Fitbit Google Ace LTE - Kids Smartwatch with Call, Message, GPS, and Activity-Based Games, Ace Pass Data Plan Required - Mild - Strange Arcade

This watch is just what I’ve been looking for for my two kids who are eager for more independence but in my opinion too young for a smart phone. The kids previously had Fitbit Ace fitness trackers, which they wore daily and enjoyed checking their step and exercise count on, so they were already used to having a watch on daily and are extremely pleased with the Fitbit LTE as a major upgrade. CALLS & MESSAGING: Main functionality we as parents were looking for. I love that they don’t have to carry around a phone (that inevitably would be dropped / lost) and the call functionality works really well (can even leave voice messages). Messaging works great too. Kids say that it’s a bit tricky to type on the tiny watch face keyword (understandable!) but the watch provides suggested replies that often works really well and can just be tapped on to reply back. You can add emojis to messages which of course is being used frequently. We look forward to having more friends using the watch so that the kids can text with them (this functionality can be turned on / off as far as I understand). LOCATION TRACKING: Love this functionality as we give the kids more freedom to roam the neighborhood and expand their range to be independent. Great to check that they arrived to school in the morning as they walk there on their own. I love that I can check their location to see if they are on their way home when they say they are, versus calling/messaging them as I think this allows them to feel much greater independence (without mom having to worry about them being a few minutes late…). DESIGN: Great size watch face for little wrists. Cute comfortable bands. We have tried both the fabric and the silicone type bands. The kids slightly prefer the fabric ones, but are good with either type. It’s nice to have the silicone one for sweaty exercises in my opinion. We wish there were even more designs to choose from. It’s really fun for the kids that adding new bands unlocks new things on the watch. SET UP & APP: Set up was very easy, we didn’t experience any issues and the set up flow was easy to follow. The App interface is simple and easy to navigate. I can see both kids profiles on one page and select which one to call/text/locate from the same page. I can track their movement, including steps and exercise. GAMES / incentives to exercise: The games can be used for short times before the kid is asked to complete a movement task to unlock more ‘screen time’. Great functionality! Son, 10 years old: The games kept his full attention for some time, and now he uses them once in a while. That being said, he’s an active kid already and moves plenty without the game incentives (i.e. they aren’t providing much additional motivation for him and that’s OK). I think the games are adorable so he might just be a tad old for them. Daughter, 9 years old: Absolutely loves the games and moves all the time to unlock additional game time etc. She loves the cute interface, the rooms and the avatars. The functionality of unlocking extra stuff for the games / avatars is really engaging to her. COST: Main con for me is the cost of the watch, but compared to getting them an Apple Watch or a smart phone with a data plan, I think this is a much better option/value for kids/tweens. BONUS: Option to add schedules when certain functions are turned off, for example games or calling during school time (you select the hours yourself). Lots of settings are customizable, which is great. Love the plastic free packaging!!! That’s how all electronics should be packaged.

Pretty good watch for kids. My daughter likes a lot of features that come with it the games and the ability to see her movement. I like the fact that I can track her and know where she’s at. I also like that she doesn’t get to get phone numbers and talk to people without me authorizing and allowing ,overall this is a great watch for parents and kids instead of a phone because of concerns with content that is not suitable for kids. I highly recommend this instead of a phone. Easy set up . Fits good on 9 year old hand.

