The $149 Verizon Gizmo Watch 3, a GPS-tracking smartwatch for kids ages 3 to 11, improves upon the last generation with a speedier processor, a camera for video calls, longer battery life, and Bluetooth for pairing with headphones. More important, it offers improved GPS tracking accuracy and expanded geofencing tools for parents. The updated tracker costs $50 more than its predecessor, however, and it still lacks some features found on competing devices, such as music apps. Even so, we found the Gizmo Watch 3 to be a worthy upgrade to the Gizmo Watch 2 and a better alternative for younger kids than the Apple Watch SE ($249).

A Kid-Friendly Design

The Gizmo Watch 3 is attractive, with a simple yet stylish look. It measures 1.8 by 1.65 by 0.58 inches (HWD). It is a watch designed for kids, so it doesn't come in basic colors like black or gray; instead, you’ll find the Gizmo Watch 3 in Teal Mint or Blue Clay.

We tested the Blue Clay model. The frame around the watch face is a rich, vibrant blue, while the band is slightly more pastel in shade. The watch band fit comfortably around my adult wrist, but you can change bands in a jiffy, thanks to the easy-swap mechanism on the bottom of each strap.

The watch face is large. It features a 1.4-inch AMOLED display with 360 by 320 pixels and a thick bezel that might look too large on a small child’s wrist. The silicone band is soft to the touch, and there are no sharp corners around the watch face. This makes the watch relatively comfortable to wear in spite of its size. It doesn’t feel overly heavy, either, which is nice. The Gizmo Watch 3 weighs just 1.75 ounces—lighter than some other kids' watches like the TickTalk 4 (2.4 ounces), but heavier than the smaller Apple Watch SE (1.27 ounces). My 15-year-old was able to sleep comfortably while wearing the Gizmo Watch 3.

The body is big enough to house a 510mAh battery that’s supposed to last for up to 3.6 days on standby (with 4.45 hours of talk time), according to Verizon. My testing confirms the battery life is in line with the manufacturer’s claims. I clocked the battery at 3.52 days on standby and 4.6 hours of actual use. In comparison, the FitBit Ace 3's battery lasts for up to eight days, and the TickTalk 4's huge 1,000mAh battery lasts for around four days on standby—making the Gizmo Watch 3 only average in terms of battery life. The watch ships with a puck-style charger with copper pins that line up with pogo contacts on the bottom of the watch.

As for durability, the watch appears to be strong enough to handle the everyday trials and tribulations of being a kid. It has an IP68 rating, which makes it fully dustproof and waterproof. That means it's up for fun in the summer sun, though Verizon warns against wearing it in the pool or exposing it to salt water.

Setup and Monthly Plans

Preparing the Gizmo Watch 3 for use took less than five minutes. This doesn’t include the fleeting time it took to download the app (available for Android and iOS) and charge the device fully.

I turned the watch on, scanned a barcode, and clicked a few checkboxes, and it was paired with my phone in moments. Be sure to fully update the watch's software during setup before you attempt tracking. The initial software build that ships on the watch needs some patching to work properly. Thankfully it doesn't require large, time-consuming data transfers like a full-fledged smartwatch might.

You have to first create a profile for your child. The parent app supports multiple children and Gizmo Watches paired at the same time. After this step, you build a contact list for each child, and away you go. The most involved portion of the setup process involved me tweaking all of my parental control preferences.

In addition to location, the main screen of the app shows the step counter (which you can disable to save battery), as well as the battery life, the call log, and the to-do list. You can access the additional controls and features via buttons that line the bottom of the screen.

The app lets you fill out a medical ID for your child with information like diseases, medications, allergies, and emergency contact info. This info will display on the Gizmo Watch within the medical ID widget. This is really helpful, especially for kids with severe allergies.

The Gizmo Watch 3 is available directly from Verizon for $149, though you can break that down to $4.16 per month for 36 months on a device payment plan. You’ll also have to pay a one-time activation fee of $35. This isn’t the cheapest kids' GPS tracker out there, but it packs a lot of technology for your buck.

Verizon’s monthly plan for this device costs $10, which includes unlimited nationwide 4G LTE data plus 15GB of premium (high-speed) data per month. If you exceed the monthly high-speed limit, Verizon will throttle the watch down to a maximum of 600Kbps for the rest of the billing period. The $10-per-month price is comparable to other tracking watches on the market, like the Cosmo JrTrack 2 ($14.99 to $19.99 per month), the TickTalk4 ($9.99 to $19.99 per month), and the Apple Watch SE with LTE ($10 per month). The Gizmo Watch 3 is not available from other carriers.

