What SIM card do I need for my smartwatch?

April 18, 2018 11:45 AM

I have an NFC brand smartwatch from China. After charging for a couple of hours, first switching on says: "Insert SIM". What size SIM card do I need? At the moment it is not pairing with my Samsung S7 phone from ATT running Android 7.0. Any help or advice welcomed as the "User Guide" is very minimal.
posted by lungtaworld to Technology (7 answers total)

Can you post some pictures of the watch & the User Guide? I can't find anything about a brand called NFC (that's a feature, usually, though I may just be unfamiliar with it). If you have a model # or anything like that it would be even more helpful.

If your smartwatch needs a sim to function, then it may also need a data plan - though it might be able to work with just the connection to your watch and will just have less functionality than it might otherwise.
posted by brainmouse at 11:48 AM on April 18, 2018 [1 favorite]

So, all SIM cards have the exact same size and shape of electrical contact. The difference is entirely in the plastic housing. Accordingly, most SIM cards these days come in a single sheet of perforated plastic where you can pop out a standard, micro, or nano SIM card as needed.
posted by tobascodagama at 11:50 AM on April 18, 2018 [1 favorite]

I don't know about your brand, but the Apple Watch has a virtual SIM card, where you input the SIM code number into the watch without needing an actual card. With space at a premium, this may be standard practice in smart-watches.
posted by cardboard at 1:01 PM on April 18, 2018 [1 favorite]

Could it be running a modded up version of Android and it's just whining about needing a SIM from the OS? Given that it's a Chinese brand watch, I'm wondering if it actually has a SIM slot or if it's just using some badly written OS layer that is expecting one.
posted by msbutah at 1:31 PM on April 18, 2018 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Thank you for the answers so far.
I took my phone and the watch to my local ATT store and was advised that I could have a SIM card from them but it would cost $10 per month. (Silly me, I had no idea).
For future reference, I discovered that under the LiPo battery there are two SIM slots of different sizes, as described by Tobascogama.
And so the matter rests.
posted by lungtaworld at 4:12 PM on April 18, 2018 [1 favorite]

Best answer: Go to a different store, preferably when it's busy, and tell the greeter you need a new SIM. If they bother asking say you want to activate a BYO phone. Thru will give you one for free if you are at an actual company owned store. Take said SIM, stick it in the watch and you'll at least have no complaints from it about lacking a SIM any more and can see what it will do without an active cell connection and decide whether you need to pay the $10 a month. Since you will already have the SIM, you can do it all online if you decide you want to go that route.

Do be aware that if you do actually activate it, there is a $45 activation fee these days, though they do sometimes have promos that waive the fee for online activations.
posted by wierdo at 7:00 PM on April 18, 2018 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: I have marked wierdo's answer as best and will take his advice. Now to find a 'proper' store and not an Authorised Retailer.
posted by lungtaworld at 5:45 AM on April 19, 2018 [1 favorite]