GizmoHub Reviews

by Ihilanj

My daughters first watch Gizmo Pal would turn off automatically so upgraded to Gizmo Watch. Which I was worried about the screen so bought an expensive liquid screen protector which didn’t work at all cause while my daughter was taking off the watch it fell and screen broke. So I have insurance on the watch and no problems they sent me a new watch. New watch came in got activated and and wouldn’t pair to gizmo hub. So they sent me another brand new watch. same thing. I’m on my third watch now now and still won’t pair. I finally got someone in Verizon that knows what they doing and said it’s not the watch it’s GizmoHub . Not happy as it’s the busiest time of the year for me and my family and my daughter have been without her watch since May 1st. I can’t call her after school to let her know what’s happening or anything. Not happy at this time as I’m paying for a service and
My daughter is without her Gizmo Watch. I will change my Review once this gets fixed because before this issue it was working great. Need to fix this ASAP

by Tigerlilly0710

We bought this watch yesterday from a Verizon store. We tried to pair it to my phone as well as my husbands no luck. Went back to the Verizon store where they tried on both of our phones, factory reset the watch, gave us a new watch, called tech support...still no luck. Tech support says this is a known issue and they will contact us once it’s been resolved. So until then thanks for taking my $200 bucks, charging me a monthly service fee, and leaving me to try to explain to a 9 year old why her cool new watch that she has been begging for months now has to sit on the shelf and in all actually will likely be returned...sigh, EPIC FAIL!!!

Update: I have been on hold with customer support for 1 hour and 6 minutes...no one seems to know what is wrong BUT that it is a known issue and they have other tickets open for this same problem...meanwhile my 9 year is crossing her fingers that her watch will work...the saga continues!!

Update: Bye bye gizmo, returning it today. It never would pair despite multiple attempts with Verizon customer service and emails to app support. This would be a great product IF it actually worked.

by Mszm123

I never write reviews but if I can save just one person from the immense frustration of this device, I’m here for it. First Gizmo2 stopped working after a day. Just relentlessly turned on them off. Forced to order a second Gizmo to replace the first (still waiting on that refund) and now the Hub won’t connect it to my child. I activated it per this app instructions. I go to pair with my child. It said that Gizmo is already connected to my account. But this app says I can’t do anything because I have no gizmos added to my child. Click here to add gizmo. I add gizmo. That gizmo is already paired to my account. Lather, rinse, repeat. Hours with Verizon tech people. First delete and add a child. Then delete GizmoHub and redownload. Completely circular instructions, same “add a gizmo” then when adding the Gizmo, “that gizmo already paired with account.” Now I have to go to the store to get THIS device refunded. Don’t put yourself through this. There are other more reliable ways to keep up with the kid. This is junk.

by AlanJohnston

So a few weeks ago my wife bought our son a Gizmo watch. We downloaded GizmoHub on both phones and neither one will sync. Went back to the store, had a rep come by our business, then to another store, got a 2nd Gizmo to replace the first one, and it still won’t sync with either of our phones. Between 5 Verizon reps, 2 Gizmos and a lot of my time, deleting, updating, doing everything numerous times because “nobody has ever had this type of problem with syncing a Gizmo”. But it turns out you can spend a few minutes online and see it’s a known problem. The issue is likely with the latest Gizmo Hub App (an update probably is to blame) and they have a few more days to get it fixed or we will be giving up this thing for good. No telling how many others have already given up theirs, probably in the thousands since it’s been going on for a few weeks. I hope Gizmo has their people working around the clock to fix it because this issue could end the whole product if it continues much longer. It’s such a great idea, but like any idea, if it’s not executed properly it’s a waste.

by Knsanf

I had heard such good things about this watch, but I have to say since getting one over 2 years ago, I’ve learned they have BIG flaws. For starters, when signing up you’ll want to be sure you’ll never change your email address as you can’t edit this for future usage. Also if you run into any troubles, Verizon asks that you contact LG, and vice versa. Then there’s GizmoHub ... it truly lacks in upgrades/updates. It takes a bit of time to generate location no matter if your phone is on network or WiFi. It frequently signs me out without notice or reason. Notifications are set for numerous “features”, but no notification is ever pushed through or received. GizmoHub greatly limited fun emoji’s for kids and the voice memos are sometimes difficult to make out due to microphone clarity. Also the watch itself often hangs up on contacts at random. I just feel all in all this device & it’s app utilize a huge amount of my time monitoring it, than it provides of peace of mind benefit of being in contact with my child on the go. Save your time and money folks.

