WATCHU for seniors

I purchase this product for my grandfather who has dementia. He was going for walks continuously and with no idea where he was we needed a solution. We agonised for ages over different types of GPS trackers and I ended up settling on WatchU. A 'pebble style tracker wouldn't work as he would have to put it in new clothing each time and a tag that he wears wouldn't work for a similar reason. As such we ended up getting a watch as he wears a watch - we told him it was a birthday present which he was delighted about in the end.I have given WatchU 3/5* as ultimately, it has saved us a few times a lot of worry, as we have known exactly where he was when we went for a walk, however, this is a really imperfect solution to a difficult problem and there are plenty of design flaws.The watch came with the following:- Watch- Simcard- Charging cable- Instruction manualI found the watch relatively difficult to setup. I am 30 and work in the tech world to add some context so I think others will really struggle with it. WatchUs customer support is VERY GOOD however. One call to their freephone 0800 number and they sorted things out. I set the watch up and then gave it to my grandma/grandpa to wear.Good things about the watch:- It does indeed track his location (to a rough accuracy)- All the family can download the app on their phone and using the login- The app itself is simple enough to use- customer service is excellentBad things about the watch- The time/screen stay on for only a split second so you have to turn it on often.- It says WATCHU in large letters on the front. Now the person using it may or may not get that, but it seems pretty stupid to me to have it on there as obviously, its for watching people.- The on/off button. You have to click this each time for the user to see the time, but oh, whats that? Yes the button if held down is also the SOS button. This seems like one of the most STUPID designs ever...it means that if my grandpa looks at the time and holds it down for a few seconds (imagine how possible that is)...it makes an SOS call (setup to my phone, not my grandmas so not to freak her out).- The SOS function. For that matter, there is no need for this and it CANT BE TURNED OFF. My grandpa with Alzheimers isn't going to remember to press a button. We don't want him to know that it does this, we don't want him to know that its more than a watch because he might take it off.- The call the watch feature. Also cannot be turned off. Have warned all family but its very easy to leave a message on the watch from the app. Imagine how freaked out he might get if the watch started speaking in our voices all of a sudden.- The app is OK but not great. I work in the world of apps and I know that there is WAY more potential to build something better.- The watch seems to break or something goes wrong quite regularly. Again customer support is great but still frustrating. I had to return my first one because the sim card came out and wouldn't go back in.- The watch has been clearly made for kids. All these problems above are basically because they have made a kids watch, then made a black one and said its for dementia.- Battery life isn't great - around 4 days. We get my grandma to charge it each night so its a routine.Those are the main points I can think of, I actually feel quite frustrated with the product having vented these negative points. I actually downgraded from a 4* to a 3* because of this.So - as I said its an imperfect solution. Ultimately, IT WORKS. We have found him or had piece of mind multiple times so I would recommend anyone to buy it and test out. So it may not work a few times, just appreciate when it does workSomeone else needs to make a better product, I think it can be done quite easily but I feel this is the best on the market for now.If you found my review helpful in any way - please feel free to click 'helpful' below

DO NOT BUY THIS! I wanted to get this watch for my elderly father who suffers from dementia. I was skeptical about this device as I had done a lot of research into other products of this nature and they all had their failings in some form or another but from what this wtach said it could do, it "sounded great". How wrong could I be! The other issue was, there were no reviews on this product but the price tag was quite attractive and due to recent events with my father taking himself off for little walks and nobody knowing where he was (including him) I decided to bite the bullet and get one. The watch was delivered in good time and came well packaged. The instructions were clear on how to set the watch up and followed them to the letter. What it didn't tell me was your watch needed to be activated at their end manually. So I spent the weekend and bank holiday trying to get this thing to ring and to no avail. Due to it not ringing I thought I would top up the sim card to see if that made a difference. Being a potential life saver for my father I didn't want to cut corners so I topped up with the full £50 which with VAT was £60. OK, all done, still didn't ring. It was only on the Tuesday that I received a message from them to say my watch was now active! Hmm probably would have been good to mention that in the instructions! Anyway, during these 3 weekend days I had charged the watch for the time specified to get the maximum hours out of the battery life. The WatchU people claim it's 120Hrs so 5 days right? I called them before buying this item and queried this as the battery life is obviously pretty important. I was told, as long as they are not making calls and it is only using the GPS functionality then yes it will be 120hrs. I aslo asked how accurate it was and was told it was accurate to a few feet. RUBBISH! On both counts, this info it total CRAP! The watch died at least twice a day during the charges and that's before it was even being used. The phone also showed a GPS location of over 2 miles away from where it actually was. 2 MILES!!! Now, not being funny, but 2 miles radius is an awful lot of ground to cover when looking for a frail old man. I phoned tech support and I was told, the watch is unlikely to give off a true location of GPS whilst inside. This is sitting on my window sill at home and had been on my wrist as a test. It allegedly uses several different technologies in order to get a location. So basically if my dad wonders into any buildings, goes under bridges, or maybe a bird flies past and blocks the signal then I have about as much chance of finding him as winning the lotto. If I'm lucky enough to receive a signal then well I could be at work thinking my dad is perfectly safe at home when realistically he is 2 miles from home walking down the central reservation of the A299. So, buyers beware, this watch is a waste of money, the battery life is rubbish and the GPS may as well have come from collecting tokens from a corn flakes packet. USELESS! Amazon have kindly allowed me to return this but due to WatchU small print, I have been told I cannot get a refund of my £60 topup that I put on the SIM. If I could give zero stars for this product I would!

I liked the concept of being able to locate the wearer, should they be in a distressed situation etc. This was purchased for ninety two-year-old and overhearing a conversation about difficulty with the buttons on his new mobile, returned it. The watch comes with a modest value applied to it. I hadn't realized too that it would require topping up. Perhaps I was being naive about that or certainly didn't see any reference to it on site.

Technical support team in Wales are very patient and helpful - it took me a few experiments before I understood how the app would alert me when the watch went out of the safe zone - but they guided me through that and I think this is going to be very helpful in keeping the user safe. It has a minimum Geo-zone of 500 metres - so isn't a substitute for a 'door-open alarm', but the tracking playback is excellent - showing the time of day of each point on the journey.You can phone the watch via the app and listen in to the surroundings, and the watch can make calls to the listed helpers and SOS calls.Even better - only listed contacts can call the Watch - so no nuisance calls.And - finally - it just looks like a watch - so does not stigmatise the wearer as an 'oldie' - it would look alright on James Bond !