Garmin Jr.™

As a parent who's been using the Garmin Jr. app with my child's Garmin Bounce smartwatch for over a year now, I can confidently say it's been an absolute game-changer! Setting up kid profiles was a breeze, and the continued ease of managing them is fantastic. What I love most is how seamlessly the app integrates with the Bounce. My child adores the fun watch faces and the feeling of accomplishment when they complete their assigned chores and activity goals. The reward system we've set up through the app is a huge motivator, and it's wonderful to see them taking responsibility and staying active. The activity tracking is accurate and provides great insights into my child's daily movement. It's reassuring to know they're getting enough exercise, and the app makes it easy to monitor their progress over time. The safety features, like the ability to see their location (when enabled) and communicate with them, offer invaluable peace of mind. Even after a year of consistent use, the app remains intuitive and reliable. We've experienced no significant issues, and the occasional updates have only added helpful features and improvements. The Garmin Jr. app truly enhances the experience of owning a Garmin Bounce, transforming it from just a smartwatch into a valuable tool for encouraging responsibility, activity, and connection. Highly recommend it to any parent looking for a positive and engaging way to manage their child's smartwatch!

We bought the Garmin Bounce smart watch for my eight-year-old for Christmas. He loves it …it is easy to track him in the neighborhood when he’s on his bike, I can send him messages. He can only respond to me, my husband, and his grandma. I know that some parents don’t like the fact that you have to have the Garmin app and they just want their kids to be able to text them on a traditional network that will go to their text messages instead of a Garmin notification…this is probably where they will lose the most potential buyers. I wish there was a way to transition to a traditional network when I am ready for him to have more freedom so he can communicate with friends. I think this is good controlled entry level device for communicating . Kids can pick from 20 customizable pre written texts to send or they can record an audio message . You can turn it on school mode to minimize distractions. It automatically turns itself off if you text them while they are at school. The Garmin app is easy.

I bought these for my kids after hearing a mom tell how she uses the device for its alarms. This is a lifesaver for doing remote school with multiple children. The teachers often say ‘go run around and stretch and come back in 15 minutes’ and we were struggling to get our kids back at the right times. Now the kids can each set their own timers AND I can set specific alarms to go off at known class times. I love that this starts to build some self accountability and responsibility into my kids academic schedule. I can guide but they can have roles too. I have a third grader and kindergartener. The fitness tracking is a nice feature, but my kids often fuss about who has more active minutes or steps. But hey if it wasn’t this they’d be fighting about something else. Disappointment happens, right? My son recently had an injury and can’t get active minutes and he is mad that his sister is meeting her goal. It would be great if the goal of 60 minutes could be adjusted. The other thing I love is that it tracks their sleep patterns. My daughter gets up before me and this has helped me get a good idea of what time she is actually waking up and how much total sleep she is getting. Understanding what is happening while I’m asleep is supporting me in developing strategies to address her getting sufficient rest. My husband and I also just bought Garmin Vivosmart devices so that the whole family can work on fitness together. Who knew remote learning would lead us to focusing on active time?