[schneems]

I want a kids app where a parent can send a task to the watch and have it display, possibly with an occasional alarm or vibration. Ideally with a picture and text. Bonus points for a function to read the task out loud (for kids who cannot read yet).

Basically Brilli but for a watch.

Kids generally want to follow directions but get distracted and forget what they are working on. I want an easy and consistent place for them to check “oh right, I was packing working on X when I got distracted”.

It might sound dystopian for people without kids but as a parent the fewer times I have to remind/check-in on an individual task the less frustrated I am and more patience I have. It makes me realize that when my mom complained “I’ve told you to unpack your backpack 10 times” they probably weren’t exaggerating and I only remembered the last one.

I’m possibly interested/able to write my own apps, I made an android app and I’m relatively fluent in a few languages. I would be most productive in Rust.

[mikepurvis]

From an implementation point of view, I'm not sure how this could work unless the new Pebble either has wifi (not out of the question) or there's a mechanism to pair multiple of them to a single phone and clearly mark out which are kid-devices vs primary.

As a parent, I totally get you though. Ultimately kids should learn to pay attention and stay on task without the crutch of a digital nag, but it sure would be useful to be able to send them reminders or even do something like have their devices hooked up to a shared family calendar, so they could get certain periodic reminders automatically ("it's Friday morning, don't forget your toonie for popcorn day at school!")

[illwrks]

I wonder is Apples AirTag networks could be utilised to send data, that would remove any need to have a data/wifi connection and it would also have an inbuilt way to keep tabs on a young child. And for most parents a short message is all that’s needed to send “Running 5 mins late, see you soon” etc.

[mikepurvis]

That's a fascinating thought, since obviously it is bidirectional + there's already the ability to send a small custom payload when an object is marked lost.

If I was Apple I'd be extremely cautious about opening that up, though. Not everyone would be excited about the idea of their data plans and bluetooth bandwidth being used up to enable a free texting plan for every kid within twenty meters.

Think of how that would play out at elementary schools, with hundreds of students piggy backing off a handful of teachers' iPhones.

[illwrks]

In my mind I was thinking it would be a more locked down parent/child relationship. So a parent could send a simple message to a child and child to then have predefined responses, ok/yes/no or perhaps a simple character input limit, whatever fits in the dead space of an AirTag message.

Then by it's nature it would be no more of an issue than a standard airtag ping.

I guess longer term you might have LoRa/meshtastic type networks that would make more sense.

[summermusic]

> From an implementation point of view, I'm not sure how this could work

This could probably be a plugin for Cobble, the new Pebble companion app, which is capable of performing bridge tasks (like checking the weather or a to-do list).