Amazon Kids arrives in Italy. It is a free service, works with the entire range of Echo devices and was created to create a safe environment for children aged 3 to 12.
And that’s the theory. But the practice? In short, how does Amazon Kids work and what is it for?
What is Amazon Kids?
Amazon Kids is, on balance, an interface dedicated to the little onesdesigned to work together with Alexa and to allow children to access content and skills dedicated to their age.
In short, we could define it as a sort of advanced Parental Control, which on the one hand allows interaction with one of the most popular voice assistants in the world and on the other helps parents to be more relaxed.
“Since its arrival in Italy in 2018, many users have used Alexa, today considered a real additional member of the family. Amazon Kids on Alexa is proposed as a service aimed at enriching the user experience of children and their parents. In fact, if used correctly, technology can play a positive role in the daily life of families and parents, who wish to be increasingly present in their children’s digital discovery path. Amazon provides the tools to help them do that, ”he said Gianmaria Visconti, Country Manager di Amazon Alexa Italia.
How does Amazon Kids work?
Don’t worry, Amazon Kids it is meant to be simple and intuitive.
First of all you will have to create and approve a child profile using the Alexa app, which we remind you to be available on the App Store, Google Play Store and Amazon App Store; it will also be possible set up a voice profile and Visual ID of the child when using an Echo Show.
At this point you will have to decide on which Echo devices to activate Amazon Kids. And no, you don’t necessarily need a dedicated device. You can choose either to have a product only for your children or to grant them access to the devices that you regularly use too.
After the setup you can get your hands on Parent Dashboard; from here it will be possible to customize the type of use that children make of Alexa, indicating which services and which skills can be used. This control panel also allows you to see the activities carried out by your children while with the Alexa app you can view and delete voice recordings.
But Amazon Kids is much more than that. The American giant worked hard to create answers adapted to the age of the little ones, therefore with clearer and simpler explanations. The service then prevents you from making purchases and allows you to set a usage limitso you can block the use of Echo devices while they are doing homework or when they should be sleeping.
Then there are filters for songs with explicit lyricsactive on Amazon Music, Apple Music and Spotify, video calls with contacts approved by parentssuch as friends or relatives, home communications, with announcements, calls, messaging, the Drop In function for use inside the home and playlists dedicated to children, available exclusively on Amazon Music.
Skills dedicated to children
Yes, the world of Alexa is full of skills dedicated to the little ones. There are Goodnight nursery rhymes developed in collaboration by Giunti Editore, Trivial Pursuit to play with the family, the sounds of Vocine Vocione taken from the book published by Il Castoro, the skill of DeAgostini school for learn the multiplication tables and the Clem Quiz by Clementoni to challenge Alexa, a friend or an adult.
In addition we find new educational and entertainment skills developed together Rainbow, such as 44 Gatti, the skill to play with the songs of Lampo, Milady, Pilou and Polpetta, e The Winx game to find out all about the magical world of the six fairies.
Browsing with the Zecchino d’oro instead it was born from the collaboration with Sony Music and helps to discover many curiosities related to the values, themes and characters of the Zecchino d’oro songs.
Safety first
As always, Amazon puts safety first. And this also applies to Amazon Kids, which it provides multiple levels of privacy protection, including parental consent to enable the Kids profile and therefore the use of microphone and video camera, or the ability to view and delete the voice recordings of their children.
Amazon Kids: when does it arrive in Italy?
At the moment there is still no certain date but the American giant has announced that Amazon Kids will arrive in Italy in the coming weeks.