Can you entice kids away from screens with a screen? A new kid-friendly phone called Freckle is betting on it. The phone resembles a handheld gaming device (think Tamagotchi or Game Boy) but works like a cell — that is if your cell didn’t have social media or web access and instead had a cute little orange friend to accompany you on adventures in your neighborhood.
“Kids have lost the unsupervised outdoor time that used to be a normal part of growing up,” founder and CEO Sam Terris said in a statement to Nice News. “It may sound odd to think that a phone could be the answer to it. But we think the right one can be — if, like Freckle, it’s built to send a kid outside instead of keeping them inside and online.”
The $199 device, which launched today and is now available for pre-order, aims to encourage youngsters aged 7-13 to go on outdoor “quests” that can be selected or written by their parents to learn about their surroundings and get some independence.
They can also access a camera, music, maps of the places they go often, and a walkie-talkie feature they can use with friends.
At the same time, the unique operating system is moldable, so parents can shape their kids’ experience on the phone via a companion app and approve who they call and message, among other parental safety features. There’s no open web browser, app store, or social media, including YouTube.
“It’s a genuinely hard time to be a kid, perhaps an even harder time to parent one,” Terris said. Freckle is intended to bring children back to basics while addressing the tightrope moms and dads are walking between eschewing tech and setting their little ones up for success in a modern world.
The consumer hardware startup behind the phone is backed by Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian and his tech venture capital firm, Seven Seven Six.
“As a father who also happens to be at the forefront of tech, I wanted a phone for my child that was both cutting-edge and also enabling more connection to the world outside their phone. Kids today have almost no freedom in the real world and unlimited freedom in the digital one,” 43-year-old Ohanian, who has two kids with wife Serena Williams, said in a press release.
“We’ve got that backwards,” he continued. “What first attracted me to Freckle is that Sam built the opposite: a phone that gives kids real freedom outside, and real boundaries online. That’s the trade every parent actually wants.”
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