The boy is 14 and regularly does long outdoor runs. He tracks his run with Strava by carrying his phone with him. But carrying a phone (because they're bulky) is a pain. He also plans to swim in the sea during summer and we've all said we don't want him having a mobile just left on the beach until he comes back in.

Mum (his, not mine) also runs and she's been caught in the past a few miles away without a phone, injured and asking a stranger to use their phone to call me for help (she was okay after some recovery).

So the agreement was that we'd try to find a smart watch that also has call and text facility (ie. LTE).

Lots of hunting around we ended up with a second hand Pixel Watch 2 and planned to add an eSIM to his existing phone plan.

You know what they say about the best laid plans of mice and men? Well, it goes sideways is what.

TL;DR

Pixel Watches are really not supported (from the software perspective) for teenagers. Additionally, the eSIM paired subscription has limited availability so make sure your carrier actually supports it first.

There are hack work arounds, but yikes, tech support isn't fun.

1. eSIM needs to come from "approved" carrier.

eSIM's in the UK for smart watches are only available for EE and Vodaphone - it's a mobile number pairing thing and it does also cost extra. EE for instance is an additional £7 on top of your existing subscription.

There's a hack where you get an eSIM from Vodaphone, activate it on the watch using an old version of the Pixel Watch software. I looked like it would work (or I dreamt it) and then it didn't. So…wasted money, for science, I guess 🤷

2. FitBit routines aren't available

The primary exercise app is FitBit, which the kid needs to make an account for, except FitBit doesn't recognise over 13 years olds with supervised accounts. So either their account needs to be under 13 OR unsupervised (i.e. no tracking and managing their screen time - which for a 13 year old, they're still a child, so nope).

Setting the Google account to under 13 so FitBit to work does allow him to register, but the only smart watches FitBit will now recognise are their "child watches", the Ace selection. FitBit consider a Pixel Watch an "adult device".

3. Family supervision isn't comprehensive

Google's Family Link - which we use to manage app access and set limits, doesn't give you any control over a watch. There's no downtime, there's no app limits, nothing. You can see what they've used, but either it's carrying the same limits from the phone, or it's just not possible to change from unlimited.

Bottom line

Probably wait until they're sixteen. Otherwise it's an overpowered smart watch (which have been banned at our schools now anyway).

As for us, the boy got a second hand pixel (and I failed to hook it up to SMS), so he's just got a slightly more connected watch (a bad thing) than what he had before.