The therapist-approved, all tool no toy smartphone for kids. Stop fighting about phones in your family as soon as you want to, and build the lifetime habits of a healthy relationship with technology: machines serve humans, humans don't serve machines!
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Is pinwheel.com legit?
pinwheel.com (pinwheel.com) has a 4.1 out of 5 rating on OK.one, based on 102 user reviews collected here. It is listed under Electronics & Technology and its reputation is good. 77% of reviews are 4 stars or higher and 18% are 1 star; The business has replied to 73% of negative reviews; Reviews mostly discuss Customer service, Product, User experience. Last updated 2026-08-12.
What reviewers say
AI generated
Reviewers had a great experience with this company. Customers frequently praise the support team for being exceptionally helpful, patient, and quick to resolve technical issues during setup or daily use. Consumers highlight that representatives go above and beyond, providing clear guidance and maintaining a welcoming attitude throughout all interactions.
However, some customers also noted that the software and user experience can sometimes feel unintuitive and frustrating to navigate. People reported encountering glitchy hardware, low-quality phone components, and complicated instructions when attempting to configure the devices independently. A portion of reviewers experienced challenges with customer service follow-ups or defective items that required extensive troubleshooting.
Auto-generated from all reviews of this business. For reference only.
I had been playing the telephone game, going back and forth with 3 companies to try and resolve an issue with my son's phone. Chen was my customer service agent on this last go around and I cannot say thank you enough to him for his patience with waiting on the chat with me for a significant amount of time while I had another phone company also on the line. He was extremely helpful, kind, and again, patient to the max. There are not a lot of people or companies who'd be willing to wait for as long as he did, without asking the customer to call/email/chat back later. Chen escalated when appropriate and got us (hopefully!) to a resolution. Thank you, thank you Chen!
Absolutely garbage,stay away from these phones and customer support,i bought 2 slim 6 phones so $700 and after 7 months 1 phone cant get signal,I spent 3 hrs on the phone with pinwheel trying to troubleshoot it,after that they said I need a new phone,and they wont even give me a deal or replacement device because they said there is 1 tiny scratch on the corner of the phone,so now they want another $350 for a phone,I might be canceling both pinwheel accounts and going a different route
Reply from pinwheel.com2026-08-07
Hi Chris. I looked into your case and wanted to provide some clarification: The damage on the device goes beyond a minor scratch and appears to be a crack near the receiver, which could very well be contributing to the signal issue you're experiencing. Because of this, we're unfortunately unable to accommodate a free replacement, as device condition is something we do take into account.
That said, we don't want to leave you without options. If you're open to it, do reach out to our support team and we can look into what more affordable paths are available to get you back up and running. We also have our Back to School sale currently ongoing, which may help bring the cost down if that's something you'd like to explore.
Got the corded phone, it was a month late and the quality of the phone itself is not good. Echo, poor reception and-sound; very cheap and poor construction.
Reply from pinwheel.com2026-08-07
Hi Dale, we're sorry to hear the Pinwheel Home didn't meet your expectations, and we apologize for the delay in getting it to you. The issues you're describing with the sound quality and construction are definitely not what we want for our customers. If you haven't yet, please don't hesitate to reach out to our support team to get things sorted out. We're hopeful that some of what you're experiencing may just be a setup issue we can work through together!
We love Pinwheel. The older kids have Pinwheel phones, the younger a Pinwheel watch and just bought a landline. This is exactly what a kid phone/watch should be. I’ve had to call customer service once for me accidentally creating 2 accounts for the same kid and they were amazing and even refunded my money.
Chen B. was amazing to work with. He provided exactly what I needed and answered all my questions. I made a mistake and he helped me correct it with grace and kindness. If all customer service agents were like Chen, the world would be a better place!
pinwheel renewed annual subscription without any renewal warning email. We stopped using the phone after 3 months as it was so restrictive.
Reply from pinwheel.com2026-07-28
Hi Hugh, we're sorry to hear this caught you off guard. Annual subscriptions do renew automatically at the end of each billing cycle, the renewal date and cancel button are always visible in your Caregiver Portal. We'd encourage you to reach out to our support team directly so we can look into this and work toward the best resolution for you
Great Customer Service. Rizza was very helpful and knowledgeable. She was able to answer my question quickly and efficiently and provided additional information that I hadn't thought to ask. Excited to continue with Pinwheel as a first phone for my second child.
The pinwheel old fashioned wired home phone doesn't work. We got a shipment mid July (it shipped out later than they had said when we purchased) and the device doesn't' connect to the internet. Customer service has been dragging their feet on getting us a return/refund. We keep hearing from them that they have too many service tickets. Our kids friends are in the same boat. DO NOT BUY THE OLD FASHIONED WIRED PHONE FROM PINWHEEL!!!!!!
Update: Interesting that I get a reply on the review within hours, but still no word back from customer service on the return/refund. No this email does not match, and it shouldn’t have to. Pinwheel should take care of customers. Not chase down online reviews.
Reply from pinwheel.com2026-07-28
We're sorry to hear about the experience with your Pinwheel Home and for the delay in getting your return sorted out. You're right that we've seen a significant influx of new users recently, and we sincerely apologize that your case hasn't gotten the attention it deserved.