by Marcygee1972

We’ve only had our Gizmo for a couple weeks. So far it works great for phone calls and, though it takes a while to show the location, it does bring up where my son is. The issue is with the text function. This is preferable for us since I work in an office and he is at daycare and we can keep in touch this way. Unfortunately, my son sends me texts and I get an alert on my phone and a badge on GizmoHub , but when I open GizmoHub there are no messages. When I check his Gizmo watch later, I see that he did send me some messages that I never received. Occasionally they will come through later - sometimes after a day or 2. But usually they never come through. I have tried uninstalling and reinstalling GizmoHub , closing out of GizmoHub , and have done a hard reset on my phone, but this has not fixed the problem. We have the Gizmo watch to stay in touch, so not being able to receive texts from my son is a huge issue. I appreciate you looking into this or offering suggestions on how I can fix this on my end.

by H Hutch Cfhvf

We’ve had our watch for about 2 years. We only use it when my 10yo son with autism wants to walk around the neighborhood and walking trail behind our house. We have noticed a decline in accuracy of the gps tracking over the last 6 months or so. Sometimes it shows he is on the freeway next to the trail or inside an apartment complex so it can be a couple hundred feet off. This seems to be a new problem because it worked much better when we first started using it.

Other than that it’s worked well for us especially this year during COVID. He can go for a walk to get about of the house and get some space from us but we have the peace of mind knowing where he is. Even when the Sheriff picked him up after someone reported him walking alone (kids walk around our neighborhood all the time but my son makes odd body movements so they thought he was lost) the Deputy saw the watch and knew what it was and was able to get my son to call us so we could come get him.

I would make these recommendations:
Have a function that gives you walking directions back home (or school, or your Nana’s)
Map feature to show the kids where they are and maybe reverse locate parents.

Overall I’m happy with my purchase, just wish that the GPS was more accurate.

by Taranicole

So frustrated with GizmoHub. Was working fine until it randomly logged me out one day and I have never been able to get back in since. I logged in with my Apple ID - when trying to log in, I got an error that said “could not update the Apple JWT token”. I went to my Apple ID and disassociated it from The this app app. Now, when I try to login it says I need to setup a new account but my number is already associated with an account. So I’m totally locked out and my daughter is walking around with a useless watch. I tried calling Verizon three times and they are totally clueless. They told me to contact the developer of GizmoHub who is Samsung - ummm. No it isn’t - it’s Verizon as clearly seen here in GizmoHub Store. I also tried emailing the developer who is responding to many of these reviews but have received no response. So upset - feels like a total waste of money. Update: the email I sent received a reply and the person was very helpful in fixing the issue. It took a few days which was tough when we need the watch to work but he was very polite and understood the issue unlike the multitude of calls I made to Verizon. I think he’s the only person working for gizmo troubleshooting. Verizon, your reps answering the phone should know how to handle basic gizmo issues! Thanks to Daniel for the help. The watch is useful and nice when it works.

by ARSGRI

Please make this work with apple watch so I can reply via my watch from GizmoHub . Also, thank you for updating to the 8 hours. One more thing, please try to do something to speed up the real time location. It take about 5 minutes to get it. We are not rural and neither is my child's school so I'm not sure why this feature is so slow, which would only be used in cases of urgency/emergency. I had to use it once when his bus didn't arrive on time and then drove past our stop. It was a substitute driver who didn't know any of the addresses or the route and it was scary. Luckily I called him on the watch and he answered but he is only 5 and didn't know where he was. I kept trying to locate the bus via the live step by step feature and it took a long time. Needs to update faster in those moments. It's soooo slow for the real time locating. The updates are good though on the set times and locations.

by Smokemonkey76

GizmoHub overall is fantastic with my only minor complaint being the inability to adjust the sensitivity of typing in the pin access to open GizmoHub . I tend to have to attempt to type in the number a couple times before it gets picked up in GizmoHub .

