SIM card for a child watch

Sheep Shagger

Dipping our toe in the water for an 8 year old who doesn't have a phone yet.

Trying out a watch she can wear when we are out and about and if separated she can call us or we can call her.

Need a micro sim card, from what I can see the cheapest options in the PAYG bracket are Gomo (12.99 pm with unlimited everything) or Lyca Mobile (€7 per month for 300 texts, calls, and a gig of data).

I know that's rubbish in terms of limits but she won't be using anywhere near that (when she gets a phone things will change obviously).

From what I can see every operator requires you to top up and/or you pay a sub every 30 days. None allow you to say buy €20 and you could have it sit there for months.

Are there any cheaper options we are missing?

Virgin does a cheap plan but jumps from a fiver to €25pm after 5 months.

Gomo has the activation fee while Lyca doesn't have any such fee. I guess if we get a Gomo sim now then the price is locked when she gets a phone later on down the track?

Tails142

Sheep Shagger wrote: »

Dipping our toe in the water for an 8 year old who doesn't have a phone yet.

Trying out a watch she can wear when we are out and about and if separated she can call us or we can call her.

Need a micro sim card, from what I can see the cheapest options in the PAYG bracket are Gomo (12.99 pm with unlimited everything) or Lyca Mobile (€7 per month for 300 texts, calls, and a gig of data).

I know that's rubbish in terms of limits but she won't be using anywhere near that (when she gets a phone things will change obviously).

From what I can see every operator requires you to top up and/or you pay a sub every 30 days. None allow you to say buy €20 and you could have it sit there for months.

Are there any cheaper options we are missing?

Virgin does a cheap plan but jumps from a fiver to €25pm after 5 months.

Gomo has the activation fee while Lyca doesn't have any such fee. I guess if we get a Gomo sim now then the price is locked when she gets a phone later on down the track?

Tesco is €15 for a month of calls texts and.data. After the month you still have the €15 to use as credit. I normally buy another 5gb of data for €10 as I don't use the calls or texts so I only end up topping up credit every 2 months.

I think you need to top up at least every 6 months or your sim is cancelled?

Ten Pin

Tesco PAYG doesn't have keep credit any more, it expires at the end of the 28 days plan duration.

Gomo isn't a PAYG network, it's a recurring bill every month.

48: 9.99 per month for 20GB, 300 mins + all text (PAYG)

Lyca have keep credit offer, top up by 15e for calls + 15GB and use the 15e to buy one of their bundles the following month.

Sheep Shagger

Ten Pin wrote: »

Lyca have keep credit offer, top up by 15e for calls + 15GB and use the 15e to buy one of their bundles the following month.

Thanks, can you keep rolling this and is it a manual process each month?

mik_da_man

Would the Vodafone V Sim do the job?
3 quid a month
They put them in their own brand kids watches and I use one in my Car's media/GPS system

Sheep Shagger

mik_da_man wrote: »

Would the Vodafone V Sim do the job?
3 quid a month
They put them in their own brand kids watches and I use one in my Car's media/GPS system

Thanks, had never heard of these or their watch.

Not sure the v sim will work as it doesn't allow calls from the devices and am the watch we've been given is not on the supported devices list.

Think we'll try Lyca - a few quid lost if it doesn't work.

Vic_08

You are confusing yourself with several things.

GoMo and Virgin are billpay services not PAYG.

Most if not all PAYG services allow top-up credit and per call charging.

They also have set plans per month or 28 days which are better value for most customers as the standard (out of plan) call costs are very high. These plans are what the operators advertise as they are the competitive offerings, the standard out of bundle call rates are usually hidden away in the smallprint somewhere.

For the use you are describing however, assuming that it will only be used for now as an emergency contact, a PAYG sim with credit and no active plan will be the best option. You can just put a €10 or €20 top-up on it and only be charged for outgoing calls.

All of the networks have a minimum use required to keep the sim active, typically a top-up is required every so often and/or a chargeable call or text made. AFAIR every 6 months is typical, so a €5 top-up twice a year and the odd short outgoing call.


The V-sim mentioned above is designed for on-line devices that need a regular data connection, not suitable for your useage.

Sheep Shagger

Vic_08 wrote: »

All of the networks have a minimum use required to keep the sim active, typically a top-up is required every so often and/or a chargeable call or text made. AFAIR every 6 months is typical, so a €5 top-up twice a year and the odd short outgoing call

Thanks, this exactly what I'm looking for but from what I can see all need a top up every 30 days to keep the SIM active?

Vic_08

Sheep Shagger wrote: »

Thanks, this exactly what I'm looking for but from what I can see all need a top up every 30 days to keep the SIM active?

No, there would be a huge churn of disabled sims if that was the case.

as I said 6 months is typical, even after that there is normally a period where the sim is semi-blocked and can be reactivated.

Typically on PAYG it is the bundled call, text, and data offer that needs the top up to keep active, if no top-up is made the offer is suspended until the correct value is added, if there is residual credit on the account (below the offer amount usually) then any usage (calls, texts, data) will be charged as you use it at the network's standard rates. This is also how it works if no offer is active by choice.

The point of PAYG is that there is no fixed monthly charge, if you cant or don't want to top up or continue an offer you are not forced to in order to keep the phone active, you won't be able to make calls/texts/internet without any credit but can still receive calls and texts on the number.

The 6 monthly (or more) cutoff is mainly to enable the networks delete inactive accounts and reuse the numbers, as I said the minimum top-up is €5 for most networks so you can keep any PAYG sim active indefinitely for at most €10 a year.

Sheep Shagger

Thanks, so not topping up would mean we have a SIM that could receive or text calls but not make any for about a fiver every six months.

We need to be able to make/receive calls so looks like the cheapest options are €7 a month with Lyca or €12.99 with Gomo.

Vic_08

Sheep Shagger wrote: »

Thanks, so not topping up would mean we have a SIM that could receive or text calls but not make any for about a fiver every six months.

We need to be able to make/receive calls so looks like the cheapest options are €7 a month with Lyca or €12.99 with Gomo.

No, you can make calls with whatever credit is on the account, the credit isn't "used" to keep the phone active, it is available to pay for calls/texts/data and you can add more credit as necessary.

For example the Vodafone PAYG call rates are:


Irish mobiles and landlines 9c connection fee, then 45c per minute , peak and 25c per minute, off peak* (charged per second)
Texts 13c per text
Voicemail Free
Data €1.99 for 100MB daily allowance - 1c per MB after 100MB

noplacehere

Bumping this to see what you got as we are looking at the same thing now

Sheep Shagger

We got the kids Neo watch from Vodafone and pay €3 a month to top it up with one of their data SIMs.

No complaints.

They've since bought out a newer model

https://eshop.v.vodafone.com/ie/neo-smart-kids-watch#ocean

gar

Am I right in thinking could get a lyca sim and top it up by e5 every 90 days and should keep the SIM ticking over and able to receive calls and texts.

Will need to see how much data it chomps and costs...

Zardoz

You can get a Lyca sim and top it up by 5 euro.

Then type *139*9990# and the sim will remain active for 1 year, it uses 5 euro of Credit.