Adding a functional miniature camera wouldn’t do the Apple Watch any favours when it comes to battery life, so maybe Takara Tomy has an opportunity to swoop in and snatch away a few potential customers with its own smartwatch that’s targeted at kids. The $US70 price tag alone makes this an easier sell to parents with kids demanding a smartwatch.
To keep the price tag down and the battery life up, Takara Tomy’s Play Watch doesn’t actually communicate with a smartphone. There’s no notifications, no voice searching, and no browsing the web. But it does play games, has multiple watch faces to choose from, a 1.41-inch touchscreen display, and a built-in camera. Images are limited in resolution, and video is capped at 320×240, but that’s OK because it can means you can capture a six-minute clip to the Play Watch’s limited 128MB of onboard storage.
The watch even has a voice recorder, and can be tethered to a USB port for charging or offloading multimedia. The selection of strap colours might be limited compared to Apple’s offering, and few kids will probably care that there isn’t an obscenely priced solid gold option either. [Tomy via Fareastgizmos]