4G smartwatch intended for kids 5+. Requires both a sim ($8.30/month prepaid with Telechoice) and a Spacetalk subscription ($5.99) to operate.
Those are the features we bought ours for (it was $350 when I ordered ours) which can give some peace of mind for parents whose kids are too young for mobile phones but you need to keep extra tabs on them when walking home from school or if they have additional needs.
What are your thoughts on having to pay a monthly app access fee on top of the purchase price of the watch?
Not a fan. I hate that everything is subscription based these days. But I needed something I could trust to be reliable. My requirements for a watch was one with Australian customer support, 4G and IP67. Once I narrowed them down it came to the Spacetalk Adventurer and NutTag Kids GPS Smart Watch. The NutTag one didn't have a subscription but it didn't have good reviews either.
Reading reviews of this watch I found a few parents of kids with similar needs to my one which helped me make my decision. We needed one from a safety point of view so it sucks paying the $5.99 a month but if I can trust it then it's probably worth it. Fingers crossed it lives up to the reviews though
If my circumstances were different it probably would have been a deal breaker.
Keep in mind the gps won't work inside shopping centres, so might not be most useful. Also will be sketchy around big tall buildings
@itshammer: Thanks. Luckily my kid is complaint when he goes missing so GPS is good for general area then can use the phone capability if I need to.
I imagine for kids actively trying to not be found something else would be needed (I saw some that had a loud ping so you could hear where they were)
I had this, please beware, only Telstra and or Boost sim works on this. It is useful but I dont like the strap design its not replaceable and broke after 2 years
You must be talking about the original spacetalk watch. This deal is for the adventurer, which can use any SIM card and the straps are interchangeable. I have one for my son since Dec when it first came out and all of us really enjoy it (especially the voice / video mms messages he sends us while we're at work)
Ahh ok, yeah mine would be the original bought it 4 years ago
What's the battery life on these things?
They say 2 days. I'm expecting a day
We turned the constant GPS ping off (we can initiate a location request at any time). Once the regular GPS updates were turned off, my son comes home with about 40-50% battery life left after school and we're in a bit of a spotty reception area. You'll probably get better battery life in an area with better reception.
If I turn that off, if the watch is about to go flat does it send out a notification with the location.
I have it set to 1 hour interval just for that reason. Really only care about location on demand though. Or if it's about to go flat
It gives a notification when there's 15% battery left, when the battery has run flat, along with when the watch has been turned off or on
Airtag better option ?
Airtag only works in range of a compatible phone, so not useful in a lot of situations.
Considered this but as others have said, it isn't something I'd trust for the scenarios I'm dealing with.
We have to buy this from Space Talk and pay Space talk to use it as well as a carrier.
I don't think so.
Until your child goes missing. Honestly, it's peanuts with that context. No other offering comes close.
There are other options available WITHOUT the need for additional costs. Search Ozbargain for the watches. Generally only a cheap 4G sim service is required.
Agreed it sucks. I looked at the other options though and through reviews and feedback from owners most didn't sound like they were going to do the job to the same level.
Happy to hear if you have any owner feedback on them though. I doubt this will be the last one of these devices I buy so happy to hear of alternatives.
As per description you can use any sim card.
Really wanted one of these for my kids but a $5.99 per month subscription on top of the sim card is a deal breaker for me. Any other suggestions for a 4g watch for the kids?
as Lurvin said, search for spacetalk on here, been discussed a few times.
I narrowed it down to the following ones based on requirements of Australian customer support, IP67 and 4G.
* Moochies
* NutTag Kids GPS SmartWatch
* Kids Buddy Watch
* Spacetalk Adventurer
I included all the ones suggested in Ozbargin comments in my list when I was researching them. Unfortunately for most of them apart from sites selling them I couldn't find anything else about them. No reviews, etc. They could be great devices but couldn't find anyone who'd actually purchased one and had experiences to share. So apart from the price being right, there was nothing to back up their claims.
Considering my reason for purchasing was as a safety device for an additional needs child, I needed something where I could verify the claims. Unfortunately the one I landed on also had a subscription which sucks.
Yeah the $6/month subscription sucks (they should really offer a better option such as an annual plan at less $), but if you're comparing it against a cell phone (more $/month in SIM cards) or in before / afterschool care ($10/hr), it's not that bad for piece of mind and giving your kids greater independence
My daughter wanted one of these as her friend at school had one.
When I explained it was a device that enabled me to spy on her, she was less keen.
Yeah, my son is just excited that he can phone me from it. He didn't seem to register the location part. It's the main part I wanted though so the next time he decides to go live at the creek without telling anyone we can find him without launching a search party.
Yes exactly this. Having this watch enabled me to give my son more freedom, not less.
Was great for a while but now the school has banned any devices that can make calls (regardless of the school time software) and we forget to put the watch on the other days. Cancelled my subscription as it became useless.
Why would your kid have a problem with you knowing where they were?
TCL family time watch is another great watch and was available for $99 at aud post
Do you have one? If so can you give feedback?
I have this for my kid - TCL/Alcatel MT40 Movetime Kids Family Watch (4G/LTE) and theres no monthly subscription and chuck in catch connect 365 60gb prepaid.
Got this Feb20 and its great for location tracking and family chat sms function.
That is great to hear. I looked at that one but ruled it out due to IP65. How is the water resistance?
Why not just use an Apple Watch SE? I know it $100 more - but no monthly subscription, it's waterproof.
can't make calls with an Apple watch by itself.
I stand corrected.
Anyone know of kids watches that do calls (to trusted numbers) without the GPS? we have shared custody and don't want to step on toes with gps monitoring
Spacetalk somewhat can. The person who has the main account will add trusted numbers to the watch which the child can SMS / call and vice versa. Location updates are only available if the person is added to the spacetalk account in the app. Depends on who's the trusted spacetalk account owner as they will have the GPS ability. We add trusted numbers to the watch but those numbers can't get GPS location updates
I didnt now this until i purchased, but the watch does not do video calls. All the marketing makes it look like it does, but its only pictures you add of the contacts. They say they are talking about adding it with a firmware update, but no hard date as to when that might occur. Pretty disappointed.
They have a 30 day satisfaction guarantee. You could return it. I agree, the marketing photos do look like it has video calls if you didn't explicitly look for that feature mentioned somewhere
Telechoice $50 for 7GB/180 days seems the best sim to pair with it. Unlimited talk/text with plenty of data. Works out to $8.30 a month.
My kids already have a Garmin Vivofit Jnr 2 but one of our kids has additional needs and has a habit of wandering off so we needed something with phone/location tracking but he is too young to remember to carry a mobile phone around.