We were excited to get this for our soon to be 10 year old daughter. She was excited as well when she opened the box and saw it. The hardware is great, the watch software is great, the user interface is great. The setup was super easy on my Samsung phone. I was immediately able to call and text her, as she was able to call and text me. We set up my wife's phone, but we had to tweak her Pixel's permission settings, which was fine since we know how to do that. Sadly, that is where the good ends. Here are the problems, from minor annoyance to outright design failures, which are quite surprising since I expected more from such a major tech company. 1) The grandparents got stuck with the app setup on their phone, as they don't know how to go into settings to allow the proper permissions. They were able to call my Daughter, but she was not able to call them, which is very disappointing as we listed them as emergency contacts. We can fix it, but it shouldn't be difficult. 2) I have a Galaxy Watch 7. If my daughter called me, I would not get a notification on my watch. If she texted me, I would get a notification but could not answer. I use my watch so I don't always need to have my phone with me. However, in order to ensure my daughter can always reach me, I need to have my phone near by at all times. Ridiculous that there is no support for Android Watches to receive or make calls to the Ace LTE. 3) Android Auto support is even worse. While driving, a call or text from my daughter was not sent to Android Auto. Therefore, if my daughter calls while I am driving, I will not know until I check my phone. Again, unbelievable that Fitbit/Google did not anticipate that parents would want to get notifications or calls on their Android Auto screens. 4) My wife's car doesn't have Android Auto, so she connects through Bluetooth. However, her Bluetooth connection would not recognize an incoming call either. 5) We paid for the 50% full year subscription in advance. Be aware that if you purchase a full year upfront, and you find you don't like the Ace LTE experience, you will not be refunded the cost of the subscription. It is truly surprising that this product would be released with all of these connectivity limitations by Google. There are at least 6 other similar products available. While the Ace LTE may have better quality hardware, it seems like the other options have a much better thought out infrastructure plan for their products. The other companies seem to understand their customer needs. Surprising, Google was clueless with their approach for a kid's LTE watch.

Finally, after failing twice with Gizmo watches for my older kids, we found success with this watch for my 3rd child. It is simply the best kid's smartwatch we've owned BY FAR. Pro's: This watch looks great, performs above expectations and my daughter loves it. 1. The sound quality is more than adequate on the other callers end. It's not perfect on the Fitbit end but it's very close when it comes to clarity. 2. The fact that my daughter has to meet certain fitness goals (steps) in order to unlock any game features is such a great idea. She will go out of her way to meet the step goal every day and every month just so she can be earn new games. It's so cool. 3. School mode allows the parents to put the watch in a Do Not Disturb mode during school hours in order to keep them from being distracted but still allowing them to accumulate steps 4. It looks great 5. The touchscreen is responsive and simple to use 6. The texting is easy and convenient. Allowing her to talk to text and also send vocal recordings is awesome. 7. The tracking feature is very accurate Cons: 1. The battery drains pretty quickly. It is of course, affected by how much she uses it, but on average it only lasts around 24 hours. Either way, we bought a charger stand made specially for the device and she easily charges it while she sleeps. 2. I wish we could just simply press once to toggle school mode. Instead you have to go into settings and find it. It won't allow a single call or text go through in this mode. I bet you're thinking "That's what it's supposed to do." You're right, but in an actual emergency while in school mode, she would have no way to reach us and vice versa. I wish there was a simple way to toggle it on both ends. For example, the other day my oldest son dropped my daughter off at her friend's house the other day. Unfortunately, the friends weren't home but my son had already left her there. She's 9, so she freaked out when she realized she was alone. This happened on a snow day so school was cancelled. The watch would not allow my daughter to call us for help. Even though there was no school, the watch was still is school mode. (After crying a while, she's doing great now btw). All of that said, this is well worth the cost!

