Best Smartwatches for Kids of 2026

A four-year-old doesn't need a step counter, and the DX4 is the pick that admits it. It is a camera, a clock, and a games console for a wrist: two cameras for photos and video, 50 built-in clock faces, a music composer, and reaction and challenge games that get a kid moving rather than sitting still. For the age group that wants to copy an older sibling, this is the version built at their level.

What we like best is that there is nothing to set up. No app, no account, no pairing, no SIM — charge it with the included micro-USB cable and hand it over. It also switches between English, Spanish, and French, which is a genuinely useful detail in a bilingual house. Shake it and it says the time out loud, which turns time-telling practice into something a five-year-old will repeat fifty times without being asked.

Two limits are worth knowing before you buy. It is splash-proof rather than waterproof, so it comes off for the pool and the bath — this is not a watch that swims. And the 90-day warranty is the shortest of anything we recommend here, so treat the first three months as your window for finding problems.

For a young kid, none of that counts against it much, because the thing that matters at six is whether they can operate it alone, and they can. Just don't hand it to a nine-year-old with an older sibling's fitness watch in the house; they will want the BIGGERFIVE instead.

This is the only watch here that makes an actual phone call. Put the included SIM in and it handles 4G voice and video calls, sends messages, and reports location through GPS plus GLONASS, BeiDou, and Galileo, with a geofence that alerts you when your kid crosses a boundary you drew on a map.

The parental controls go further than anything else in this group: approved contacts only, unknown numbers blocked, the dial pad disabled, and a class mode that locks the watch down during school hours. There is an SOS button that calls preset contacts, a camera, and voice tools for translation and image recognition. IP68 waterproofing means a rainstorm isn't the end of it.

It is also the most expensive watch here by a wide margin, and the one that demands the most patience. A phone watch is only as good as its link to the app, and that connection is the part to prove in the first week while returns are still simple. The 4.0 rating is the lowest of our picks, and it is honest about the trade: this is a complicated device, and complicated devices need setup time and a tolerant adult.

Buy it for one specific job — a ten-year-old walking to school alone, a kid with a bus ride and no phone — and nothing else here comes close. Note the US-only coverage before you order, and budget for the service plan behind that SIM, because this is the one pick that keeps costing after you buy it.

At 1.85 inches, this is the biggest screen of the watches we recommend, and the extra glass does real work: a kid can read a message on it, and the touch targets are big enough that small thumbs actually hit them. The case is aluminum, rated IP68 to 1.5 meters, with drop protection claimed to the same distance — the combination that lets a watch survive a pool session and a playground.

The part we like most is that it stands alone. Heart rate, blood oxygen, stress, sleep, steps, and more than 100 sport modes run without a phone, and the app is there for extra watch faces and call notifications rather than as a requirement. For a kid who wants to feel like they are training for something, that is the right trade — the data is theirs, on their wrist, without asking for a parent's phone.

What you take on: 76 grams is a lot of watch on a small wrist, and this one hasn't built the track record of the bigger sellers here, so treat the first month as the real test. The maker claims a week per charge; count on charging more often once the games and sport modes get used.

If you want to spend as little as possible on something that still feels like a real gadget, this is the one. Twenty-six puzzle games, a 300,000-pixel camera with the silly sticker effects kids actually use, 13 alarms, 104 learning cards, and 10 audiobooks all live on the watch, with no SIM, no app, and no pairing. Unbox it, charge it, strap it on.

The 13 alarms sound like overkill until you are using them for a morning routine, and the learning cards give it a second life that isn't a screen of games. The 1.54-inch display is readable at 320 by 240, the 500 mAh battery is claimed at three to seven days depending on use, and the round case looks less like a toy than the price suggests.

What the price buys is a toy-grade watch, and that is the honest way to think about it. The rubber band and the case are the parts that will show wear first, and it is a dry-land device — bath, pool, and dish duty are all off the table. That is a fair trade for a first watch, and a cheap watch is also the one you don't mind losing on a playground.

Thirty-nine games is the headline, and it isn't marketing inflation: this is the games-first watch of the group, with a selfie camera, a music player you can load your own tracks onto, a voice recorder, and a flashlight. The 1.54-inch touchscreen is the size most of these watches use, and the silicone band is the material you want on something worn all day.

It also ships with a spare woven band and a glass screen protector in the box, which is more thoughtful than most of the competition. The second band matters more than it sounds — the woven strap pulls tight on a small wrist in a way the silicone one doesn't.

What we think of it comes down to expectations. The charging port is the failure to watch for, since a watch that stops taking a charge is the one thing you cannot fix at home, so buy it somewhere with an easy return and test the charger in the first week. Keep it out of the water entirely; there is no water resistance here at all.