Wearable watch-phone doubles as location device

PITTSBURGH — Anna Wigley thinks her third-grader, Naomi, is too young for a cell phone but she still wants to be able to get a hold of her daughter.

They were interested in helping Channel 11 test out a new product from AT&T called FiLIP.

It is a wearable watch-phone that doubles as a location device.

"I'm interested to see how it works out and if it would be something I want," Anna told us as she programmed the device.

Only five numbers can be programmed for incoming and outgoing calls, a feature that got a thumbs up from the family.

"I'd call my mom after I got off the bus, and just to talk," said Naomi.

However, the family did not like the limited text messages.

"The texting feature is only good for sending a message to your child, they cannot text back," said Anna.

They also tested the phone’s GPS feature by allowing Naomi to walk to the neighbor’s house.

"I'd be more at ease to just let her walk over and I can watch on the map where she is.  Make sure she's where she needs to be," said her mother.

But they found the device’s GPS locator to be unreliable.

"It actually showed her up to a mile away from where she was," said Anna

AT&T told us if GPS, Wi-Fi and cellular positioning are not available “the device defaults to the next available means of location, in a similar way to a SmartPhone,” and that they are working on a “fix for this particular issue.”

This product appears to be geared for pre-teens and Anna said she liked that FiLIP had limited data that kept her daughter off the internet and away from social media.

FiLIP costs $199 and there is a $10 monthly service fee.

WPXI