I’ve tried wearing a smartwatch on and off over the years, but only recently have I tried my first LTE model. Unfortunately, actually getting my watch connected to LTE service was a bigger pain than I expected.
I prefer to bring my own device
If you purchase both your smartphone and your smartwatch directly from your carrier, then you can ignore everything that I’m about to say. Everything will just work for you. If you’re shopping in-person, things will likely be setup and verified before you even leave the store.
Unlike most Americans, I don’t buy my phone from my carrier. I don’t purchase postpaid carrier plans at all. Prepaid plans are substantially cheaper—so much so that the money saved is enough to buy a new phone every year (even a foldable one). I purchase unlocked phones, and then I sign up for prepaid service. Thanks to eSIMs, I can have my phone activated and ready to go in a matter of minutes. No waiting for a physical SIM to arrive in the mail.
Naturally, when the time came to buy a smartwatch, I wanted to purchase an unlocked model and use it with a prepaid plan, just like I do with my phone. When I was recently shopping on Samsung’s website and the company offered a bunch of promotional credit that could go towards a smartwatch, I decided to take a chance on an LTE Galaxy Watch 8.
- Brand
-
Samsung
- Operating System
-
Wear OS
- CPU
-
Exynos W1000 (5 Core , 3nm)
- RAM
-
2GB
Now thinner and more comfortable, the Galaxy Watch 8 adds new health-tracking features like sleep apnea detection and antioxidant readings.
There aren’t many prepaid smartwatch plans
Credit: Bertel King / How-To Geek
While there are only three nationwide carriers in the US, there are dozens of prepaid options out there. Each carrier directly owns and operates multiple prepaid options, such as how T-Mobile offers both T-Mobile Prepaid and Mint Mobile. For Verizon, there’s Verizon Prepaid and Visible. AT&T has AT&T Prepaid and Cricket. Then there are the MVNOs that aren’t directly owned by a carrier but instead pay to lease cellular spectrum instead. Affordable options like Red Pocket, Tello, and Ting fall into this category.
Across all of these options, most don’t offer smartwatch service of any kind. Among those that do, some are limited to the Apple Watch. Those that do support Android smartwatches have, surprisingly, been slightly more likely to support the Pixel Watch than a Galaxy Watch.
Currently, these are the six options I know are available to me as a Galaxy Watch 8 LTE owner:
- Cricket
- Google Fi
- Spectrum Mobile
- Verizon Prepaid
- Visible
- Xfinity Mobile
Six options isn’t terrible, considering there are only three major options for postpaid service. But there are notable exceptions missing from this list. When I bought the watch, I was with Mint Mobile, which doesn’t support smartwatches. I didn’t think I’d have to switch phone carriers to use LTE on my watch, but it turns out I did.
My watch isn’t designed for standalone plans
I bought my watch with the intention to provide it with its own separate number. This is not ideal, but it would allow me to try out LTE and buy me time until my annual Mint plan ran out next year. I figured I’d try out the Verizon Prepaid smartwatch plan available for just $10 a month.
Standalone smartwatch plans aren’t really a thing. It’s doable, but most carriers want you (and assume you want) to use the same number across both devices. In my case, my watch is explicitly designed with that use-case in mind. The Galaxy Wear app that manages the smartwatch checks your phone’s carrier to see if it supports a smartwatch line.
When that didn’t work, I spent a couple of hours on the phone with Verizon attempting to activate my smartwatch, only for their customer service reps to eventually inform me after several failed attempts at activation that their plan requires a phone line with them as well.
I ended up switching carriers
Now I am again back with Visible, who announced support for the Galaxy Watch 8 over the summer, back when I had no intention of buying one (sometimes Samsung throws enough promotion credit at you to change your mind). With Visible, I have no complaints. I was able to activate my phone service in under an hour and then, once switched, was able to activate my smartwatch in minutes. After my experience that morning, this was delightful.
Ultimately, using an LTE smartwatch with a prepaid carrier isn’t that difficult if you know what to expect going in. I have a colleague who uses Google Fi and says everything just worked for him. I can now say the same about Visible. But that ultimately still leaves a long list of prepaid options, including major ones like T-Mobile Prepaid or AT&T Prepaid, where you’ll be out of luck.