Since I'm unable to locate your case with the name on this review, could you please send us a new email referencing your previous ticket number so we can track it down quickly? And just to put your mind at ease, our return window is 30 days from receipt, so you are still well within the window to get this resolved; of course we don't want the delay on our end to eat into that time. We want to get this resolved for you well before then!
The software is glitchy and slow, the location tracker is particularly slow and doesn’t always load, thousands of manager/ permission notifications going off every day on the phone which is very distracting for my child - I reported this to pinwheel a few months ago and it never got resolved. We also had numerous issues when trying to set the phone up with our desired apps. Certain features within apps (such as features within child Spotify account or parent managed account for WhatsApp) did not work properly (or at all) and we were unable to resolve these issues via pinwheel support. Finally, sometimes text messages just never arrive at the phone - numerous occasions where we’ve text our child and they never get through to the phone.
Eventually, after about 4-5 months, we have decided to cancel our pinwheel subscription. My emails and texts to support received no response so I tried the live chat. I spent over 2 hours on live chat trying to cancel our subscription with no confirmed cancellation at the end and no confirmation of when I can expect a response from my cancellation request which has had to be escalated. The escalation was due to being unable to log into the browser portal to delete our child’s account (our login details would work for the app but not the browser which is where you need to go to delete the account) - apparently this is a pre-requisite to cancelling your subscription. I now have to just wait to see if they contact me to confirm the cancellation (not holding my breath) or if they take another payment which I have explicitly said is not acceptable.
I do not recommend pinwheel. It does not work effectively and the cancellation process, at this point, has been a shambles.
Reply from pinwheel.com2026-07-24
Hello there! We're sorry to hear about your experience, and we completely understand the frustration, especially with the cancellation process taking longer than it should.
What you've described is not how our system normally operates, and we're sorry that wasn't resolved when you first brought it up. On the cancellation, we can close your account without requiring you to log in as long as we're able to verify your account fully. Since we aren't able to pull your details from this platform, please do follow up with our support team directly if you haven't heard back yet and we'll get this wrapped up for you.
I don't know what is going on with my Pinwheel phone; this is to put it lightly, but it sucks. It was fine for the first couple of months, but then it started acting up. It would take a solid minute to send messages. I don't know if that had to do with the data plan I have; it might be, but there are other problems with it. Such as the notifications going off every second. ON average, I will get around 2,000 notifications a day just from the Permission Controller. I have tried multiple times to turn off the notifications, but I can't. I have tried to get my parents to turn them off, but they can't do it either. I don't know why my phone needs to constantly remind me that "Contacts has location access" or "Messenger has location access" literally two times in the same minute. Another one of the many problems with this phone is when it kicks me out of apps that are approved by the Pinwheel Manager. I have been kicked out of Amazon Music, the Messenger app, Gmail, Pinwheel settings, Duolingo, the Camera app, Google Drive, and all of the other apps I have so many times that I can not tell you how many times. To clarify, when I was kicked out, I did not click on any unsupported links, ads, locked pages, or restricted places on the app. The reason I bring this up is that I rely heavily on Google Maps for work to get around. I do not have time to pull over every five minutes to re-enter the address because it keeps kicking me out of the app. Another thing, I don't always receive messages, nor do my messages always send. I will usually have to resend that message three times to get it to finally send. The key board glithches almosth all the time. It will double-print letters if it is plugged in and charging. I know it is not the sensitivity, because I have messed with it trying to get it to work. It will glitch when someone is calling me and won't let me answer the call. It has activated the emergency SOS button and called 911 before I could hang up.
I have tried to do just about everything to make my phone run more smoothly. I have restarted it, over and over again. Made sure all the software was up to date. made extra space for RAM in my storage. Turned on the XtraRAM button in the settings. I have cleared the Cache on all the apps that would allow me to do it. My phone is a G64 model, I don't know if all the other Modles are the same, but this one is just a piece of crap. It has more problems; I have only listed the big ones.
So... yeah, the Pinwheel G64 Model is a terrible phone, don't waste your money.
Reply from pinwheel.com2026-07-24
Hi Silas, thank you for taking the time to detail everything you're experiencing. We can see how disruptive this has been, especially relying on the phone for work.
A few things worth knowing that may help:
The Permission Controller notifications are tied to the GPS monitoring function of the device. Our support team can help get those turned off if they're becoming overwhelming.
The G64 is one of our more basic models, designed primarily for everyday kids' use. For heavier use cases like navigation, messaging apps, and multiple active apps running simultaneously, it may be worth looking into an upgrade.
On the performance side, occasional restarts help the device clear out memory, and making sure there's enough storage space is important for running apps and installing updates smoothly. Staying connected to WiFi regularly also ensures the device stays up to date, which can clear up a number of the issues you're describing.
We'd encourage your parents to reach out to our support team directly. There may be some troubleshooting steps we haven't tried yet, and if the phone genuinely isn't the right fit for your needs, we'd love to help find a better option.
