Kids smart watch: Tracking and calls...

[Davie]

I've touched on this before and up until recently my 8yr old had a Spacetalk watch which worked well for tracking him and if he needed to call us / we could call him. However Spacetalk appears to have taken a dump in their hands a clapped as their new app seems to be causing global issues, thus I cannot get his watch to pair anymore.

So, looking at an alternative solution. My wife and I have Life360... not obsessive users, quite the opposite but it's quite useful. I'm unsure if I can get a kids smart watch that's integrated or if he'd need a phone with the app installed. I think I'm right in saying the latter but I'm not keen on a phone, because 8.

Alternatives seem to be a kids Garmin but quite a bit feedback saying the mapping is flaky? Also a few Temu grade non branded watches that use their own app systems but I'm a bit dubious about these.

Any ideas / solid options for a watch based, app friendly option that he can call us and we can use location services? And no, not helicopter parenting... just a bit who's getting to do more / stays at grandparents / goes off mountain biking etc.