I recently went abroad and wanted to try using eSIMs for internet but I soon realised my older OnePlus phone did not support eSIMs. From some searching I discovered there are devices on the market that you can put into the SIM card slot and load eSIM profiles on without your phone needing to have built-in eSIM support!
This blog post by Frank Ruan goes into a lot of detail about the different cards available and I followed his advice and ordered the ESTKme Max for HK$230 (€25) (with coupon code for 10% off: UPHMUE8MKK).
Less than two weeks later I received the card and popped it in to the secondary SIM slot and installed the ESTKme app.
For getting an eSIM I tried two different providers - Saily and Airalo.
The Saily app is awful and kept crashing, possibly due to the fact my phone does not actually have builtin eSIM support.
Airalo’s app worked fine, while it says “your phone does not support eSIM” it still allows you to go through the process of ordering one and screenshotting the needed QR code.
You can use referral code EDUARD1794 for €3 off first Airalo purchase.
Loading the eSIM onto the card is very easy, just open the app, select the SIM slot, click the plus symbol and either use an image with the eSIM QR code or use the phone camera to load the eSIM info. Be aware you do need internet connectivity to load the eSIM info with the ESTK app so best do this somewhere you have WiFi or before you leave. Once the SIM is loaded I just needed to enable the SIM slot and enable roaming on it in my phone settings. You may need to restart your phone to get connectivity after loading the eSIM the first time.
Overall it worked well!