Navigating the Watch

The Gizmo Watch 3 relies on the Qualcomm Snapdragon Wear 4100 processor, which is more powerful than the Snapdragon Wear 2500 in the Gizmo Watch 2. It has 1GB of RAM and 8GB of storage.

Performance was quick enough that the watch rarely missed a command, tap, or swipe. Navigating the watch user interface is intuitive, and you can hand it to a child to manage independently once you set up all of the parental controls in the app. Kids can access popular widgets, like the step counter and messages, directly from the main screen for fast access.

The Gizmo Watch 3 has a 5MP camera for video calls and taking on-the-go selfies. The camera quality is impressive for a watch, but don’t expect any filters or cool editing features. Children can also do things like check the local weather, check off their daily to-do list (which you set up together), or change their watch’s theme. Other apps include an alarm, a timer, and a calculator.

One section my daughter really enjoyed was the games widget. There, the Gizmo Watch 3 has Tic Tac Toe, Puzzle (a slide puzzle), and Gizmo Says (like the tabletop game Simon, in which you try to mimic a light-up pattern). There are also jump challenges where the watch tasks a child to jump up and down a certain amount of times each round. The jump counter wasn’t consistently accurate, however, and she’d have to jump double, sometimes, to meet the challenge. She and her friends still had fun with it, though.

The biggest complaint from me and my daughter about this watch is the lack of a music player or similar application. The TickTalk 4 offers iHeartRadio Family, for instance, and the Apple Watch SE supports Apple Music. This makes the Gizmo Watch 3's support for Bluetooth wireless headsets a bit of a head-scratcher.

Tracking Your Child

The watch generally relies on GPS and Wi-Fi to track its whereabouts, with GPS taking on the lion's share of the responsibility when outdoors and Wi-Fi when indoors. When you open the GizmoHub app, you immediately see a map that shows your child’s location. By default, the service reveals the last known location and sends alerts when your child leaves or enters a predetermined safe space. The Gizmo Watch 3 supports more geofenced areas than its predecessor, which allows parents to fine-tune how they track their kids.

You can also choose to track your child in real time if you wish. This allows you to follow them around on the map as they move. From the child's perspective, he or she can send a check-in to share their current location, as well as press the SOS button to generate a safety alert that goes out to select contacts.

Verizon claims the Gizmo Watch 3 is better at tracking than its predecessor. Parents can choose to receive notifications when their child travels from one place to another and, as a parent of two teens, I was excited to see how the improved geofencing features were going to perform. Overall, the Gizmo Watch 3 didn’t disappoint.

The first time my child left the house, I didn’t see any difference on the map for about 30 seconds to 1 minute. My heartbeat started to speed up. I feared this was going to be another slow-to-update kids' GPS tracker. But her location refreshed a moment later, and this minor delay was a one-time problem when using the real-time tracking feature. Otherwise, the Gizmo Watch 3 consistently, quickly, and accurately tracked her location from that point forward.

Calling, Video Chats, and Messaging

Parents can completely tailor the communications features of the Gizmo Watch 3. Significantly, the new watch supports up to 20 approved contacts, or double that of the Gizmo Watch 2.

The watch presents four different levels of permissions for contacts: Guardian, Caregiver, Gizmo Buddy, or Calling Contact. A Guardian is someone like a parent or legal guardian. Guardians can use the GizmoHub app to locate the watch via GPS, place voice and video calls, or send messages, as well as manage and change settings in the watch. A Caregiver is like a grandparent, nanny, or babysitter. Caregivers can use the GizmoHub app to call, message, and track the watch, too, but they don’t have as much access and control as Guardians. Gizmo Buddies are, as the name implies, other kids with Gizmo Watches who can call and message your child with parental permission. Last, Calling Contacts can only call the Gizmo Watch. For security purposes, when your child makes a regular voice call from the Watch, it shows up as a unique and separate phone number in the GizmoHub app (as opposed to the parent phone with which the watch is paired).

If parents want to voice-call the child’s watch, they can call the actual phone number assigned to the watch directly. Video calls and text messages, though, are all handled via the GizmoHub app.

A Good Crack at Tracking

The Gizmo Watch 3 is significantly cheaper and easier to use for parents of young children than the Apple Watch SE. Further, if you have a child under the age of nine, the Gizmo Watch is better simply because your child likely won't crack the parental controls, nor gain access to the internet or social media. The locked-down nature of the Gizmo Watch 3 makes it an ideal starter device for young children thanks to its calls, video chats, and messaging tools while giving parents the peace of mind they need.

The Gizmo Watch 2 is still available for $50 less, but it doesn't have a camera, lacks Bluetooth, is slower, and not as accurate at tracking your kid. Finally, for about half as much, the Cosmo JrTrack 2 ($59.99) is an alternative for those looking to spend less.