My 1st grade kiddo goes to school pretty far from where we live. We already have an AirTag on his bag that we utilize to track his location, but we wanted something we could communicate with him, or he could communicate with us in case of an emergency. We were on the fence wondering if he was too young for a smartwatch, but considering the school once put him on the wrong bus and he ended up on the other side of the city, I'd rather be overly cautious than regretful. He has also demonstrated he was responsible for it.

I tried at first looking through my cell phone providers for kids' smartwatches, but it got horrid reviews, so after a bit of research, I decided on this watch and one other. He went with this one and he LOVES it.

Pros:
* NO GAMES. The most it has is iHeartradio kids that you can put a limit on or have it only play via WiFi.
* A LOT of parental features. You can set up who specifically can contact him, you can limit access on their ability to turn off their watch and many other features. Those on their contact lists can call him directly or he can call from his contact list. If the contact downloads the app to connect with your child's watch (all approvals go through the parent), the contact can message the child directly, video call (WiFi only), send photos, join group chats, and even be allowed to also track your child (you grant them permission to).
* Your child can text message using emojis, speech-to-text, typing text, or voice message. Please note: If not connected to WiFi, everything except text and speech-to-text utilizes your watch's data
* Watch comes with a SIM and EXTREMELY SIMPLE instructions to connect the watch to a plan. Took me less than 5 minutes and I did not have to speak with anyone. I went with the $9.99 plan that includes 1GB of data, 1000 minutes, and unlimited texts.
* My kid already utilized ALL his data (Got too into sending photos and voice messages to us in 20 different group chats), and I was afraid it would begin overcharging us for him going over. NOPE, it just doesn't allow him to utilize any data features anymore. He can still utilize everything else normally. We were going to upgrade his plan to unlimited ($19.99), but we decided to use this as a teachable moment of how to be mindful of his usage like me and his mom had to when we were younger.
* Fast contact buttons: You have the ability to set up two numbers that your child can contact quickly just by tapping. You can even enable emergency/sos contacts (like 911).
* Get the screen protector! One of the reasons we got this watch is because it is sturdy and rugged, and it is solid!! But our kid bounces around and after the first day of use IN THE HOUSE, there were already some small scratches on the screen, so we held off on letting him use it until we got the screen protector. It's held up well
* Drop-in feature: You are able to connect to your child's watch without them noticing, and hear what's going on. We believe in autonomy and privacy, but it is one of those features that's nice to have JUST in case. But can see this feature being abused by some parents.

CONS
There has been nothing so far that has been a deal-breaker for us, but wanted to list some things just incase these are dealbreakers for anyone else:
* GPS is OK. You can set it up to continually update its GPS location (KILLS THE BATTERY QUICKLY), or you can have it manually update its GPS. As I stated, we already have the Airtag on him and it is SUPER ACCURATE with frequent update times without having to worry about battery, so it's not something that was on the top of our list. Something the watch has that the Airtag does not though is "travel history", so you can see exactly where your child has been, with time stamps (when it updates their location)
* The service provider (if you use Ticktalk) utilizes the Tmobile service/towers. If Tmobile isn't great in your area, it may be an issue. We had no problems with it until we went into a small town in a corn maze field. He lost service completely, but interestingly enough, his GPS continued to update, although not as frequently.
* Large and bulky. I know we listed this as a PRO, and it very much is considering how active our child is, but I can see how some parents may be completely turned off by how large it is. The other watch we purchased and were considering was the XPLORA XGO 3. It is super sleek, and almost looks like an iWatch, but I could not tell much beyond that.
* I have not figured out how to check his data/minute balance and customer care is only open Monday-Friday. But now that I know his specific services stop working once he's exhausted his minutes or data, not really concerned with it.
* Although I approve all his contacts, can see when he adds friends (if you allow this feature. One of his friend's parents actually got the same watch after they saw our son with it), when he can create groups, I have no ability to see any conversations he is having that I am not a part of. Again, if someone not on his contacts list tries to message him (he can only receive messages sent through app), it will be blocked and I will be notified.
* Battery life: some of the other watches have insane battery life. I set up my kid's watch to manually update and no auto-connect to wifi and sent him off to school. When he returned, he was still at 71% which is great. But when I had those features on the whole day, his watch was at ~30% when he came back. What I do now though is turn on the auto-update feature when he is traveling to and from school, and turn it off once I know he's at school. Works perfectly.

Overall, super satisfied so far with this purchase. Highly recommend.

We chose this watch because it didn't have games, had calling and text, and GPS. I like the parental controls to ensure nobody random is calling my kid and the ability to turn off the some features during school (smart watches aren't allowed in class with calling and text enabled). It is a bit bulky for my 7yr old (she has one too), but not as bad for the 9yr old. It was worn daily without issue for about 6 months, including a river float and at the beach (no swimming, but definitely not being careful to not get it wet). About a month ago it started a reboot loop and turns out it has water damage. I would give it 5 stars if it wasn't for the IP67 rating it as water resistant to 3 meters, when it probably isn't, but overall it's been a good watch!

UPDATED REVIEW OF iHEART radio feature only
If I could give iHeart radio 0 reviews I would. It sounds like a great idea- giving kids access to child-friendly music and podcasts. The reality is that you can't listen to that content until first listening to commercials that are definitely NOT kid friendly, such as commercials trying to get you to buy something or subscriptions for the podcast. The worst are the commercials about how anxiety is normal and how treatment is readily available at a certain website (Do I think there's anything wrong with having anxiety? No. Do I think there's something wrong with trying to normalize mental issues to young children that have none? Yes.) And to be clear, these were very child-centric programs we tried listening to, such as the Arthur podcast and the Who Was? podcast. The one good thing is that the ticktalk app has the ability to apply time limits to using iheart radio- I set it to 0 minutes, which disables my child's ability to use iHeart radio.

