Our middle school has adopted some of the recommendations as outlined in the book Anxious Generation and other public policy folks:
- Phones are not allowed during the school day at all. They are allowed after school.
- Recommended: No smartphone until high school.
- Recommended: No social media until age 16.
However, the school also does not provide any supervision when not in an after-school activity, so we needed a way to communicate with them regarding pickups and carpools and such. I ended up buying an Apple Watch SE w/ Cellular (you can get a refurbished one for under $200) and went with BetterRoaming for service as a standalone phone. The major providers like T-Mobile, AT&T, and Verizon all have different policies, but they cost at least $12-$15 a month for an independent smartphone if you don’t already have some sort of expensive unlimited plan with them. However, if you’re on a cheapo MVNO like me (Mint Mobile), many don’t support smartwatches at all. Of those that do, like the free smartwatch included on Visible+, they only let you use the watch as a paired device that shares the number with your existing iPhone.
BetterRoaming is an eSIM provider that operates worldwide, formerly known as UK-based Truphone before it was acquired by private investors. I could not find a concrete source, but based on their other eSIMs, I believe it uses AT&T towers in the US. The cost for service is $99 annually upfront ($8.33/month) (or $10.99 per month, month-to-month) and includes unlimited talk, text, and data. This was the cheapest standalone plan I could find.
There was a 7-day free trial, which I appreciated. The setup was relatively easy; the parent will need an iPhone that is connected to the Apple Watch via the Watch app for setup and changing settings, but be sure to follow the directions from BetterRoaming carefully and set up the watch as an independent phone with its own phone number. Pick “Set up for a Family Member”. Apple Watch uses eSIM so the rest is done over the air.
During real world usage, I have found that texting with my child does not work very reliably. I’ve done it with the watch right next to me and sometimes the watch does not get the message. Other times, it’s probably my kid who does not notice the message. Making traditional phone calls is the most reliable method to make contact. (Sometimes she forgets to charge the Watch and it dies as well, so definitely have a fallback plan.) The speakerphone on the Apple Watch is pretty good, but based on my personal experience the speaker can get damaged if exposed to salt water.
There is a “Schooltime” feature on the Apple Watch that restricts usage during preset hours, like Monday-Friday, 7am to 3pm. The child can disable the feature, but it is logged. During Schooltime hours, incoming calls are all ignored and don’t show up on the watch at all. I added my phone number as an whitelisted phone number; this way I can always contact her in an emergency, or during M-F school holidays where the feature is still accidentally active.
Overall, a couple of months in, I am satisfied with the combination of Apple Watch + BetterRoaming service. My middle school child now has the equivalent of a flip phone that is attached to her wrist (more likely to be heard, but also less likely to be lost). I didn’t have to change from my cheap MVNO plan (yet, I’ll need a family plan soon). I don’t have to worry about running out of minutes or text or data, even though we barely use them. I can track her location with “Find My” app, if necessary. I feel the cost is fair (of course, I’d like it to be cheaper given the light usage). With luck, the watch will last long enough to be passed down to the next child. 🤞
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That’s a good hack. There’s a Verizon Watch (GizmoWatch) that’s aimed towards kids as well. It sounds like it would do what you need out of the box. It just read a review that’s cheaper than the Apple Watch, but I admit that I didn’t do any kind of analysis.
My kids school has banned smartphones and even step trackers. I don’t understand the latter one, but I don’t really care to fight it since my kids don’t want a step tracker anyway.
If I found a big need, I might push for an exception for a Gizmo Watch due to all the kid friendly features. I think it would be more likely to get a look at by the school over an Apple Watch that probably has a different context to the adults who work there.
I did see the Gizmo watch in the past, but I believe it requires Verizon service. I do think it would fit well for younger kids. The videocamera feature would be nice.
Yes, the Gizmo Watch requires Verizon service at $10/mo. So it’s pretty close. The reviews do say that it’s a better fit for ages 8 to 12. I was under the impression it would be work for older kids because it essentially is the same limited function set.
Yes, I’ve had the same thought process for my 13 and 10 year olds. Like you, the watch is sometimes unreliable. It could be any one of the following issues: 1) Bad reception at school 2) Watch glitches and needs restart 3) random cellular drops. But overall, it works about 90% of the time when we need to contact them or they need to contact us… good enough 🙂
90% is about my success rate too, glad to hear I’m not the only one 😂
Thanks for sharing this. My oldest is heading into middle school next year and after reading the Anxious Generation (and seeing how strong an ipad addiction can become), looking for alternatives to a smart phone.
Glad you found it useful!
We’ve gone with Apple Watches for our oldest two kids (which started when they entered middle school) but we have a Verizon plan that includes them. I found it to be pretty good. We’re not getting them phones until high school, even though all of their friends have them (and are constantly distracted by them).
We had GizmoWatches before that and they’re OK, certainly not as good as Apple Watches (in terms of responsiveness, connectivity, and tracking), but they’re also more limited in functionality which is what we wanted for our younger kids.
Interesting, thanks for the additional info regarding Gizmos. I was thinking the main benefit would be more reliability after having some issues with our Apple Watch. It might just be the service coverage, I’m betting Verizon with roaming agreements is better than an AT&T-only MVNO.
Rock on – was just thinking about this for my 5th grader!
His older brother, our 8th grader, was basically forced to get a phone due to school stuff but we found one that looks like a smart phone but has no internet on it 🙂 Costs more than my Mint phone (lol) but does the trick nicely and no one makes fun of him since again it *looks* like a smart phone.
It’s called Gabb Wireless and we pay around $30/mo for it. You can add picture messaging for $1-$2/mo as well as (clean) music too for a cple bucks… But basically we got it for communication and the fact you can’t access the internet.
Interesting, I didn’t know about the Gabb phones. $150-$200 for the phone isn’t bad at all, looks like an Android with custom OS.
Honestly, I was planning on something similar, searching for “How to disable my old iPhone so much it just works like a flip phone”, but honestly I realized I should be more worried about my kid losing the dang thing than anything else. I mean, we’ve lost multiple swim goggles and water bottles already this year! I am liking the Watch form factor since she never has to take it off, even during swim practice. We let her pick a custom band ($10 off Amazon, not $50 from Apple Store), so she’s happy.
good point on the losing part!
Thanks so much for the writeup. We have been going through the same dilemma with our two tweens and hate the idea of giving them smart phones, but have been burned before on them having practice ending early, etc.
We currently only have android phones. Do you think the apple watches would still be a good idea if we used a borrowed iPhone to set them up?