Pinwheel is a family of purpose-built phones, a standalone kids' smartwatch, and a screen-free home phone for families who want children connected without the open internet. Children get calling, texting, a camera, and a curated app library, without social media, an open web browser, or stranger contact.^1 Parents run everything through the Caregiver Portal on iPhone or Android: they approve every contact, choose from more than 1,200 screened apps with red-yellow-green safety ratings, schedule availability, monitor texts, and see GPS location.^3^5 Multiple caregivers can share the same settings between homes.^6
The phones come in Genesis, Slim, Plus, and Pixel families on Samsung, Motorola, and Google hardware, and parents can unlock more apps and permissions as a child matures.^7 The Pinwheel Watch is a standalone GPS watch with approved-contact calls and texts, cameras, games, a focus mode for school and bedtime, and an optional parent-monitored AI chat.^8 Pinwheel Home is a Wi-Fi landline in two models, the compact Spark and the retro Classic; homes call each other free on Pinwheel Circle, and schools, churches, teams, and neighborhoods can place group orders.^9 PinwheelAsk, formerly PinwheelGPT, is a kid-safe AI chat for ages 7 to 12, with filtered, age-appropriate answers, and parents can review every chat, even deleted ones.^11 Ask is free for a set of monthly conversations, with a subscription for unlimited use, on any device. Phone and watch service is subscription-based, with plans on Pinwheel's site.^1 Pinwheel serves families in the US, UK, Canada, and Australia.^6
Dane Witbeck, an Austin father of four, founded Pinwheel in 2019 after his 8-year-old son's best friend got an iPhone; the first Pinwheel phone sold in 2020.^6 Pinwheel buys phones from the hardware makers and embeds its software before families see the device. As Witbeck put it in a 2026 interview: "It's baked in from the get-go, and so the setup is on us, not our buyers."^13
One parent describes the phones this way:
"It does have apps that have been selected by you and vetted by the Pinwheel team. It looks just like a regular Android phone and has been great for my teenage daughters." - Krystyn H^2
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