An Apple watch - talk to me like a ludite

[Weareoutofwine]

My DD (11) has asked for an Apple Watch for her birthday. I don't have an iPhone (I prefer Android), her dad has an iPhone, ipad etc.

I can't seem to work out if in the UK my DD could have the watch so that she can make texts and calls from it. She doesn't have her own phone.

Any Apple or tech experts who can explain to me in simple terms (sleep deprived, lack of Apple knowledge) if and how I can set her up with her own watch that she can use out and about for calls and SMS?

Can you get a watch and set up it's own mobile data contract? I googled but the AI answers and then various options in different regions of the world has me utterly confused! Help.

To have a watch you can text from, it needs to have a cellular contract which is connected through an iPhone. No other way unfortunately.

I looked into this for DS - the ones with the ability to do this without being connected to a phone are extremely expensive.

DS' watch has to be near his phone for him to use it for texting etc. I couldn't justify the cost for one with its own separate contract. It was about £300 more!

You can do this but it does need to be set up through a family member's iphone and is expensive

www.apple.com/watch/cellular/

Thank you all! Oh dear it does sound expensive and complicated. Back to the drawing board. I might look at smart watches which can text - but these all seem limited to only being able to send a reaction to a received text or a voice message.

It is like a phone, but on your wrist but with less power and capabilities.

All it does is telling you what is going on in your phone without having to actually check your phone.

So Why carry twice the same equipment and spend even more money?

If she doesn’t have a phone, could it be that she is asking for an Apple Watch so she can do some of the things a phone can do, without directly asking you for a phone? 🕵️

Lots of reasons, you can be within range of your phone and not actually wanting to get it out or carry it, so you go down the garden or upstairs and get a call or message you can pick it up on the watch, you can use it for navigation, music, payments, tickets in crowded places so less risk of getting your phone snatched, then there's all the health and exercise monitoring, it is much more than just a pared down second phone.

I pay the £5 per month for the Apple Watch contract because I wanted to use the watch to track long runs and not carry my phone, this would mean I could receive and send text (if I could be bothered to write texts on the watch) and also use the Apple Pay on the watch.

Then I found that playing music via the watch requires the Airpods, the Apple specific earbuds which I have no intention of getting as they are too expensive and I know I'll lose them, I use cheap headphones. So I needed the phone for music anyway. Once I have the phone I have the Apple Pay so there's no need for the watch contract, so thanks OP for reminding me I should cancel it!

As someone said above, it's just an extension to a phone.

You can use apple pay on a non-cellular watch even if you don't have your phone with you or it's gone flat but I didn't know that about the airpods.