We have been looking for some kind of a tracker watch for our younger kids who we do not want to have phones yet. Our daughter is six and our son is eight and they sometimes go off and play with other kids in the neighborhood and we wanted to be able to track where they are. I like that there is a messaging and phone feature on these watches. It cost $9.99 a month per watch run them. We had a different brand before called Junior tracker and it was incredibly unreliable as far as messaging, calling or tracking. We also tried a simple tile attached to a watch strap but those weren't that great either. I think the kids didn't really care to wear them so they would just get left behind no matter what we did. So we tried that Junior tracker watch but the watch would disconnect and it would still show up on the app like it was tracking so we would think our kid was in one place but it turns out they would be all over the place and we weren't getting the feedback properly. We came across this one and bought it. So far, I am very happy with how it works. Super easy to set up. What I'm not happy with are the built-in games. There's no way to delete the built-in games. On the upside, they can't use the games unless they do movement tracked by the watch. I guess that's pretty cool. Sometimes they run around the house to try to get their 1,500 steps so that they can play the games, but I really don't like it that games are on there at all, and especially because they can't be deleted. You can increase the movement goal to make it a little harder to get to the games (note: only the kid can modify their goals on the watch directly, you can't do it in the parent app for some reason). And of course they know how to hack it already by swinging their arms around like monkeys and stuff to gin up more steps than they deserve. If anyone buys this and wants to try my work around, this is what I do: you are able to set the watch to "school time" which blocks incoming calls and games, so I just have school time running 24/7. It doesn't allow me to call them if it's on school time, but they can call me, and I can message them, though they won't get a notification from my message. It seems like the best way to have a tracker. I suppose if I ever needed to call them, I could go into the app and disable the school feature temporarily. I'm going to try this out for a week or so and if it seems like it's functioning as just a GPS and communicator then we will keep it. If it doesn't work because of having to turn it on school mode all the time, then I would probably return them and look for something else. I really just want a tracker with a very basic phone and messaging service. I wish this was that!

After reading other reviews and really carefully considering this purchase, we are happy we decided to give it a try. I have had fitbits for over 7 years now, and my husband and I currently each have the fitbit versa 2. I was a little worried the Ace might be too big for my 8yo's wrist, but its actually a great size. It is a little thicker than the versa, but I expect that given its meant to have the housing to be able to use a 4G network. Setting it up was quite easy, and being able to add other family members was great. The app is easy to sync to the phone, and both parents have the app (as well as grandparents for emergency uses). It seems pretty durable, as someone who has knocked the crap out of her Versa 2, I dont really have any concerns for the Ace. I did buy a protective case for it that is really thin and came in a 2 pack, just because things happen and its an 8yo, but I really dont have any concerns about its durability. It is fairly accurate in letting you know when the watch is on or off your kids wrist (came in handy when I was able to figure out why they weren't answering my messages) and gives you a close approximation of where they are via GPS. Did it know that my kid was at a neighbor's house? Yes. Was it so accurate that it knew the moment he crossed the street? No. Once they were further into the neighbors yard, it showed as much, but to expect 100% accuracy is probably just going to let you down. It does at least get you 95% accuracy, so you can make sure they haven't wandered off to somewhere they shouldn't be, and again, lets you know if the watch is on, which could be a useful feature if your kid is prone to trying to sneak. The keyboard on it is incredibly small, again not surprising given its a watch. My kid enjoys it because its like a little spy watch, but mainly uses quick responses or just chooses to call if he needs something more elaborate. So far, we haven't encountered any low signal issues, and we truly live out in the middle of no where (i.e. 20 minutes from the closest town, not even city) and its worked well. However, because it is on 4G and always looking for signal, we've found we can only go 1.5 days before needing to charge the watch. I really dont know how they could make that better, considering phones do the same thing if they dont have signal with a much larger battery. For as small as it is, I'm impressed it lasts that long, with my kiddo turning the screen on every 10 minutes to check step progress and time, lol. Overall, this has been a great purchase for our family and a great alternative to a phone!

It’s a solidly basic smart watch that keeps the kids engaged and connected. Super easy to set up, especially if you already have Google Family Link configured. Monthly wireless fee is $10 per watch and you have to go through the Google Fitbit connection. We’ve never really had a service issue, even in some remote areas. The reason I knocked off the 2 stars is due to the lack of apps. Unlike other Fitbit watches, there is no App Store and you can’t add anything to it beyond what it comes with the watch. No Spotify, Weather, or even Google Maps. It does exactly as advertised, nothing more, and you’re locked into $10/month. Still like it, but would probably buy a Garmin if I could do it over again.

We had purchased a different watch and it was around the same price as this one and it quit charging after 4months. So we decided to try this google watch. It is really good the location tracking is accurate, it has games that require you to complete exercise to play, the battery life actually last all day long. Just don’t forget to charge it at night.