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Verizon is about to break our Gizmo watches

jefftk.com

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Re: Verizon is about to break our Gizmo watches

#101

Post by Barrin92 »

corpoposter wrote: post #58
Barrin92 wrote: post #57

"Without the app we won't be able to text back and forth, see where they are, or add new contacts (the watch blocks calls except to/from contacts)." "Our older two kids, Lily and Anna, are ten and eight, and are mature enough that they're able to cross streets and handle unusual situations. They can go to the park or a nearby friends house on their own, but we do need to know where they are" "Meet Gizmo Watch 3, the…

Seems like you are getting caught up on the watch form-factor. If you think of it as a stripped down cell phone for a kid you don't want to have a cell phone yet, this product makes perfect sense.

>like you are getting caught up on the watch form-factor.

I'm getting caught up by the full fledged surveillance kit. Give them some independence and freedom instead of this a watch with an SOS button, we survived before ~2010

Re: Verizon is about to break our Gizmo watches

#102

Post by 43920 »

teliskr wrote: post #19

I have a verizon watch only account. I was able to get the new app working, but it was a struggle. I think it worked on the 3rd or 4th attempt. I had to start over and lost all of the contacts that were connected to the watch. Fortunately, there were only a few. Overall, the Gizmo watch has been nice to have, but it leaves a lot to be desired. It's surprising that there are not better products in this market segment.

Maybe https://www.garmin.com/en-US/p/1815501/ ?

Re: Verizon is about to break our Gizmo watches

#103

Post by izacus »

sulam wrote: post #28
izacus wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean by "carrier exception"? Exception from policies those same carriers set up decades ago?

Not exactly. Early cell watches were not going to meet the existing carrier standards and so they received specific exemptions from the carrier to operate on their network. Over the years the carriers have created requirements that are specifically for these devices, that are less stringent than what they require for a cell phone on their network. They still give specific exemptions if a watch is "close" to meeting a…

So yeah, "standards" they themselves set up which decimated market competition on US markets.

How nice of them to make an exception.

Re: Verizon is about to break our Gizmo watches

#104

Post by izacus »

vinay427 wrote: post #66
andrewaylett wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Restricting users to "approved" devices seems to be a US thing? I'm fairly sure that anything that's capable of connecting with the right frequencies and protocols can connect to any UK network.

This isn’t the case for these watches in the UK as well, as they only work on certain partner networks, but I’m unsure whether this is due to the GP claim or something else.

Can't quite speak for UK, but in EU cases I know about its because some (popular) watches need special provisioning process for eSIMs and getting that proprietary software requires carrier to beg our favorite mega corps for provisioning software and do extra work.

It's not like phones where pSIMs were relatively brand agnostic, were back to per-hardware BS.

Re: Verizon is about to break our Gizmo watches

#106

Post by Obscurity4340 »

drnick1 wrote: post #69
jitix wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its a market positioning thing. I will pay platforms that reduce my daily friction over those that don’t. You may not. The overall market sentiment will determine which companies win. I’m saying this as someone who moved 100% off of public cloud storage recently and who has self hosted my own email from 2010 to 2017. Phone numbers is one thing where I want less privacy. I personally can vet but it’s still super annoy…

As someone who also self-hosts, I absolutely do not want phone numbers tied to verifiable personal information. Why? Because then every major "service" will make phone registration a requirement. It's bad enough as it is.

Look around, its basicaly impossible to sign up or freaking buy something online without handing over all your most personal information, even when they literally never call you.

Re: Verizon is about to break our Gizmo watches

#107

Post by jefftk »

fragmede wrote: post #94
jitix wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its a market positioning thing. I will pay platforms that reduce my daily friction over those that don’t. You may not. The overall market sentiment will determine which companies win. I’m saying this as someone who moved 100% off of public cloud storage recently and who has self hosted my own email from 2010 to 2017. Phone numbers is one thing where I want less privacy. I personally can vet but it’s still super annoy…

that hack I've wanted to do is to set up myself as a phone company and then be able to give out different phone numbers to different people so that if only one person has that phone number than I know where that phone number got leaked from. if it is being handled digitally and everything gets forwards, calls to 0001 are from my family, 0002 is friends 0003 is work, 0004 and up are given to each business that wants t…

There aren't enough phone numbers to make this work. There are only ~5.7B phone numbers in the NANP that can be assigned to individuals [1] and these countries have >400M people, so it's just ~14 phone numbers per person. Which works if we each have a couple, but not if we start handing out many per person.

[1] 10B ten-digit numbers, less prohibited ones like area codes starting with 0 or 1, the 555 exchange, etc.

Re: Verizon is about to break our Gizmo watches

#108

Post by Grombobulous »

jefftk wrote: post #98
Grombobulous wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Apple Watch isn’t a better product? https://www.apple.com/apple-watch-for-your-kids/

Not an option, unfortunately, since my wife and I are both on Android.

The Fitbit Ace LTE is Google’s kids watch, although it wasn’t yet available when OP first bought watches.

Re: Verizon is about to break our Gizmo watches

#109

Post by Grombobulous »

fluidcruft wrote: post #63
Grombobulous wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Apple Watch isn’t a better product? https://www.apple.com/apple-watch-for-your-kids/

Any Apple kit for your kids is completely useless if you yourself don't use Apple crap.

I am sure there’s a decent product not made by a carrier, like the Fitbit Ace LTE.

To be fair, that specific product wasn’t yet released when OP got their Verizon watch.

Re: Verizon is about to break our Gizmo watches

#110

Post by Grombobulous »

teliskr wrote: post #67
Grombobulous wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Apple Watch isn’t a better product? https://www.apple.com/apple-watch-for-your-kids/

I didn't realize Apple had a kid mode. Of course I see Apple watches everywhere, but I haven't talked to any parents about them. When we got the gizmo 3ish years ago, it was popular with a lot of kids around here. I wasn't hearing of kids using the apple watch. The gizmo is nice in that they can call us and that their contacts are limited. I really don't want to have more features than that. I'm just surprised that i…

Kid mode might be newer than 3 years ago, I certainly haven’t been keeping track.
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