Super helpful for having a way to get ahold of my kiddos that doesn't require a phone. It does require you purchase an additional LTE subscription but I have found the services is spotty. When they're on a recognized WiFi we add then it's reliable but outside of that we find it hard to get ahold of them, messages take a long time to send/receive and their location doesn't update very quickly. I have other friends with the watch who say they have the same experience/issues with the connection. The kids love the activity features, games and "pets". It also has a great battery life.
I use this device in turkey and we couldn’t reach lte options because of infrastructre. You may give other esim options and we can use all functions of watch.
The Good - tracking is reasonably accurate while outdoors. Features on the watch are solid for a child, and the access to a very controlled app ecosystem is a plus. Controlled messaging is fantastic for kids. Battery life is pretty good, but if playing music a lot, the battery won't last a full day. If not playing music all day, the battery life is good for a day.
The Bad - Tracking updates are not "live and realtime". There's some delay. So hunting a kiddo down in the neighborhood is still a bit challenging. The message functionality does work well, assuming the child is paying attention to it. Still better than nothing. LTE subscription through Garmin is the only option, I could not activate the device on my cellular plan.
The Ugly - We've had struggles with device pairing and had to pair the watch with a different phone, but then the first phone lost pairing and won't sync. I don't know why I needed to pair the device with a second phone in the first place, but wound up having to fully reset and start from scratch. This needs to be managed better.
We bought tune a bounce 2 about a month ago for our son. So far it has met our expectations, there are sometimes a long delay of a couple minutes for locating though. The call and voice message parts have worked great. Our son loves it too, and has used the music function with a thumbs up, but this drains battery faster obviously. We are located in Southern Ontario if anyone is wondering. Overall, it's been a good purchase, and finding a code for 20% off is what helped us go ahead with buying.