The bigger complaint is with the watches themselves. My kids complain that the watches will randomly dial someone and the call connection can be distracting even in school when in silent mode. I’m sure this is due to screen sensitivity of the watch itself and them not being aware of the accidental contact they make with the screen. It would be great if I could help my kids by using GizmoHub to adjust the screens touch sensitivity of the watch. While this observation is not directly app related, I used the example to highlight where app improvements could help the overall experience. Otherwise, no regrets on the watch products or GizmoHub that controls it.

by RJDenverCO

I really like this watch for my 8 y/o who is not old/responsible enough for a phone or Apple Watch. This is his second Gizmo Watch - the first one was the original GizmoWatch and the speaker and microphone quit working (probably because he took it swimming or something). This one is the GizmoWatch 2, and I like the vibration feature to notify him of an incoming call/message. It is also a little slimmer in profile, which is nice for wearing under his ski jacket. Otherwise it seems pretty similar to the original. GizmoHub has worked pretty well for us so far. No issues with pairing or functionality. It would be great if it had a couple more features. I would like to be able to send/receive texts outside of the this app app. My 10 y/o daughter has an Apple Watch set up on Family Setup (so not associated with its own iPhone). Because of this, she is unable to text her brother, since there is no version of the this app app for the Apple watch and you can’t send “regular” texts. If the direct texting option is not possible, then I would like to see an Apple Watch version of the this app app so that contacts without phones can text the Gizmo-wearer.

by GG_102722

I picked up this Gizmo smart watch in October for my son who was going to a new school during a pandemic for only two days a week. He has multiple allergies and asthma so I figure this would be a great way to communicate with him without getting in trouble for having a phone in school. I also thought it was great for kids who don’t care to have an actual phone. My son is 11 and although I love the features of the watch I hope that they make a teen version of it with a few more apps such as blue tooth capability and maybe a camera. Would love some apps like music as well. I think if it had a couple more of these functions he may wear it up until his teens with out needing an actual phone. Other then that we don’t have anything negative to say about it. We did switch out the band to make it more sleek looking. A couple people thought he was wearing an Apple Watch.

by Needs Some Stability

Got my grandson the gizmo for his birthday, and the watch & app work (almost) great, except for a problem with scheduling quiet time. When I set the start of quiet time (9pm), the stop time automatically resets to an hour later. Then, if I reset the stop time (10am), the start time automatically resets to an hour before the stop time. So basically GizmoHub is letting me schedule 1 HOUR of quiet time rather than overnight. Fix this and the rating jumps to 5 stars.

Thanks for your response; followed your recommendations and they worked fine. I’m only going to bump to four stars, though, because it seems a little user-unfriendly to have to set three separate quiet periods to get one that runs 13 hours overnight. Might want to re-look at those system limitations to see if they’re really that necessary. Really do love the watch, though, and, more importantly, so does my grandson.

by 5kiddosmom

I love the gizmo watch and app that we recently purchased for our son who has autism. The ability to contact him without him having to keep track of a phone is invaluable- as well as the location services. There are two reasons I gave it only four stars- one being the limited text response from him. I have edited them but he is 14 and has more to say than the few allotments we have available. The second is that GizmoHub will not work on my Apple Watch. I forget my phone at home quite often (the Apple doesn’t fall far from the tree!) and I can see an alert when he sends me a text but I do not have the ability to respond if my phone is not with me. I wish that could be updated. Even with those limitations I would highly recommend the gizmo watch and app to those who are looking at purchasing a communication device for their children.

