Just a heads up. Even if your watch is cellular, you still need an iPhone. iPadOS has no watch app like iOS does, therefore no way to update the watch.
Edit: @chrfr Just saw your post. Great minds think alike.
Thaks for the coreecrion of my thinking. I was not aware that even if there is cellular you cant make phone calls…now thinking about this, it will be shooting into leg for apple to allow this 😂😂
You can always get an older, cheap iPhone from the refurb section of Apple or Swappa and use Mint Mobile or US Mobile for cheap cell service. But yeah, you need a working iPhone to pair the Apple watch with. You can't just pair it w/ an iPad either otherwise you could just use Google Voice. Apple knows how to make you pay. lol.