KDDI kid-friendly phones: GPS tracking and emergency services

It shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone that cell phone users are getting younger and younger these days, but these phones coming out this month from KDDI’s AU phone service are made with kids in mind. The A5520SA Series are “junior phones” that certainly look like they’re made for kids, but is this a market that needs its own phones? Young kids may be fairly ambivalent about having their own phones, but they’re more for the parents than the kids anyway.

Until recently, kids that did have phones usually got one of their parent’s old ones, but phones like that can be complicated and/or provide features that parents don’t want their kids to have. One of our good friends actually had one of her son’s ten-year-old friends “accidentally” connect to an erotic chat service, forget to turn it off, and rack up a nice $300 bill! These phones all prevent this kind of access and have settings to restrict talk-time and emails.

For these phones from KDDI, however, it’s all about letting parents worry less. They’re not only easy to use for kids, but also include GPS for parents who want to keep tabs on little Hiroshi-kun after school via their own phones. There’s also a “buzzer” button that kids can push if they get into trouble, and that will make a huge noise as well as activate the GPS and send an email to the parents with the coordinates. Because it also sends a GPS email to the parents when the phone is turned off, the battery is actually locked to the phone to make sure it always has power.

These all sound like great features, but why just for kids? Couldn’t we all benefit from some of these features, particularly the emergency ones? It remains to be seen whether phones like this are going to be standard issue for Japanese kids, but we can think of a lot of adults who would prefer to have basic, easy phones with emergency functions.

Pictures via KDDI