Just wanted to share my experiences with activating Visible service on an old 1st generation iPhone SE. First, I checked the EIMI on the website and it came back compatible. So I signed up for service, but then discovered I could not download the Visible app to activate service because it requires iOS 16.x or better (and this iPhone will not run anything above 15.x). So I used the online chat on the website and got to a live agent to see what could be done.
At first, the agent claimed that activation could be done via the website, so I asked them to walk me through how to do that. After going away for a while, the agent came back and admitted that it couldn't be done that way. Eventually got a supervisor on a phone call, who claimed that all I had to do was power on the phone with the new physical SIM and it would activate. Afterwards I could just use the website to manage the account.
I was skeptical, but gave it a try when I received the SIM. Of course it did not work. The reason why it doesn't work is because Visible just grabs a SIM out of inventory and does not tie that SIM to your account prior to shipping it. You have to activate service while logged in to your account on the phone app so that the app can communicate the SIM details to tie it to your account. In theory, a web app *could* be used to activate service, but it would require manual entry of various low-level details, which would be prone to error and cause support calls. So they have chosen not to support this option.
Assuming you don't want to buy a new phone, to activate service on a phone that won't run the Visible app you must have access to a "helper" phone that *will* run the app. Download the app on the helper, install the Visible SIM card, login to the app, and activate as if this will be the phone you use. After the service is activated, you can move the SIM to the desired target phone. Since the SIM is tied to an account and not a particular physical phone, this process should work, and did in fact work for me.
