China's Apple Watches for Kids

Brilliant dopamine-fueled marketing, and the darker long term implications of Little Genius Watches

Over the summer in China, I found one thing impossible to miss: the ubiquity of watches on children’s wrists. These are smartwatches, functionally Apple Watches, but in shiny metallic blues and pinks, and kids as young as five are swiping and chatting via voice messages on them.

My nieces and nephews play make-believe store at home and there is no physical money involved. They hold out their arms to me and the watch pops a QR code. I scan with Alipay or WeChat Pay, give them real money, and the game goes on.

The watch is also the screen you do not put down, because for children in China, their social life now lives on their wrists. The category leader is Little Genius, 小天才, branded as imoo outside China. I wanted to understand how these watches took the market, the long-term implications for kids, and the China context that allowed this mark…