Reddit:
I imagine and wish Apple could implement a software download that allowed my old series zero to be handed down to my child with things like fitness and calendars still available. Maybe not even calendars.
I know the watch currently requires a phone but perhaps that could be tied to the “parent” device?
Would anyone else be interested in this? How could it work?
I think there’s a germ of a great idea here. Maybe a dumbed down version of watchOS that let an older Apple Watch continue to serve and be a first-class citizen, able to communicate with the current version of iOS, but with a much smaller feature set. Still useful, an entry level device for kids, keeping old Apple Watches out of the waste stream.
eh, kids old enough to have an AW seem to have iphones too, so this doesn’t seem like a fruitful idea.
FWIW, Watches don’t have to enter the waste stream. You can recycle them. 🙂
The main issue with re-using Series Zero, IMO, is not the need for a phone tether (as mdelvecchio points out, many folks have iPhones, and you can get older iPhones pretty cheap), but rather that these are seriously terribly underpowered devices. Workout was barely performant on my Series 2 with watchOS 4/5, and Series 2 was 50-100% faster than Series 0. Meanwhile, my Series 4 feels 10x faster than the Series 2.
For a kid that doesn’t have an iPhone, a $5 watch from Walmart would probably do.
Not to mention I love my kid enough not to strap a lithium-ion battery past its usable lifespan to his wrist. My series 0 only gets about 8 hours battery life these days anyway.
What I always wanted from apple : Allows syncing from an ipod touch or an ipad.
it would expand the apple watch to a lot of customer that doesn’t have iphones but has ipad !