Fitbit for kids: Top kids fitness trackers to keep children active

We’re living in an age where everyone is glued to their technology, adults to the phones and the younger generation to their video game consoles. This new lifestyle where being physically active is slowly turning into a taboo doesn’t go well with the health standards.

It is important for the children to understand the value coming from being physically active and fit. This can be easily acquired by exercising and practicing sports. Outdoor gaming is what’s best for the kids not video gaming, and fitness trackers are here to help encourage kids to do just that. Similarly to activity tracking wearable devices for the adults, these Fitbit for kids technology options will guide them to getting back into shape.

This line of wearable’s for kids promotes kid fitness and healthy habits by maintaining activity reports such as steps, distance, and calorie burn, displays reminders to push the juniors toward getting their eyes off the screens and start moving, and allows children to challenge each other in sports competitions. Features are shared with the line of smartwatches for kids, but in this case, parents have less access to violating their child’s privacy.

As activity tracking wristbands lack a large display, full activity reports are shown when the device pairs with an Android or an iOS smartphone. Each of the manufacturers, along with the wristband, distributes a fitness application for mobile of their own to display fitness and health records.

Encouraging your child to start becoming active shouldn’t be much of a challenge. Afterall, kids are the best explorers out there and below are listed the best activity tracking wristbands for kids.

Fitbit Ace 2

Ace 2 is the ultimate Fitbit for kids activity band. Actually, it is a Fitbit product.

 Fitbit Ace

After over than ten years of producing activity tracking wristbands for the adults did Fitbit turn their eyes to the younger generations. Despite that, now kids have a Fitbit of their own, and it is going places. Fitbit Ace is the first official Fitbit for kids activity tracker. It is made for the children of age eight and up and comes in Power Purple and Electric Blue colors and size-adjustable straps to fit better on tiny wrists.

Kid-friendly Fitbit Ace is resistant to water and can be worn when showering, but it isn’t made to be a swimming kid’s wearable. It sports a tap-enabled OLED display for the wearer kid to see their progress at a real-time and also view reminders when is about time to start moving around. Activity stats that involve counting of steps, sleep monitoring, and minutes of activity are shown on the easy-to-read screen of the gadget. The national public health institute of the United States, CDC, recommends that children should receive at least 60 minutes of physical activity each day. Fitbit Ace counts every minute of action and motivates children to reach this goal by awarding badges, celebration messages, and displaying alert reminders.

This wearable connects to Android and iPhone phones via the Fitbit app. The children can access the app through kid view mode to view fitness stats of last 30 days or enter into competitions with other family members. The kid view mode can be turned on and off via the parent Fitbit app which has parent-control features that allow a parent to see who their child connects with and what do they see.

Garmin Vivofit Jr 2

Garmin has had the best fitness tracker for kids for some time now, the Garmin Vivofit Jr. The second generation is even better. It sports Disney, Star Wars, and Marvel-themed bands and designs featuring children’s favorite characters like Minnie Mouse, BB-8, and Captain America. When wearing the Garmin Vivofit Jr 2, the force is with the kids.

With its 50 meters of water resistance, this smart wristband for kids beats some of the best water resistant smartwatches and activity trackers for adults. The wristwear allows the kids to enter into toe-to-toe direct competition with nearby friends and also with themselves. Who the kid connects with is monitored and controlled by a parent via the Fitbit Jr app through a mobile phone. The children can compete with any family member that has a Garmin activity tracking device, not necessarily only against other kids.

The Vivofit Junior 2 as well encourages kids via alerts and virtual rewards to reach a minimum of one hour of activity, counts steps and sleep, and can be also used for a parent to turn the device into a scheduler for their kid. It can be made to send alerts for the kids to go to bed, brush their teeth, and more. The younger ones will be experiencing a Star Wars story and go along BB-8 and pilot Zepha in an adventure to the planet Jakku. The challenges put upon kids via these Star Wars stories will make sure that your kid passes the minimum of recommended physical activity and be awarded coins after each completed daily goal.