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I just set up the watch today, and my initial thoughts are this is a quality watch. The screen is very responsive. It's not filled with bloatware but seems to have functional apps (calculator, stop watch, timer). A few highlights for me is that the watch can play music but there's the option to limit the playing time in the app. I also really appreciate that there's an analog watch face option (another option I considered is the gizmo, which only has a digital watch face). How will kids become proficient in telling time if they don't have an analog watch to look at? Thank you ticktalk for believing kids are capable enough to tell time on an analog watch. I like the option to create reminders but haven't really tried the feature. I also really like that the watch has wifi and wifi calling/videocalling. Great way to save on minutes/data and to stay connected! I signed up for cellular but the phone hasn't been activated yet (says it can take 48-60 hours). I would dock it half a star if I could had I known we'd have to wait to actually start using the watch. I also feel that the plan option was a little misleading because it's advertised as only $10 but that's for 1000 minutes and 1gb of data. Unlimited talk and data is actually $20. I did knock off 1 star due to the plan because it seems like a bait and switch. If I find that the $10 plan is sufficient for my child's needs, then I'll modify my review.
As for the look, the watch is bulky but it seems to fit on my petite child's wrist fine at the smallest setting.
Overall, I have high hopes for this watch and hoping my expectations will be met.

I bought the phone for my granddaughter and spent several hours setting it up and learning all of the features of the phone and the parental control app. Set up was a bit frustrating but not unusually so for this type of device. I eventually completed the setup, choosing the Basic Plan, and successfully paired the watch with my phone and then my wife's phone. Initially, the location tracking was off by hundreds of miles, but customer support promptly fixed the problem with an adjustment on the GPS server side. I've had no other major issues, but I'll discuss a few minor issues.

Location accuracy is not everything I expect from a GPS device, but it works as advertised. Apparently, the location is often based on nearby public wifi rather than the location of the phone itself. I don't know if that's usual for GPS devices, but my phone seems a bit more accurate. The reported location is within the 100 or so feet advertised in the urban/suburban settings I've tested, and I'm happy enough with it, but I wonder whether the tracking feature works in a remote setting far from any public wifi router or cell tower. Would it still track the location every ten minutes even if I can't monitor it from the app? I haven't tested.

My first test of the location history feature seemed to fail, but the documentation warns that the route history feature only enables after a long enough history is accumulated. I took the watch downtown and skated around to test and found no history an hour later, but the history did appear the next day. I assume that recent history will now appear in the app more rapidly, but I haven't retested it.

Battery life with modest use seems to be a day or so, but I expect my granddaughter to stream music and use facetalk much more than I have, so I'm not sure it'll last a day. The phone's screen dims and then turns off to save the battery, but the timeout can be frustratingly rapid. I enabled both battery-consuming features, continuous location tracking, and continuous wifi connection. Reestablishing the wifi connection automatically affects battery life significantly if the phone loses wifi frequently, but I also have facetalk limited to a wifi connection to save on data, so the tradeoff seems worth it. The snap-on charger works well, but my granddaughter will likely lose it if she carries it with her, so the optional charging stand seems a good investment (or a good reason to write a review).

The display is difficult to read in bright sunlight. The difficulty is not unusual so for this type of device, but it's more acute because the screen is so small. I can't read the watch face outside without finding a shady spot. I don't fault the manufacturer, but it's worth noting. The watch face is analog and has no digital readout of the time (as in "11:49 AM"). My aging eyes prefer a digital readout.

I have significant trouble using the alpha-numeric keys to enter a wifi password. Specifically, pressing Caps Lock to enter an upper case character is very frustrating because the key is so close to the edge of the watch or because my fingers are too fat or both, but I finally managed to do it. I dread using this keypad, but it seems to be used only for wifi passwords. Would be nice if I could set up a wifi connection from the parental control app.

I started searching for a location tracker because we're taking our granddaughter on a trip to Europe next month. I wasn't looking for a phone initially, but TickTalk quickly won me over. Unfortunately, the Red Pocket SIM card only works in North America. I will investigate using a different SIM card and mobile service plan temporarily, but it would be nice if I could pay for temporary, European coverage using the Red Pocket plans. I haven't asked customer support about this possibility yet. If I don't find a solution, I may also try Apple AirTag, but I don't regret buying the phone.

The phone pairs easily to my Bluetooth earbuds, but my granddaughter would lose them. She has larger headphones, but they're wired. A headphone jack would be nice, but I understand the size constraint.

Overall, I'm very happy with my purchase and have no trouble awarding five stars. I'm tempted to ask TickTalk if they'll offer a version for adults. The price of the Basic Plan is unbeatable.

We purchased this watch after we had recieved a different, dysfunctional watch (different brand.) This watch has been relatively great. However, everytime she connects to our home wifi it shows her in Arizona. We are NOT in Arizona. Also, no matter how hard we try to figure it out, neither my husband or I can message her outside of the app. And that was something that was promoted as an option.

I also don't like the fee. We already have an extra AT&T line, but for the support features we have to pay a monthly fee.

Overall, though... she enjoys it. It does show where she is at when she is not connected to wifi. We are ok enough with the product to purchase a second one for our other daughter.

I just wish it was more user friendly.