Deals Spotlight: Best Buy Discounts Apple Watch Series 3 Models by Up to $175

Is the new watchOS update going to make it completely independent of the iPhone or will it still need to be setup with an iPhone? Because I'm wondering if I should get my daughter a cellular version at some point so that she can get a hold of us. She recently started school, so she's going to start becoming more independent. Probably a dumb idea, but it would be way cheaper than an iPhone for both the device and service. I don't want her to have an iPhone for a long time because that's a whole other can of worms. I like the idea of the Watch because if she ever gets in trouble she can hold down the side button for an emergency SOS.

I don't have any kids yet, but I just want to say that your idea is amazing. Depending on the actual price difference of a watch plan vs. phone plan, the Apple Watch for children could be awesome.

The only downfall is that I've noticed the younger generation to be significantly more technologically advanced, so the obvious risk of someone stealing her watch is a factor as well (dependent on where you live). On the plus side, I downloaded a free app for games on my watch the other day, so she could also have a blast with that... lol!

Is the new watchOS update going to make it completely independent of the iPhone or will it still need to be setup with an iPhone? Because I'm wondering if I should get my daughter a cellular version at some point so that she can get a hold of us. She recently started school, so she's going to start becoming more independent. Probably a dumb idea, but it would be way cheaper than an iPhone for both the device and service. I don't want her to have an iPhone for a long time because that's a whole other can of worms. I like the idea of the Watch because if she ever gets in trouble she can hold down the side button for an emergency SOS.

Yeah, maybe when my wife finally moves on from her SE we could use that to sync an Apple Watch. But I still think she's too young for it. I've just been thinking about it lately with her starting school. She rides the bus and my wife runs a business at our home (and I work part-time from home) so it's not an issue yet. But with all the child sex scandals in the news, I can't help but think I could train her to hold down that button to trigger an SOS if someone tries to bad touch her or snatch her up for a child sex trafficking ring. There was one busted up a few months ago in my city that kind of shook me a bit. Otherwise I would have no problem waiting until she was a teen to get her a phone.

yeah man, I totally get it. As a parent, we have all of these lingering fears and issues that exist outside of the home that we have to worry about. It's a crazy world out there!
My oldest starts kinder soon and have debated getting her one of those chunky child smartwatches that verizon offers but its really bulky and ugly. I do think the sos feature on the Apple Watch would be great to trigger if our children were ever in any kind of danger.

Idle speculation -> So the Series 3 is being dropped from the line up in September to be replaced by the '4' after the '5' is announced? As much as I wanted the larger face, slightly thinner nature of the Series 4, I could never mentally justify the switch from my LTE 3. At an even cheaper entry point, the Series 3 has a lot of life left in it and could be a steal.

Personally, I think Apple will drop the 4 and maintain the 3, like they did with the iPhone X when the XS came out.

It would give a person more reason to pay for the 5.