Kindle Fire Kids Edition

fitzie79

I'm looking at purchasing a tablet for a 5 year old. I don't want this as a tablet for games - I want something that she will be able to use for specific educational apps and maybe in time to do some basic coding. I want to be able to ensure there is a good parent mode capability and that it is robust enough to take some drops as I'm sure it will get.

I came across the Kindle Fire Kids edition but it seems that it can only be delivered to the uk. I can use Parcel Motel but will the functionality be limited in Ireland?

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Fire-Kids-Display-Wi-Fi-Kid-Proof/dp/B00YYZFXHC/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1444820093&sr=8-2&keywords=kindle+fire+kids

Are there other superior alternatives available for approximately the same money?

bertie4evr

I'd appreciate an answer to this too. Would the free apps/videos/books be available in Ireland? It looks like a fantastic deal.

bertie4evr

I ended up contacting Amazon themselves. They said that everything would work without issue.

SmithySeller

Sorry to jump on this, but did you buy in the end? Are you happy with it?

Do you know if the 1 year subscription to Amazon FreeTime Unlimited works for people in Ireland?

Alternatively I'm thinking the new Leapfrog Epic. Something I can just hand over and forget about parental controls etc..

Thanks

bertie4evr

SmithySeller wrote: »

Sorry to jump on this, but did you buy in the end? Are you happy with it?

Do you know if the 1 year subscription to Amazon FreeTime Unlimited works for people in Ireland?

Alternatively I'm thinking the new Leapfrog Epic. Something I can just hand over and forget about parental controls etc..

Thanks

Yeah, I actually bought two. The subscription worked great, I just had to set my country in the Amazon settings to the UK. There's no disadvantages to doing that as far as I can see (You could always just set up another account solely for this if you'd rather not change the country on your main account).

The amount of free apps, books, TV shows and films make it hard to beat. Parental controls are simple too, you can just let them have at it and have no restrictions, or set up weekday hours and weekend hours. The whole set up from out of the box to having a kid's profile with restrictions set up was less than 10 minutes.

SmithySeller

Great thanks for the reply.

SmithySeller

Sorry one last quick question, do you know if I can simply copy movies to it like any normal Android device and play as normal?

Thanks again.

fitzie79

bertie4evr wrote: »

Yeah, I actually bought two. The subscription worked great, I just had to set my country in the Amazon settings to the UK. There's no disadvantages to doing that as far as I can see (You could always just set up another account solely for this if you'd rather not change the country on your main account).

The amount of free apps, books, TV shows and films make it hard to beat. Parental controls are simple too, you can just let them have at it and have no restrictions, or set up weekday hours and weekend hours. The whole set up from out of the box to having a kid's profile with restrictions set up was less than 10 minutes.

Thanks for this feedback. Great to know that it works here with no issues. Helped make up my mind for definite

ted1

Thinking of getting the kids one also.
How much is free time after a year ?
How restricted is the App Store ? Can you get the RTE Jr app?

bertie4evr

SmithySeller wrote: »

Sorry one last quick question, do you know if I can simply copy movies to it like any normal Android device and play as normal?

Thanks again.

You can, just copy over the files then switch into Parent mode, download a video player like VLC, and make it available to the child's profile.

ted1 wrote: »

Thinking of getting the kids one also.
How much is free time after a year ?
How restricted is the App Store ? Can you get the RTE Jr app?

After a year it's £4 a month I think.

You can switch into Parent mode and download any app you want, then mark is as available for the child. So you have access to any and all Android apps.

fitzie79

one other question - did you have it delivered to an irish address or use something like parcelmotel for the delivery?

ted1

bertie4evr wrote: »

You can, just copy over the files then switch into Parent mode, download a video player like VLC, and make it available to the child's profile.



After a year it's £4 a month I think.

You can switch into Parent mode and download any app you want, then mark is as available for the child. So you have access to any and all Android apps.

that's a bit steep, especially if I get 2. An extra €72 euro per tablet per year.

bertie4evr

fitzie79 wrote: »

one other question - did you have it delivered to an irish address or use something like parcelmotel for the delivery?

I used Parcel Motel.

SmithySeller

Having had a quick play it seems the Kids Videos are Geo-Locked. Everything else works fine when registered UK. Bertie, I assume its the same on yours?

fitzie79

SmithySeller wrote: »

Having had a quick play it seems the Kids Videos are Geo-Locked. Everything else works fine when registered UK. Bertie, I assume its the same on yours?

Mine arrived in ParcelMotel yesterday . Haven't unboxed it yet but must check this out.

