesn't have GPS or any form of location tracking tech at all, which has been a cause of concern when a report last year raised concerns about the hacking risk of kids smartwatches. Hitting targets unlock rewards and Fitbit badges while there's also support for call notifications if kids want to pair it to their own smartphone. The Ace, which is a spitting image of the Alta HR (sans heart rate sensor), keeps things basic by letting users track steps, activity minutes and sleep. "To really get the most out of the Ace, you need to be a certain level of literacy, to be able to comfortably read understand different messages."
"We wanted to make it very compelling, says Reidy. Fitbit told us it had its reasons for not building this for anyone under 8 years old. There are a bunch of fitness trackers for kids already available, but many including the Garmin Vivofit Jr 2 and the X-Doria Kidfit aim to cater for users as young as five. That's not to say in the future we wouldn't target other age groups, but we focused on this group because we feel we have compelling offering for this group." "With the Ace, we know at that age they are looking for something that's more like an adult tracker.
"There's a lot of different ways we could have gone about it," Helen Reidy, Fitbit's EMEA product marketing manager told us. Fitbit may be aiming its first fitness tracker for children aged 8 and above, but it's not ruling out making an Ace equivalent for younger users in the future.
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