Does anyone have a positive experience with the Bounce?

How do you add them as contact? We have not been able to do that besides adding them as part of our family. 

Correct you can only add them as a family member. The bounce is designed as a tool for family to connect. 

We were hoping to add aunts and uncles to it but didn’t want them having access to his entire profile 

You may want to put in a feature request with Garmin, but good luck getting that fulfilled. 

A family recently asked about my experience with our 2 Garmin Bounce devices as they were looking to have a device that wasn't a smartphone that they could give to their daughter that would allow them to message and to have location tracking. Although the Garmin Bounce (and their competitor Fitbit Ace LTE) are great in theory and in the marketing our experience with the Bounce was underwhelming because of two major issues that I hope Garmin can solve with a future update:

1) Subscription required for Messaging and Rewards - An active subscription is mandatory for using Rewards and for any messaging. Families cannot use the two key marketing/selling points without an active LTE subscription. There's no way to use Wifi for messaging or rewards if you do not have a subscription. 

2) Battery drain - Battery life is pretty bad if the device cannot locate LTE connection, with WiFi Access Point is setup and the device can connect to that it is a bit better, but generally the battery lasts till the end of a school day or less. Often the device will lose battery in the middle of the school day if messaging or games are used. To use the device for location tracking we had to tape up a battery pack and leave it in school bag because of the bad battery performance.

Because of these two major flaws it makes it hard to recommend the bounce to other families. I think if the first issue were resolved (if Garmin allowed Messaging and Rewards using WiFi without an active LTE subscription) the usability could be a bit more palatable but since both subscription paywall and battery drain issues are present the Bounce doesn't meet the needs of many families (ie. The target demographic of the device).

I bought the Garmin Bounce in January 2024 - it presents tons of problems; live tracking is not working at all. Messages are not reliable. The battery drains quickly. Garmin does not provide any support in this regard. I have always been a great Garmin supporter, but I am very disappointed by Garmin since the product is entirely unreliable. Garmin, this way, you destroy your reputation; please contact me by email if you can offer any support. I am located in Italy.

We bought our bounce in APRIL of this year, I am on our 3rd replacement. It's great when it works, but when it doesn't, or is intermittent, it's worse than not having a watch at all. The first watch would not charge past 95% and would take over 12 hours, it was also setup in dutch and would NOT let us change it. The 2nd watch worked GREAT, until it stopped charging at all. Just received our 3rd device this week. Can't get a location, can message the watch on wifi or otherwise. Garmin just offered a refund/return because it just isn't working. They called it a "coverage" issue but we are IN THE CITY. And it doesn't even work on wifi.

My husband and I love our Garmin adult watches. But after reading multiple problematic reviews of the Garmin Bounce, we bought our daughter a TickTalk. The monthly cellular service plan is less than $15 (all fees included) and it has worked perfectly in the first 90 days.

That is so great to hear. The Bounce is unreliable at best, but it mostly does what I need.