Adelaide smartwatch vendor MGM Wireless lands JB Hi-Fi trial

ASX-listed school communications vendor MGM Wireless has landed a deal to trial its Spacetalk children's smartwatches on JB Hi-Fi's online store.

The smartwatches allow children to make or receive calls over 3G from a closed list of contacts, which parents can manage from MGM's AllMyTribe application.

The devices come with GPS functionality to track the wearer's location and receive alerts if a child leaves a designated safe zone like their school or home.

Spacetalk devices are also equipped with an SOS button which sequentially calls a list of emergency contacts, and a step counter to track physical activity. MGM said customer data is hosted in Australia in "highly secure data centres" and is protected by Australian privacy and data security legistaltion.

MGM said it created the device when it identified a gap in the market for a communication tool between parents and their children with restricted access to the internet and social media.

The trial will take place over the next four weeks and if successful, MGM will develop a plan to rollout the devices across JB Hi-Fi's 193 brick-and-mortar retail stores.

MGM said its goal is to give parents the opportunity to get a hands-on trial with Spacetalk devices.

"We are honoured to have JB Hi-Fi – Australia's largest, and one of the world's leading consumer electronics retailers on-board to trial sales," said MGM chief executive Mark Fortunatow.

"We are working towards the day when parents will have the opportunity to try Spacetalk before they buy and have the confidence that they are purchasing from Australia's leading consumer electronics retailer."

MGM specialises in developing IoT devices for children and software for schools to communicate and manage student absentees. Its other products include student absence notifcations platform messageyou, absence analytics software Watchlists, school news and messaging app School Star, content management platform Outreach+ and student attendance management software RollMarker.

MGM said its products were used by more than 1100 schools and 1.6 million parents. The company's headquarters is located in Adelaide, and has a presence in Australia, New Zealand and the United States.