I'm after a watch that I can put on a kid when they are on their own at a park etc.

What I'd like:

  • It's own data connection so it doesn't need a phone with it
  • Home Assistant support so I can track it remotely via home assistant, automations, etc
  • Some way of calling them when it's time to come home, or them calling us when needed
  • We don't have an iPhone so I think Apple is out since it needs an iPhone for setup
  • No subscriptions outside of the cost of the cellphone plan
  • Preferably doesn't need OEM servers, just connect to Home Assistant
  • Handling knocks and bumps would be a bonus
  • If you can run a non-google OS without tracking etc GrapheneOS style then yay but I don't know if that exists

Any suggestions?

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[–] 4 points 17 hours ago* (2 children)

What you are looking for does not currently exist.

Get a Pinwheel watch. It's $130 to buy, and access to their parent portal runs $15/mo. That also includes phone service. I have Pinwheel phones for my kids, their parental controls are pretty straightforward.

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  • [–] 1 point 19 minutes ago

    In the US it does, myticktalk.com. We have 2 of the watches for the kids. It meets all the requests in the thread, boring watch to the kids, video, calls, texts, full control and tracking by the parents, no phone nearby needed, and more. HA integrations (I have not tried them though). Buy the watch, and buy an optional data plan for $10. Pinwheel and the TickTalk got a lot of similarities in the watches but no games on the TT which is what we wanted. To many of the devices do gamefication of the usage of them (Garmin and Google)

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  • [–] [S] 1 point 17 hours ago

    Which part?

    From my understanding, watches that have their own data connection and GPS do exist, and some of those run Wear OS which has a Home Assistant app. Shouldn't any watch with these features meet most of my requirements?

    I was aware getting a custom ROM on a watch like GrapheneOS would probably be too much, but I thought the general idea of a watch that independently reports to HA should be possible?

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