by EIKMom

We have had 2 sons use Gizmo Gadget and Gizmo Pal watches. I would definitely recommend Gadget over the Pal - many more features for both parent and kid, and worth the price difference!
We have used every option on GizmoHub and find them all very helpful, especially the GPS! It is accurate and a nice way to check in without needing to “bug” your child.
The areas I’d like to see improvement:
1. Sometimes my messages will not get delivered to my son for hours - or even days. Or if I call, sometimes he won’t pick up. When I ask why, he says the watch never rang. On multiple occasions I’ve then checked the watch, and he wasn’t lying - my call is not registered. Scary!
2. How quickly the watch dies after giving you the low battery warning. (The battery does stay charged for a good amount of time, but once it’s dying, it goes FAST.)
3. The durability of the band (it’s not horrible, but we’ve made some self-fixes that have worked for now).
4. The time it takes to locate all the time, but especially if the parent is in a building it seems to take longer.
5. Seemingly randomly, sometimes GizmoHub will sign me out.
Overall, we’ve been very happy with the product and feel it is well worth the $5 a month. (Not so much with the Gizmo Pal.)

by The Great Rate

Love the gizmo and GizmoHub . We have had gizmos for over 3 years. I do wish the child could type their own text messages if the parent allows. The voice texting allows them to get the message through, though I cannot play it if I am somewhere where I cannot play a message out loud. Overall GizmoHub and gizmos are awesome for my 11 and 7 year-olds and we will be using them as long as we can! I also wish the “To Do” list items could be checked off without playing a timer. I put things on there for my kids to get done and reminders to put on the watches but I do not need a timer with those items. I love the feature that allows the reminder to play until it is turned off though. It prevents a lot of forgotten watches. It would also be great if there were an Apple Watch app for the gizmo hub.

by Mandini The Great

Let me begin this with saying I literally don’t know what we did before my oldest had his Gizmo. He’s 7, and has moderate ADHD that we don’t treat with medication. He’s gotten lost on his bus route several times and often forgets who is picking him up/where he is going (I’m a single parent of two and an RN, so we are BUSY). This device and app allows me to be aware of where he is at all times, and allows him to the freedom to call me any time he’s away (he spends a lot of time with his dad and extended family, for example). I can also call him and check in or remind him of appointments or events. That being said...GizmoHub itself is pretty glitchy. It takes a long time to refresh and update location, can display incorrect battery life, and can take a long time to load. Again, as a whole it’s indispensable, but GizmoHub definitely needs some work.

by TJ_girl

The Gizmo has been a very good ‘in-between’ device for my daughters too young for a phone. Aside from being able to call them — I really, REALLY like the ability to be able to see where they are at any given time, straight from my phone with the press of a button.

The ability to set up time-based alerts sending me their location at specific times is an excellent feature.. I always know if my 5th grader arrives at school by 8:15 every day or not, and I rely on those daily notifications. I also appreciate that I can set up ‘location alerts’ (versus time-based alerts) which let me watch for her to arrive/leave a specified place during certain hours. I set up alerts and delete them on a regular basis for temporary use (Example: Last night my daughter went out of town to a haunted house and I was able to get her location, set up an alert notifying me when she left the haunted house... and using that notification, I was able to estimate her home arrival and have dinner ready when she got home.)

It would be good if the texts I send the Gizmo could be longer than 30 characters, but that’s not a big deal as we’re used to it. Also wanted to mention that I appreciate that the developers extended the location alerts to 8 hours versus 2 hours (yay!) Thanks.

by Kwright1085

I got this for my almost 8 year old because he is often with family or has other after school activities. This way I can always let him know exactly where I will be to pick him up and he can call to let us know if there is a time change for anything. It is wonderful. It allows us to reach out to him— without him having all of the bells and whistles of a smart phone (like apps and the internet) that he does NOT need. I also love that only his contact list is contactable. He loves sending quick little recordings and emojis in the text box to family across the country. He gets to feel like he can keep in contact without going through me all the time. My only complaint is how long the GPS takes to update his location. I am nervous about keeping the real-time location on and draining his battery if he is not due to be picked up yet.

by Dat Hemroid

We got this for our daughter last year when she started riding the school bus. The bus is often late, or has a substitute driver. They’ve gotten lost and been stuck down a one-way alley downtown before. Basically the bus could drop off anytime between 3:50 and 5:30 (that’s a crazy large window of time). I don’t like her walking down the street alone; we live in a big city! Now, we can track the bus and see exactly where she’s at and when she’s about to be at the stop so we can meet her there (rather than sitting at the stop for over an hour waiting). I also love that she can call me or text me, anytime, from anywhere. She has called me from school when she’s just having a tough day and needs some support and encouraging words. This watch has been a huge lifesaver! We love it so much we’re getting a second one this Christmas for our 8 yo son! Love, love the GizmoPal watch!

