Liz Gumbinner, Author at Cool Mom Tech

A cool time-saving emoji keyboard trick for iPhone (courtesy of my 10 year old)

Leave it to the kids to figure out cool iPhone tricks before we do, especially where emoji are concerned. Turns out, there’s a fun way to insert emoji into your texts without toggling back and forth between keyboards — something that can be a bit of a...

Ooh…Cromatica Bluetooth speakers are music for the eyes, too

by Liz Gumbinner | Around the House, Audio

One look at the Italian Cromatica Bluetooth speakers and…whoa. Think of this lamp-speaker hybrid like a mood ring for your home. You choose the color illumination that suits you, choose your music, then lie back and chill. Or, clean your bathroom. Or, get some...

A Design Kit: The fabulous new type overlay and stickers app to keep your Insta stories on point

by Liz Gumbinner | Photo Apps, Social Media

Last year, I fell in love with the A Color Story app for photo editing, and named it my cool pick of the week on our Spawned podcast. Just this weekend, they launched A Design Kit, their equally fun, friendly, and really wonderful app this time for design. Especially...

17 of our favorite geeky Valentine’s cards for your favorite geeky valentine.

by Liz Gumbinner | Fun

We always love looking for the most fun, geeky Valentine’s Day cards every year. After all, some of our favorite valentines are geeks!. Whether they’re our kids or our sweethearts, we’ve put together some awesome geeky Valentine’s Day cards...

How long is the airport security line wait? There’s an app for that!

by Liz Gumbinner | Travel Apps

Considering Disney has had their own wait time line trackers for years now, and now, thanks to my favorite travel app TripIt, you’ll be able to track real-time security wait times at the airport. It’s a feature now available to Pro subscribers and it will...

3 outstanding new high-tech baby monitors worth checking out | Best of CES 2018

by Liz Gumbinner | Baby Tech, Cameras, Home Security

Since CES 2018, we’ve been featuring our favorite tech picks for parents and I’d be remiss if I didn’t share the incredible new high-tech baby monitors that I got a chance to check out. While there are certainly a lot more that we’ll be trying...

Jooki: Why we adore this 21st century jukebox for kids | CES 2018

by Liz Gumbinner | Kids Music, Tech Toys and Random Fun

Wow was I excited to discover Jooki at CES 2018. I mean, I saw a whole lot of new tech for kids, but not a whole lot beyond STEM and coding toys that really made me go wow. So I’ll be sharing a few top favorites for kids over the coming days, but I have to start...

Covet alert: The swanky new charging purses from Mighty Purse

by Liz Gumbinner | Cell Phone Accessories, Travel Essentials

Among all the hardware, wires, and molded plastic at CES 2018 this year, I admit I made a beeline for the Mighty Purse booth, which featured the most gorgeous floor to (almost) ceiling display of charging purses that would be stunning, even if they didn’t charge...

6 of the best new coding toys for kids | Best of CES 2018

by Liz Gumbinner | Tech Toys and Random Fun

I’ve been back several days from CES 2018, the Consumer Electronic Show, and I’m so happy to discover so many innovative new coding toys for kids this year that are giving new meaning to “best coding toys for kids.” Wow, how far we’ve...

What work of art do you most look like? The silly app everyone is playing with

by Liz Gumbinner | Fun Apps

My timeline started blowing up with bizarre side-by-side photos of selfies and museum portraits. I tracked it down as a feature of the new Google Arts & Culture app (iOS and Android) which is free, fun, and possibly has some educational value in it too. Scroll...

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.