Unicef Kid Power Band

No other organization can claim to have changed as many lives of the children for better as Unicef fund has. With the Unicef Kid Power Band wristband, kids have the force with them to have a healthier style of living for themselves and also deliver lifesaving nutrition to severely malnourished children in developing and underdeveloped countries. The way it works is that everytime the kids move and become active they earn packets of therapeutic food called RUTF which are later delivered to the children living in extreme poverty conditions.

This smart wristband by UNICEF doesn’t only motivate the kids to get into shape, but it also makes them part of a change for the better for the children all around the globe. It is a “Kids help kids” wearable device. The wristwear count steps and charts activity logs on the screen, it allows progress comparison with friends and family and even competition amongst them. There are activity milestones for the children to reach and when they are unlocked, packets of therapeutic food are released as well. $10 of each band purchase priced at $39.99 goes for therapeutic food as well.

The tracker is waterproof and has a battery life of up to a week. Activity reports and rewards can be accessed by pairing the device with a mobile phone via the Kid Power Band app. This Unicef activity tracker for kids comes in blue, orange, and two Star Wars edition in black and green.

X-Doria Kidfit

X-Doria, a company that designs and manufactures smartphone accessories has turned eyes on producing wearable for kids. This smart bracelet for the children works a bit different from other gadgets for kids to track activity. Rather than counting the steps and estimating calorie burn throughout active periods of times, it measures fitness via a 0-100 scale of points. When syncing to a mobile phone or a tablet computer, it can display better activity charts, but the developers behind this device believe that the 100-point scale is more comfortable for the kids to understand.

The one-size-fits-all X Doria kids connected wristband is splash proof and has a battery life of up to a week. It allows a parent to set custom activity challenges for their baby and can also be used as a sleep monitor for kids. It is suitable for kids of age five to thirteen-year-old and comes in black, pink, yellow, and blue colors.

Nabi Compete

The Nabi Compete fitness tracker for kids is designed to engage families and kids in particular into turning times of activity into fun times. As the name of this wearable suggests, it is meant to be a smart bracelet that makes kids compete against each other. And that’s exactly what it actually does. Unlike other trackers, this device is not standalone, and for it to be entertaining, connection with a mobile phone is a must.

The wearable features an accelerometer, multi-color LED flash that tells the status of the device, and a low-battery Bluetooth sensor to pair it with a phone that’s connected to the Internet. There’s a replaceable battery that will last more than three months and a certification for being resistant to water. Here’s where the technical specs of the Nabi wearable for kids end but not the fun.

Nabi Compete offers children the opportunity of exercising and playing video games at the same time. It counts steps and estimates calorie burn throughout different activities and reports this information to the mobile app. Kids and parents can access these reports and compete against one another by selecting competitors through a phone. There are as well as marathons to undertake. By being active and completing fitness challenges, the kids will be unlocking different virtual pets and take care of them by feeding and petting them. The Compete wristband comes in pink and red colors and in two distinctive styles called Hot Wheels and Barbie.

Sqord activity band for kids

Sqord aims to bring an online world full of friends, challenges, characters, points, and rewards that motivate real-life activity and build lifelong healthy habits. This gadget is similar in design and features to Nabi Compete. It is waterproof and is an activity tracker kids can take to swim with and has an extended battery life of up to 9 months. The whole magic with this kid’s fitness tracker happens on a smartphone device when it connects to the Sqord pod via Bluetooth.

Via the Sqord app kids can design their own character that will take them to the Sqord world where fitness and entertainment blend together. There, they can see how much active they have been via charted reports that convert fitness into points and gain awarding badges as their progress goes forward. There’s also room for the younger ones to challenge their friends or other family members and compete.