by Laurenea44

I am still very frustrated with GizmoHub. We have been using it since August of last year and there have been absolutely no improvements made to the GPS locating feature. Taking 2+ minutes every single time I want to see my child’s location, and half of the time the location being wrong (not actually updating) or stating that there is a weak connection and the location cannot be found is ridiculous. Isn’t this what we pay monthly service fee for?!? Using the GPS is the main reason we have this watch and it’s extremely frustrating that I am paying monthly for something that does not do it’s job. Also, The battery life never updates when I go into GizmoHub , I have to physically tap it every time to get an update or turn my phone off and then back on to get an accurate battery reading. PLEASE FIX THESE ISSUES, ESPECIALLY LOCATION TRACKING.

by K Has No Nickname

Overall, the watch works as advertised. However, I can find no way to clear off past notifications I no longer want to see. I have gone thru the instruction manual, Googled problem, and even contacted Verizon Customer Support and no one has been able to help. There is an option to clear the text messages on the messaging screen but no option I can find on the notifications list screen to clear them off. Clearing off past notifications should be an option for the primary account owner to do so. Do all these notification stay there forever? Also, on the Notifications options screen you can an only choose “all notifications” or select only one from the list. I think the account owner should be able to select only those options they want - no all or only one.

by P2469

This watch has been a fame changer in our house hold. We bought my 9 year old daughter this watch about 4 months ago. Few issues it’s takes about 3 minutes to get a update on location, battery status, the biggest is I will get a notification that I have a message from the gizmo watch but when I go into GizmoHub there is no message. I will check my daughters watch and see a message has been sent but I do not see anything on my end. I have tried turning off my app, reinstalling GizmoHub still nothing now this doesn’t happen every time but it does happen 1 out 5 times maybe witch is a big concern.
However having this watch for my daughter has helped my daughter with her anxiety knowing I’m just a call or text away.
Please fix the texting issue, this is a huge glitch in your system. Thank you.

by Notecard Nancy

We bought the GizmoGadget for my high functioning autistic son. He had been wanting a bit more freedom outside of the house and this has given him what he desires. I love I can limit who he calls and who calls him. I love he doesn't have internet access with his GizmoGadget where he can get into a bunch of things he doesn’t need to know. I love the auto answer feature. The price was great compared to other options I looked into like angel sense, other GPS watches, and cellphones.

The only reason I didn't give the GizmoHub 5 stars is because of the lack of real time GPS location services. I do wish I could set a timer to go off for reminders for different activities he needs to be reminded of. Beyond that, great app for what we need it for and easy to use product.

by Miss Subshine

We got the Gizmo watch for our son a couple of months ago. We’re enjoying the peace of mind of being able to contact him when he’s out & about in our neighborhood playing with his buddies. And, he likes being able to contact us, when needed. The only thing that I’m not crazy about is the delay time in pinpointing his location. Sometimes it’ll take just a couple of minutes. Other times, it won’t update his location for 10 minutes or so. My hubby tells friends and family that we’ve “low-jacked” our son! 🤪
Overall we’re really happy with it. Just wish it would update quicker when it’s not in real time mode. That really drains the battery quick!

by Jj&nylah

I love the Gizmo Watch ! I’m actually looking forward to up grading my daughter watch. The watch she has now she can only have 4 contacts. The contacts you add on her watch is the only contacts that can call the watch.
The gps on the phone and watch works well together. It gives me her current and past location. Also if she doesn’t answer her watch It can be set up to automatically answer! I love that I got her this watch it’s a lot of things going on in this cruel world why not invest in something that would be beneficial for our children . The upgrade watch has more to it like 10 contacts, capabilities to text, you can change the band on the watch, gps, water proof, has a fitness games and etc! I recommend all parents to get the watch for their children.