I noticed on Friday they were reduced from £99 to £69 - was feeling a bit cheated but then saw that the delivery date was after Christmas - at that price they must have been flying out the door!

SmithySeller

fitzie79 wrote: »

I noticed on Friday they were reduced from £99 to £69 - was feeling a bit cheated but then saw that the delivery date was after Christmas - at that price they must have been flying out the door!

Sorry M8, same happened to me. I logged onto Amazon, went to Customer Service and hit the Live chat. Explained the situation and that it made financial sense to return it and re-order, and asked out straight would they refund the difference. They did without fuss, £39 in total, as I bought an SD Card also. I only did this on Friday, so give it a go!

Blowheads

Add your reply here.
Hi Smithy,
Ours arrived yesterday... BIG WARNING to anyone intending to leave this in the box until the big morning
1. Could not register the kids section, rang support, reset twice but no joy. However this morning the kids parts was enabled.
2. Great selection of books BUT now here is the problem now, no videos will play or the bits under characters section. Got back on to Amazon support, still waiting. They confirmed that the full content should be available to us here in ROI. The error message is "geo IP".

Smithy, did you find a way around this? Otherwise it's basically useless!! Waiting for Amazon to call me back since morning

So just a note to anyone getting it, best check it now before tears in 3 weeks

Note.. Just got email from amazon support, the subscription is only valid for us/UK so that means we're f@#$%&

corkcuu

bertie4evr wrote: »

Yeah, I actually bought two. The subscription worked great, I just had to set my country in the Amazon settings to the UK. There's no disadvantages to doing that as far as I can see (You could always just set up another account solely for this if you'd rather not change the country on your main account).

The amount of free apps, books, TV shows and films make it hard to beat. Parental controls are simple too, you can just let them have at it and have no restrictions, or set up weekday hours and weekend hours. The whole set up from out of the box to having a kid's profile with restrictions set up was less than 10 minutes.

Mind me asking, did you register it with a UK address or where did you put in the UK part? Trying to set it up earlier and I'm lost as to how to get the kids unlimited 1 year

Blowheads

It took me one day to get the kids subscription activated, when you do the initial wizard it shows the screen to enable it, but when clicking on it it just skips through.
you can try going in to settings, then there is something like device or profiles and you can activate it there

WRT to the apps etc, its the videos that will not plan, seems the books and apps are fine, but videos not.
to overcome the disappointment of clicking on a video and it not playing, I simply hid ALL videos associated to the kids accounts

Orson100

bertie4evr wrote: »

ended up contacting Amazon themselves. They said that everything would work without issueI.

Hi,

I've bought a Kindle Fire Kids Edition for my daughter for Xmas on foot of this reported confirmation from Amazon that "everything would work without issue" [including with regard to the Freetime content, I had naively and impulsively assumed it seems at this point].

After a bit of tricking around with regard to actually activating the kids freetime account (changing my registered address to my registered NI Parcel Motel address in NI) I can now see all the kids content that is available.

However, as reported previously, I cannot stream any of the video content - INVALID_GEO_IP.

So clearly everything is "not working without issue" and as I would prefer not to go to the bother of spoofing a UK IP address I was wondering if anybody else had come across this issue and perhaps has a simpler workaround.

To be honest I am not hopeful of a quick fix but consolation is that at least it's not Christmas Eve and I have an opportunity to fix this video content issue in advance!

TIA

Orson.

corkcuu

Orson100 wrote: »

Hi,

I've bought a Kindle Fire Kids Edition for my daughter for Xmas on foot of this reported confirmation from Amazon that "everything would work without issue" [including with regard to the Freetime content, I had naively and impulsively assumed it seems at this point].

After a bit of tricking around with regard to actually activating the kids freetime account (changing my registered address to my registered NI Parcel Motel address in NI) I can now see all the kids content that is available.

However, as reported previously, I cannot stream any of the video content - INVALID_GEO_IP.

So clearly everything is "not working without issue" and as I would prefer not to go to the bother of spoofing a UK IP address I was wondering if anybody else had come across this issue and perhaps has a simpler workaround.

To be honest I am not hopeful of a quick fix but consolation is that at least it's not Christmas Eve and I have an opportunity to fix this video content issue in advance!

TIA

Orson.

I've changed my address to UK earlier today but just checked and it's still not coming up under kids profile to register for kids unlimited....anything else u did that got it working?

Blowheads

Orson100 wrote:

After a bit of tricking around with regard to actually activating the kids freetime account (changing my registered address to my registered NI Parcel Motel address in NI) I can now see all the kids content that is available.

