Cool Mom Staff, Author at Cool Mom Tech

12 ways this little smart gadget can make your holidays a whole lot easier.

by Cool Mom Staff | Holiday Tech Gifts, Home Office, Kitchen Tech

With the holidays right around the corner, we’re always looking for ways to make this busy season easier and more enjoyable. For us, a little extra time and sanity goes a long way. And well, there is actually a gadget for that. We’re thrilled to welcome...

Relay: The screen-free smartphone alternative for kids who aren’t ready for the real thing | Sponsored Message

by Cool Mom Staff | Cell Phones

This is a sponsored message from Relay So many parents want their kids to have the safety and security of a phone, and yet those kids aren’t necessarily ready for all the responsibility and liability that comes with owning one. It’s a major issue among...

This fun supermarket app gives kids tons of delicious, imaginative play | Sponsored Message

by Cool Mom Staff | Fun Apps for Kids

This is a sponsored message from Kinsane Entertainment Inc. If you’ve ever told your kids not to play with their food, well, now there’s one way they totally can: Fruits vs Veggies Supermarket App for iOS and Android. This fun, safe, and simple interactive...

How installing USB charging outlets in your home makes charging so much faster | Sponsored Message

by Cool Mom Staff | Home Office

This is a sponsored message from Leviton With so many gadgets filling up our households these days, families are always looking for quicker, more efficient ways to charge their devices. That’s why so many parents are swapping out standard electrical outlets for...

5 free online parental controls you can put to use right now to keep kids safer.

by Cool Mom Staff | Family Safety Apps, Internet Safety

As parents, we try to keep an eye on what our kids are doing online to help keep them safe, but we can’t be over their shoulders all the time. Nor should we be! That’s why we’re always grateful for online parental controls of all kinds, and why...

5 free parental controls for cable TV that you may not know about

by Cool Mom Staff | Entertainment, Tips and Tricks

One of parents’ biggest concerns about kids today, is the access they have to inappropriate content. Parents are often asking us for parental control devices, services and apps to help them moderate what kids’ can see and keep them safe. And there are...

Back to School Tech: The best apps to help kids with reading

by Cool Mom Staff | Back to School Tech, Best Apps

Every year on Cool Mom Tech, we review and recommend the best reading apps for kids of all ages. This year, we’re putting all of our guides in one handy place, so you can bookmark them and reference them more easily. Whether you’ve got pre-readers or...

This fun, safe new app from KinToons lets your kid play DJ….with nursery rhymes!

by Cool Mom Staff | Educational Apps For Kids, Fun Apps for Kids

This is a sponsored message from KinToons Music! Singing! A flying turtle with a jet pack! An ice cream-eating duck! It all comes together in the wonderful new KinToons Nursery Rhyme DJ app, a fun, colorful, and totally safe environment for nursery rhyme-loving kids....

Are the video games your kids love safe for them? We can help.

by Cool Mom Staff | Games + Gaming, Internet Safety

If you thought your kids tech-savvy as toddlers, it’s amazing to see how quickly they pick up video games when they get a little older. They know what’s hot and what’s not faster than Mario with a super star power-up. Turns out there are tons of...

Web Coolness: Turning off an annoying Instagram feature, a new Snapchat feature you should know about, and more

by Cool Mom Staff | Link Roundups

Here are some of our favorite links from this past week. We hope you find them interesting and useful! Here’s how to turn off the Instagram activity status feature. Did you know about this new Google Maps feature? (Plus, more Google Maps features you should...

Hi! We’re Kristen + Liz

Kristen Chase + Liz Gumbinner of Cool Mom Picks

We started Cool Mom Tech in 2010 to help make our increasingly digital lives easier, more organized, more meaningful, and more fun, however old your kids may be.

We love that it's grown to become the go-to source for millions of parents who want commonsense info about tech delivered with a smile.

We even have the privilege of sharing our tips + tricks with The TODAY Show, CNN, HLN, GMA, Nightline, newspapers and magazines around the country, and our favorite -- regular parents who stop us at PTA meetings and ask us how old kids need to be to get a smartphone, and whether they really need to panic about Snapchat.

(Answer: It's complicated.)

We're so glad you're here! And we hope we can help you too.