alt Hacker NewsStop using your phone less in front of your kids.
Start using your ring/watch/whatever_else more in front of your kids.
Honestly, it isn't about what you use (that is just hype). You can read the paper all day if you want. I grew up with a father who was listening to radio and watching TV all the time (to be fair: he was disabled, including legally blind). It isn't about using your phone less in front of your kids. It is about being there for your kids when they need you; showing genuine interest in your kids; interacting with them. Right now, as I am writing this to you, my kids are watching Peppa Pig before bedtime. Instead of writing this, I could sit next to them and watch an episode with them.
As for cycling, with a ring you'd have to move your hand towards you or not, but it isn't much different compared to a watch, except perhaps when you'd wear a sweater over your watch.
It is also very typical that in-ear buds are expensive, small, yet hard to repair because the battery isn't user replaceable. And guess what, exactly the same for this device.
Apart from the yet another device with microphone (24/7 on, I suppose) and Bluetooth (the wireless spaghetti protocol) and it not being user serviceable the device costs 100 USD. For such a price, I expect it to last longer than two years. I mean, I'm sick of devices lasting only a few years. I wouldn't need yet another one.
TL;DR hard pass, do better.
Replies
> Apart from the yet another device with microphone (24/7 on, I suppose) and Bluetooth
Considering the tiny non-rechargeable battery I can guarantee it's not on 24/7 because then it would literally last a day :)
Unlike a smartphone which often does listen for a wake word all day without much impact on battery life, this really couldn't.
The remarks in this comment can only come from a gross misunderstanding of what many people mean when they talk about avoiding use of their phones around their kids. Almost every sentence reveals a very me-focused outlook.
> It isn't about using your phone less in front of your kids. It is about being there for your kids when they need you
That's a very narrow conception if the problem—it isn't solely about being "there" for them or trying to get control over (and maintain control over) one's own addictions. The main thing that people have an issue with when they talk about kids and phone use (and TV for that matter) is addiction observed in the kids themselves. It's absolutely about using one's own phone less while they're around as a means of quashing overexposure.
You can show as much genuine interest in them as you want, and it doesn't change anything, because whether the kids feel like the parent is "there for them" not the problem that a parent is is already genuinely interested in them is concerned about and trying to address.
> As for cycling, with a ring you'd have to move your hand towards you or not, but it isn't much different compared to a watch, except perhaps when you'd wear a sweater over your watch.
"Not much" except that the fingers that are attached to the hand that's attached to the wrist where you're wearing your watch certainly aren't capable of reaching back to press a button on said watch.
> Apart from the yet another device with microphone (24/7 on, I suppose)
The folks in this thread are really committed to just plucking things out of thin air and acting on foregone conclusions, huh?
> Instead of writing this, I could sit next to them and watch an episode with them.
And as any study into the effects of parental attention and shared experience will show that kind of behavior would be beneficial to their overall long-term mental health. Requiring them to make themselves heard and to actively “disturb you“ is a very high barrier for children to break through (even if you don’t consider it a disturbance). Children need active mirroring and external guidance when it comes to their needs in order to develop a healthy sense for them. They are “left alone“ as soon as you leave the shared emotional space.