iMoo Watch Phone Z1 review: Unleash your helicopter parenting

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Pros

Easy to use
Calls and video calls work quite well

Cons

Chunky, heavy design
Not a lot to keep kids engaged
No real health or fitness usability

The iMoo Watch Phone Z1 is a “smart” watch designed for pre-smartphone children. It offers peace of mind for parents, giving them a virtual tether to their kids.

I say pre-smartphone because once your child has a smartphone, there’s not really much here for them to do or take advantage of. As a smartwatch, it’s actually not overly smart, offering little more than GPS tracking and video calling, both of which are better served by a smartphone.

It has enough to keep younger children entertained, but it lacks features that will keep your child interested as they get older.

The iMoo stretched out on a concrete table

iMoo Watch Phone Z1 review: Design

The iMoo Watch Phone Z1 is fairly chunky for a kid’s smartwatch. The watch has a similar rounded square screen like an Apple Watch, but is significantly thicker than Apple’s design.

Weighing in at 51 grams, it’s almost double the weight of the Withings ScanWatch Light, and a full 12 grams heavier than the 45 mm Apple Watch Series 9 with GPS.

This is actually quite surprising. Apple and WIthings both use metal in their designs, whereas the iMoo is plastic everywhere. That indicates that the internals of the iMoo are probably not really optimised from a design perspective.

There are no advanced heart rate sensor or accelerometers inside either.

The iMoo Z1 doesn’t have any buttons for controlling the watch. There is a power button on the bottom, but once you turn it on, you won’t touch it again.

That means the 33 mm touchscreen is the only interface. This is fine because the watch is designed to be used by younger kids.

The watch is rated IPX8 for water resistance (but not dust), and needs a Nano SIM card to work.

Camera

One of the key hardware differences between the iMoo and any other smartwatch is the small, 2 megapixel resolution camera above the screen.

The camera lets your kid take photos, as well as lets you make video calls via the iMoo app.

As you can imagine, the quality can’t quite compete with the likes of a dedicated smartphone call, but it’s surprisingly robust. Audio comes through reasonably clear, and the video quality is good enough to make out a person’s details without any concerns.

Kids can also use the camera to take selfies. It’s an awkward device to frame a good photo, but it is definitely good enough to keep kids entertained.

Safety features

Let’s be honest: The whole reason you would even consider a watch like this is for peace of mind for when you are separated from your child. You want to be able to check their location and call them, without giving them a smartphone.

Despite having its own SIM card, parents can lock down the connectivity options of the watch. You can set it so that kids can only make and receive calls or messages from people in their address book, which you can control in the iMoo app.

You can also set the watch to class mode when they are at school, which closes off the connectivity but still lets you check their location.

A close up look at the main watch component.

iMoo Watch Phone Z1 review: Performance

If you strip back everything to the key goals of this watch — that is, to track your child’s location and be able to call or message them — then the iMoo Z1 does everything quite well.

Tracking your child is easy from the iMoo app. The Locate tab at the bottom of the app screen will let you find the watch’s location pretty quickly.

You also get a map view of your child’s location during a video call.

When it comes to communication, things are supposed to be just as easy, though I had a few challenges while testing.

There is a mode that restricts communication from anyone not in the watch’s address book. Yet, despite the fact my phone was definitely in the contact list, my phone calls wouldn’t go through. In the end, I had to remove that restriction to get connected for a voice call.

Video calls, on the other hand, went through with no issues at all. I could call the watch, and my daughter could call me as well.

I also appreciated the ability to receive notification of your child’s departure or arrival home, from the watch connecting to your Wi-Fi network, within certain hours.

Beyond the ability to call, message and track your child via the watch, there’s not a huge amount to get excited by here. The watch tracks steps, you can set an alarm or a stopwatch, and there’s a simple puzzle game on there.

But that’s about it. It’s not really a smartwatch as you might expect, nor is it a fitness tracker. There’s no sleep tracking like a Garmin Vivofit Jr, and it doesn’t promote physical activity like that device does either.

That lack of features is good for battery life, though. You’ll get a couple of days at least between charges, though because there’s no reason to wear it at night, you’ll probably end up popping it on the charger nightly anyway.

iMoo Watch Phone Z1 review: Verdict

This may be pitched as a kid’s smartwatch, but it’s actually a product for parents. The key selling point is being able to track the location of your kids wherever they are, so long as they are wearing the iMoo Z1.

Sure, being able to make video calls and send messages is good too, but it’s the location tracker that really sells this to parents.

Kids will find the camera and message function interesting for a little while, but there’s not really enough here to keep them engaged long-term.

And therein lies the real problem. If the child isn’t engaged, they won’t wear the watch. They’ll forget it, or take it off and lose it because it doesn’t offer enough enjoyment for them.

And that’s where the iMoo Z1 is perhaps the most disappointing. Kids wearables like the Garmin Vivofit Jr offer gamification of fitness to try to keep kids wearing the device. Sure, you don’t get the same location tracking, but you also don’t have the ongoing annual expense of another SIM card.