Sorry to burst that bubble, was chatting a nice guy from amazon, their status is that since they don't ship it to Ireland we shouldn't be buying it. As for the Geo content, it seems to be just the videos that don't work. I was annoyed as hell for a few days, but here is what I did. I downloaded Netflix app and shared it with kids profile so they have as much content as ever necessary. I hid every video in the kids section, what they don't see mightn't bother then so much, down load a few books and games because it seems to take ages to do that. Also we VERY quickly ran out of memory space so you'll need a micro SD card sooner rater than later.
They only way to spoof the IP is a VPN and even that's not nice as amazon os hides a lot of functionality so you'd need an app running as a service for VPN and that'll run to 7 or 8 a month so not worth it IMO. The VPN does work though but Netflix subscription would be better value considering all the content you can get for adults as well as kids

corkcuu

I don't mind not be able to access videos but can you access the books games etc? I've tried everything and can't get registered. I bought through argos in Ireland and seriously thinking of bringing back if I can't get the kids unlimited set up (even without videos I'd use it). Please can anyone help me figure this out

Orson100

@blowheads, thanks for the feedback and advice, I'll consider what I'll do on the Amazon video content front probably just hide and forget to be honest. She can stream her stuff from my DLNA server, what she doesn't know will not hurt her.

@corkcuu, I recall that after I had changed to a UK address, the "Fire for Kids Unlimited" section in my already-created profile for my daughter, was not appearing.

So I simply deleted the existing child profile and recreated it. The Fire for Kids section appeared automatically in the new profile, confirming 1 year subscription.

To remove the child profile: Settings | Profiles & Family Library | [Select Existing Child Profile] | Remove Child Profile from your Household.

HTH
Orson.

corkcuu

Orson100 wrote: »

@blowheads, thanks for the feedback and advice, I'll consider what I'll do on the Amazon video content front probably just hide and forget to be honest. She can stream her stuff from my DLNA server, what she doesn't know will not hurt her.

@corkcuu, I recall that after I had changed to a UK address, the "Fire for Kids Unlimited" section in my already-created profile for my daughter, was not appearing.

So I simply deleted the existing child profile and recreated it. The Fire for Kids section appeared automatically in the new profile, confirming 1 year subscription.

To remove the child profile: Settings | Profiles & Family Library | [Select Existing Child Profile] | Remove Child Profile from your Household.

HTH
Orson.

Thanks tried that but no luck still. Think I changed address the right way, on the fire I chose change country, it said it would take approx 30 mins to change so should have been completed this afternoon

corkcuu

Finally got the kids unlimited set up (minus the videos), the fire was automatically registering with amazon.com instead of co.uk so I need to migrate the device.
Now to figure out the best apps and books for a 7 year old boy!!!

Blowheads

Actually enabled the "web" app, it's got loads of videos there and not geo restricted

SmithySeller

Sorry folks, I haven't looked at this much since I got it, I must have a go tonight. With regard setting it up, I used my own Amazon account (that I bought it with), but quickly realised this has an Ireland address and the kids section wouldn't work. Did a reset and used a different amazon account with UK address and it works straight away. Yes, the videos are geo-locked. Somebody mentioned that you can hide this, from there I plan on installing You-Tube for Kids and letting them run with that.

@Blowheads would you mind expanding on what the 'web' app is? Cheers

Blowheads

SmithySeller wrote: »

Sorry folks, I haven't looked at this much since I got it, I must have a go tonight. With regard setting it up, I used my own Amazon account (that I bought it with), but quickly realised this has an Ireland address and the kids section wouldn't work. Did a reset and used a different amazon account with UK address and it works straight away. Yes, the videos are geo-locked. Somebody mentioned that you can hide this, from there I plan on installing You-Tube for Kids and letting them run with that.

@Blowheads would you mind expanding on what the 'web' app is? Cheers

Hi, Smithy, you must enable the "Web" feature for the kids. its a very locked down version of a browser, but I believe you can whitelist certain websites. "google, independent etc" are all blocked by the app.
In the web it links out to many video from youtube, so I'm happy this is a fairly OK variant from the videos app.
Tip, hide all videos, enable the web app.

SmithySeller

Thanks for that. I'll go at this tonight..

aine100

Ok so I'm a bit annoyed because I bought it in argos and it was €150 but it does not have the microsd slot, but besides that I am happy. same as everyone else apps and books work but not the videos. How do i hide the videos though. I cant figure it out. any help would be appreciated.
thanks
ez