This device is essentially made to be kid-proof. Thus, it is capable of resisting shock, scratches, water and still function properly. Unless someone hammers it out, it’ll not be breaking anytime soon. Parents can also access their child’s activity reports and set their own custom rewards upon completing particular milestones and monitor who’s befriending their baby. Sqord is made for the children of age eight and up and it comes in green, blue, white, black, orange, pink, and red styles.

iBitz activity tracker

iBitz is a kids fitness tracker designed by the manufacturer of pedometers, GeoPalz. It is a cheap activity tracker for kids that clips to clothes and it is the only device of its kind that will award kids with real-world toys for being active. Simply by being active and earning points, the children can convert these points into frisbees, basketball and soccer balls, hacky sacks, iTunes gift cards and many more. The pedometer interacts with the kids via the iBitz Kids app for iPhone, and there’s where almost everything happens.

With iBitz gadget clipped to their shirt or show and the mobile app downloaded to their phone, the kids can design their own representative character, jump to their spaceship and go on a voyage to the outer space. The spacecraft is powered by the steps, and the more children walk, the farther it goes. There are awards awaiting after each accomplished milestone, both in the form of virtual badges and a collection of points that can be converted into physical goods.

A parent can further adjust rewards by adding additional real-life rewards when a particular distance is achieved by walking. There’s also room for setting custom challenges, such as “a trip to the zoo with mom.” These custom areas of the iBitz world can be protected via a password.

iBitz comes in nine different colors and is suitable for the children of age four and above. It is water resistant and stores activity records of up to an entire month. There’s also an iBitz edition for adults called Unity for the family to exercise and explore the iBitz world together.

Fitbit Zip

Fitbit Zip is another tracker that clips to clothes. But unlike most others, it has a tap-enabled display for the kids to view their progress at any given time. This makes syncing to mobile phone an option and not a necessity. If you don’t want your child to be having a smartphone on their hand but you do want him or her to be motivated into being active, then the Fitbit Zip might just be the fitness tracker you were looking around for.

This Fitbit wireless tracker is suitable for the children as well as pairs to mobile phones via the Fitbit application where distance, speed, and an estimated burn of calories is shown. There is also support for you to add particular workouts and foods that your child had. Motivational features include friend-to-friend direct challenges and awarding badges when progress is made.

Fitbit Zip comes in five different color styles and is designed to stick invisible to clothes. It has water resistance capabilities, and its battery will last for up to six long months.

Neutab kids activity tracker

The waterproof Neutab Da’Force activity tracker for kids is an alternative fitness that costs less (only $10) and packages almost every feature its competing gadgets priced at five or six times more have. It is a basic pedometer that is equipped with an LED light to display the status and has its advanced supports released only when paired with a phone.

This kids activity tracker by Neutab is made for the children of age four and up. The app that syncs data from the wearable to your phone allows you to enter the age of your child and will it then encourage your younger one to reach a daily goal of steps. Neutab recommends for the kids of age six to twelve to start with 9,000 steps a day. Motivation to achieve this goal is supplied by the in-app kid’s world of Neutab.

The Da’Force world consists of a map where games can be unlocked, and the way to do that is by increasing your physical activity. Games are designed to be kid-friendly, and it will undoubtedly be quite a motivation for them to get into moving around. Besides gaming, the app also displays charts of daily step count on the dashboard panel.

Garmin Vivofit Jr

Despite being updated with a second generation, the Garmin Vivofit Junior smart bracelet has been staying at the top as the best kids fitness tracking wearable for quite a long time. It still remains to be one of the best available options. It shares every activity tracking and child motivating and entertaining feature found on the Vivofit Junior 2, but it has a lower screen resolution. A lower tap-display is actually the only thing that sets these two wearable devices apart. Vivofit Jr. has a display with a resolution of 64 x 64 pixels while the one on the upgraded edition has it at 88 x 88 pixels. The other different thing these two gadgets have is the price. The first Junior tracker costs $60 while the other will cost $10 more.