This phone is trash you can't use airplane mode unless your parents unlock it you can't edit the accessibilities it kicks you out you can't get an AI they give you "pinwheel gpt" but a complete rip half the questions you ask it doesn't answer and there are limited responses with a premium option I ask a greenlight ai and a pinwheel AI the same question and the greenlight AI did better and answered it right and it isn't even made for it, they also have to accept every contact and track everything.
Reply from pinwheel.com2026-07-24
Hello Andy, we hear you, and we get that these restrictions can feel limiting. Pinwheel is designed with parental oversight in mind, so a lot of what you're describing is intentional to keep the experience safe and focused. As for Pinwheel GPT, we appreciate the honest feedback and will make sure it gets to the right team. We'd encourage chatting with your parents about adjusting settings as you get older!
I purchased the spark home phone for my kids. It is supposed to work off my home WiFi. I spent two days trying to get the phone to connect and work. I called, sent texts and emailed customer service and was never able to get ahold of anyone. After two days of trying to get it working I decided to try and get a refund. I have called and emailed and have still been unable to get ahold of their customer service. The phone doesn’t work and the customer service is useless and doesn’t answer. I wouldn’t waste your money
Reply from pinwheel.com2026-07-24
Hi, Patrick! We're sorry to hear you've had trouble getting through to us. We've been experiencing a higher than usual volume of inquiries following our recent product launch, which has impacted our response times. We completely understand how frustrating that must be, especially when you're trying to get a new device up and running.
If you haven't already, please try reaching us through our live chat on the website, as that may be the fastest way to get connected with our team. We'd love the chance to help get your Pinwheel Home set up before moving forward with a refund.
I got this phone for my 13 year old daughter. The app is hard to use. Half the messages and calls don't go through. Support takes ages and isn't user friendly. Plus there is heaps of bugs.
Reply from pinwheel.com2026-07-14
Hi Julian, we're sorry to hear your daughter's experience hasn't been a smooth one. The issues you're describing aren't normal, and we'd love the chance to help get things sorted out. If our email/sms line is not meeting your response time needs, we do have live chat on the website. You can also email us to schedule a call, or just call us directly! Please don't hesitate to reach out and we'll work through this with you.
BEWARE - Lost $600+ with phone used less than 1 wk
I researched the pinwheel with the hopes of providing my son with his first phone in a way that it could grow with him. Despite checking multiple times (and being led to believe) that it would work with his school apps. We purchased the phone, and discovered in the first week it would not work with the apps he needed for school. I started the return process immediately - literally with 7 days of receiving it. Never Never have I had such a poor and frustrating experience. I submitted no fewer than 33 different photos of the phone to 'prove' it was new. My son never even got to use the phone as the necessary apps would not work. After multiples of emails, I finally asked if they were just stalling so that the 30 days expired??!! They responded promptly then, and said no, of course not, and could i please send another series of pictures to prove it was in mint condition!!!?! After 3 weeks of this, they finally sent the return label. I packaged everything up per their extremely specific instructions. It has been 5 weeks now, no communication, NO REFUND, and they disabled my account so I can't connect directly to them any longer. I am out over $600 for something we never even got to use. This was THE poorest experience and I would discourage others from bothering with them. Go to Bark. At least they have integrity and back up their products.
Reply from pinwheel.com2026-07-14
Hi there, we understand the return and refund process took longer than expected, and we appreciate your patience through it. We do our best to process returns as smoothly and quickly as possible, though the timeline can vary depending on how the process is followed on both ends.
While we do our best to process refunds in a timely manner, it sounds like your case may have slipped through the cracks, and that's on us. If your refund has not come through yet, please don't hesitate to reach out to our support team directly and we'll make it a priority to get this resolved for you as quickly as possible!
I've been a happy Pinwheel customer for several years now. The customer service is exceptional and I have peace of mind my child is safe with all the parental control features. They've added a lot of features since we first started using Pinwheel so it just keeps getting better. What prompted this review was putting in an insurance claim because my child accidently dropped it in a pool and being denied due to "negligence". This is the first time in probably 5 years we put a claim in so needless to say I was NOT happy. I ended up calling Pinwheel and asking them if they could assist me with the Xcover denial. The very next day my claim was reversed and was able to get a replacement! It's nice when you're loyalty is recognized so thank you Pinwheel!
Highly recommended from one parent to another who's just trying to keep our kids safe in this crazy digital world.
She was very helpful and friendly. Always reached out to make sure she knew she didn't forget about me. Was very knowledgeable and explained things very detailed and with expertise.
Phone stopped working on our network a few months after purchase. Going through the returns/refund process was a nightmare. 20+ emails and hours on the phone to finally come to a resolution. The phones are low quality and the software is unreliable. Don’t count on the GPS tracking. It’s slow to load if it even loads at all.
Reply from pinwheel.com2026-07-02
Hi, Elizabeth. We're sorry to hear about your experience, and we understand the resolution process took longer than it should have. The extended back-and-forth was largely due to the age of the device requiring additional review as it is past our usual returns policy. We're glad a refund was able to be provided in the end, and we appreciate you sharing your feedback with us.
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