Pinwheel Kids PhonesReviews of pinwheel.com

Absolutely terrible experience with this company. We were one of the first people to order a Pinwheel Spark, a "landline" type phone, for our two kids. We were never able to get it to work despite numerous attempts and modifications to our home network and phone settings (I mean, it shouldn't be this difficult) and I had to send numerous emails to customer service to ask them for help with return and refund. They received the phone over two weeks ago and no one has reached out to confirm. It's enough to turn me into the arms of big tech! Should have gone with a Tin Can. Do not recommend this company or its products.

The customer support person helped me to troubleshoot until we resolved the issue. I only gave 4 stars, though, because the wait was extremely long

Awful customer service chat feature, virtually useless chat function

Good starter phone for sure. Can be super locked down and can also be surprisingly 'free'. My son is 14 so we started it with minimal apps and I've slowly let him add more. We added Google Store which does allow you to add ALOT some of which definitely has potential risks because parents cannot see what is happening in these apps i.e. Google docs, WhatsApp, Chrome etc. but we are willing to give him some freedom while having ongoing conversations. I like the monthly reports I get which shows me his time usage. We also added a screen time tracker app on his phone which is more app specific. Can be glitchy. He often has to swipe out. I told him this happens on my iPhone as well.

I wouldn’t recommend. I have been going back and fro now to have my two children on the same account. I’ve supplied the same information over and over to different people. I bought if for the gps tracker when the kids are on the bus, but at times it’s very laggy and delayed. When the phone is flat, you cannot locate it. The idea itself is great. No social media and the monitoring feature. But, it shouldn’t be this hard to have two kids on the same subscription and the subscription is very pricey. You have the cost of the phone, phone provider plus the subscription costs.

Nel D. was an awesome customer care person to work with when transitioning from Pinwheel to a regular android device. Super patient and nice. Overall, Pinwheel has been a great service for our family and we will be back when our younger child is ready for a phone

Sent me a broken watch over an hour for customer service made me send like 8 photos. Then told me oh we we will have to send another and you have to return the broken watch so incredibly inconvenient. Im just sending in for a refund. Do NOT use this company.

I had such high hopes for this phone but it has been a complete dud. It hasn’t been able to successfully call out more than a couple of times in a whole month of owning it and troubleshooting. The customer service at this company is so infuriating. They keep telling me “the developers are working on it” but give me no information about how they will fix it and when. I cannot imagine leaving my kids home alone with such an unreliable phone that only works less than 10% of the time. No one at Pinwheel seems to want to take responsibility for the phone not working. I have put at least 6 hours into troubleshooting the phone, being on hold or talking to Pinwheel, my Internet service provider, even the company that made my router. We even bought a new router! It goes beyond being disappointed to feeling extremely frustrated and take advantage of. I should have just gotten on the waitlist for the Tin Can. Save yourself the stress and do not put your trust in the Pinwheel home phone! Continuing to face customer service issues even after returning the product. I haven’t received my refund.