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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

#111

Post by Grombobulous »

gmueckl wrote: post #84
fluidcruft wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

You literally can't set up am Apple watch for kids without a parent-owned iPhone. It's the kind of vendor lock in thst all other companies get immediately chastised for, but Apple always manages to get a pass. I hope they pay their marketing teams adequately for those amazing ways in which they twist public perceptions.

I don’t like that aspect either, to be clear, but the majority of American parents use iPhones and don’t have any plan to leave the platform, and there are other kids smartwatches on the market not made by carriers.

Re: Verizon is about to break our Gizmo watches

#112

Post by [deleted] »

jefftk wrote: post #99
Grombobulous wrote: post #36

I hate to blame the victim here, but anyone in the 2020s buying a carrier-branded piece of cellular hardware should have expected this sort of thing. We already learned this lesson back in the days before the iPhone when phones had carrier logos printed on them and GPS apps cost $5/month. Apple Watch Kids Mode is what you want. If the watches cost too much grab a used one. The author complained about the high price i…

Apple watch only works if a parent has an iPhone, and we're both on Android.

[deleted]

Re: Verizon is about to break our Gizmo watches

#113

Post by [deleted] »

garbagewoman wrote: post #46
Grombobulous wrote: post #36

I hate to blame the victim here, but anyone in the 2020s buying a carrier-branded piece of cellular hardware should have expected this sort of thing. We already learned this lesson back in the days before the iPhone when phones had carrier logos printed on them and GPS apps cost $5/month. Apple Watch Kids Mode is what you want. If the watches cost too much grab a used one. The author complained about the high price i…

They’re not a victim, they’re just being slightly inconvenienced.

[deleted]

Re: Verizon is about to break our Gizmo watches

#114

Post by [deleted] »

jefftk wrote: post #99
Grombobulous wrote: post #36

I hate to blame the victim here, but anyone in the 2020s buying a carrier-branded piece of cellular hardware should have expected this sort of thing. We already learned this lesson back in the days before the iPhone when phones had carrier logos printed on them and GPS apps cost $5/month. Apple Watch Kids Mode is what you want. If the watches cost too much grab a used one. The author complained about the high price i…

Apple watch only works if a parent has an iPhone, and we're both on Android.

[deleted]

Re: Verizon is about to break our Gizmo watches

#115

Post by jefftk »

Grombobulous wrote: post #108
jefftk wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

With Google moving their smartwatch efforts to the pixel brand I'm worried about longevity here. It also has a lot of the downsides of the Gizmo: 20 contacts max, texting only through the app, can't interact with friends. If I'm going to get new ones for the kids I'll probably do a TickTalk or Cosmo that don't have these drawbacks.

Re: Verizon is about to break our Gizmo watches

#116

Post by Dusseldorf »

LPisGood wrote: post #87
gertop wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Matter of any kind interacts with radio wave on some level. You might be thinking of how radio waves in the bands and power used for cellular don't have a negative health impact. But they still 100% interact and the human body, being both dense and conductive, absorbs radio waves beautifully.

Of course they interact, but to my knowledge this interaction is not meaningful when discussing biological functions.

I think you may have switched the "of" and "on" when you read the original post. They're saying that the human body can negatively affect radio waves, not that radio waves have a negative effect on the human body.

Re: Verizon is about to break our Gizmo watches

#117

Post by andrewaylett »

izacus wrote: post #104
vinay427 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I have a Pixel Watch 2, it seems that only certain carriers (typically not MVNOs) can set it up with an eSIM that will present as having the same number, but any MVNO that provides eSIM setup via QR code should work to provision via the connected phone.

I can imagine Apple being less inclined to allow arbitrary eSIMs on their watches, preferring to only support the case where the eSIM is guaranteed to support the "correct" presentation.

Re: Verizon is about to break our Gizmo watches

#118

Post by andrewaylett »

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.

That seems more likely to be due to the device being network locked, rather than the networks disallowing them?

Re: Verizon is about to break our Gizmo watches

#119

Post by natebc »

jayknight wrote: post #65
colechristensen wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google Voice? (and other strictly VoIP services) Absolutely. I've never had a single problem with Google Fi.

Me neither, but I moved a T Mobile number to Fi. It could be different with numbers originally designated to Fi.

Where I live (Durham, NC) Google Fi's MNO is T-Mobile so they're effectively the same.

Re: Verizon is about to break our Gizmo watches

#120

Post by xtiansimon »

> “Family does not yet support cases where you have Gizmos as your only Verizon lines of service…”

Curious if the c-suite knew of this corner before they approved the change. Cherry on top that customers might have to buy more services to continue their lifestyles.

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