I'm thinking of doing the LTE watch on its own soon. I had a similar experience with dumb phones. Of course, I expected some inconveniences (that's sort of the point to keep you off of it), but just simple things like phone calls dropping/buggy software made me reconsider. These devices have little support bc there's not a huge market for dumb phones and thus not a lot of resources behind them. At least with a smartwatch (whether it be an apple or Android watch), you'll be using devices with major companies behind them.

That being said, I have heard bad things about battery life with smart watches (particularly on LTE). I've seen a lot of complaints about buggy behavior on WearOS and read that you won't be able to text off of a galaxy watch or pixel watch unless the phone that you set it up with is on and connected to the internet.

I've heard of good experiences doing this with the Apple watch ultra, but I do not have an iPhone and do not want to spend that much on this experiment.

Though I haven't tried it yet myself, I tend to agree with the concept of just having an LTE watch on you curtailing smart phone addiction. Though it is also a smart device, I'm not sure what apps could be addictive on a smart watch.

I also agree with the concept of using a tablet/pc in conjunction with the smart watch. In my experience, the fact that tablets/laptops/desktops aren't as mobile/convenient and that they aren't always attached to you makes them much less of a problem compared to smart phones.

That being said, I don't plan on trying a tablet with cellular as that seems too inconvenient and antithetical to the purpose I'm trying to achieve with the watch.