Fitbit Google Ace LTE – Kids Smartwatch with Call, Message, GPS, and Activity-Based Games, Ace Pass Data Plan Required – Spicy – Moovin by Fitbit

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!

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!