Lte smartwatch, no phone?

[OldGermanHeaps]

Previously for my oldest daughter we had a kids lte smartwatch, to keep track of her without giving her a phone too young . It was absolutely pish. Waste of money, chinese useless crap.
Even now, it looks like kiddy focused watches haven't moved on, still just crap.
My youngest is free range, she is constantly out with her friends, but we dont want to get her a phone yet.
She has a galaxy tab active 3 but doesn't take it out.
Could we pair that with a cheap used galaxy watch lte to track her and for her to contact us in emergencies ?
Not sure of the functionality of galaxy watches.

[danb79]

Main rule is that you need a phone to pair with the watch - not a tablet or iPad etc

If you have an Android mobile; you should be able to pair the watch with that - only the main networks support pairing (EE, Three/Vodafone, O2)

As an example: https://news.samsung.com/us/how-to-use-new-samsung...

Edited by danb79 on Friday 14th August 12:50

[davek_964]

It also depends what network you're on. We switched to Lebara recently, who don't currently support watch addition on their plans. I replaced my smart watch last month and was tempted to go to LTE, but couldn't see any point unless I moved my phone contract too.

[paulrockliffe]

You have two options with the Samsung Watches, probably the same for all Android Wear stuff, either you have the same phone number on both devices using either the network's back-end or relying on Androids Calls and Texts on Other Devices functionality, or you can set things up fully stand-alone. You can't pair with a Tablet, I'm not really sure why, but it isn't possible to set the Samsung Watches up without a phone.

Standalone is possible, it's a bit more fiddly but you can get an eSim on it. You don't have full app operation though, stuff like Google Maps relies on the Phone even when you're away from the Phone for stuff.

The big issue you'll have though is battery life, I used the Watch 7 LTE for a while and it would murder the battery with LTE turned on, so it wasn't practical to go out without the phone for any length of time. I ahve the new Watch Ultra2 now and that runs about 10 hours away from the phone with LTE on, so it's better and it's a lovely bit of kit, but it's ostil only border-line practical and it's expensive!