Reclaiming Childhood Independence with Technology: An Interview with Russell York, CEO of Cosmo

Aug 25

🎧 Listen to the full episode on Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music

I kicked off Season 2 of The My Outdoorsy Mom Podcast with a powerful conversation with Russell York, founder and CEO of Cosmo—the family-first tech company behind the JrTrack smartwatch. Russell is a new dad, a child of the ‘90s and a guy on a mission to help kids rediscover the kind of adventurous, confidence-building childhood that many of us look back on with nostalgia.

We covered a lot of ground in this episode, and if you’ve been wondering whether tech can actually support your efforts to get your kids outside—not sabotage them—this is your sign to tune in.

What Is “Satellite Parenting” (and Why It’s Not Helicoptering)

Russell introduced a term I haven’t stopped thinking about since we recorded: satellite parenting. Unlike helicopter parenting, where we hover close, satellite parenting is about keeping a high-level connection while empowering kids to roam further. It’s the kind of freedom we had growing up—but with peace of mind built in.

With tools like the JrTrack 5 smartwatch, kids can walk to a friend’s house or play at the park while still being able to check in when needed. And for many families, that’s the missing piece that makes outdoor independence actually feel doable.

Rebuilding the Neighborhood, One Watch at a Time

One of my favorite parts of our chat? Russell’s reminder that kids network the neighborhood. When one child starts playing outside, others join. Parents feel safer letting their kids join in when they’re connected—and before long, the street is alive with play again.

This is how change happens. One family at a time. One small decision at a time.

The Role of Tech in a Nature-Rich Childhood

Let’s be honest—many of us have a complicated relationship with tech. But this episode offered a refreshing perspective: when designed with intention, technology can be a bridge to more freedom, not less.

Russell and his team built Cosmo to align with values we share here: simplicity, presence, curiosity, and the belief that childhood is best lived outside, not on a screen.

Shop the Cosmo JrTrack 5 here and use code "JULIANNE" for savings!

Want the full episode? 🎧 Listen to Episode 17: Reclaiming Childhood Independence with Technology

Julianne Nienberg (00:40)
Today I'm joined by someone who's not just building a product, he's building a movement. Russell York is the founder and CEO of Cosmo, a tech company on a mission to help kids reclaim a childhood of confidence, curiosity, and connection with the help of smart tools that actually respect family values. As a 90s kid turned new dad,

Russell grew up riding his bike around the neighborhood till the streetlights came on. And now he's bringing that kind of free range spirit back with the Cosmo Junior Track Smartwatch and a bold message for parents everywhere that yes, you can and yes, they can. This is gonna be a conversation about freedom, safety and how technology when done right can be a bridge to outdoor independence. Russell, welcome to the podcast.

Russell York (01:22)
Julianne, it's so nice to be here. Thanks for having me.

Julianne Nienberg (01:24)
Yes, you I loved learning about how outdoorsy you are and what kind of outdoorsy childhood you had. And you also mentioned that you're a new dad, so congratulations. And I imagine that makes this whole mission feel a lot more personal. I'd love to know what surprised you the most about becoming a parent when it comes to how kids play now versus how you grew up.

Russell York (01:36)
Thank you.

Yeah, that's a big question. I'll say my kid is seven months. And so ⁓ the whole how they play now versus other kids right now, he just kind of rolls over and drools on me. But we're going to get into all of the fun sort of ⁓ real childhood adventures in a couple of years. I have nieces and nephews in that age range. And frankly, I started this company. I wasn't even a dad yet, but I started this company because to me, the

The issue with childhood and sort of real world childhoods, outdoor play, the 90s ⁓ era that I grew up in, it was obvious to me that that was less of a present day reality for families. ⁓ You don't need to do much more than drive through a neighborhood to realize if you have your head on a swivel that there's not so many bikes in the neighborhood and there's not so many kids playing at the park.

⁓ conversations I was having with parents, ⁓ the reason for that wasn't because the world was less safe. It was because ⁓ the sort of nature of safety or the feeling of parenthood responsibility had shifted and changed in the last couple of decades. so parents were keeping their kids inside or closer to the front door so they could see them. There was just less independence. And you could say some of that is screens, for sure. There's definitely more technology.

that's in ⁓ the everyday childhood experience, but I don't think screens are necessarily an enemy or the problem, right? Really the problem is parents having the confidence to push their kids outside to go play and kids feeling like they have the kind of permission or a peace of mind to know that they can call mom and dad if they need to, right? Some kids really need that connection. And so just looking around the world, it was apparent to me that

There was a past that we could bring back by thoughtfully integrating technology into the family. And that's what we're trying to do at Cosmo.

Julianne Nienberg (03:44)
you bring to light this, just the notion of that there aren't that many kids out playing. And even as a parent who has children that are ages eight and six, I would agree. And you know, we're not seeing as many bikes gathered in someone's driveway or gathered in someone's front lawn. And actually every once in a while I'll see it and I'm like, whoever that parent is, like great job that you're fostering the sense of community in your neighborhood and that kids feel safe to come to your house.

At what point was it that you kind of looked around and said, I want to build something how did Cosmo come to be and what was the moment for you that you said, okay, I want to, I want to build something for this.

Russell York (04:21)
Yeah, the you know, my my parents still live in the same neighborhood that I grew up in. And so when I was there in the in the 90s and the early 2000s, ⁓ wreaking havoc, running around with the other neighborhood kids, you know, there were super soaker fights in the streets. I remember distinctly this one summer where we spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to get.

We had one kid on a bike and another kid holding a rope, sitting on a skateboard behind the bike and, and, know, pick up some speed going downhill and then set loose and try and run into the other recycling bins. And, know, just that kind of mayhem, ⁓ fun, harmless childhood mayhem. I just noticed when I come back to visit my folks that I didn't see any kids doing that kind of thing anymore. And it seemed like the neighborhood had gotten pretty sleepy. but there were still kids around. They, certainly hadn't left the neighborhood. It was still very much a family neighborhood.

And so for me, that started to sort of get the wheels spinning on what's going on here, right? What changed? ⁓ Because to me, that neighborhood is the entire magic of my childhood. All those memories are there. Every tree that I climbed, every fence that we climbed over that we might not have been supposed to have climbed climbing over, ⁓ it was all still there, but the kids weren't. And so, you know, to me, it was just a question of what's keeping them inside or why aren't they allowed outside? What's going on? The neighborhoods still seem quite safe.

So in conversations with parents, know, I realized that the ⁓ something I've really subtle shifted. And so this is kind of my thesis on it. I'll share with you my understanding of what's going on. ⁓ In the last 20 years, technology has permeated everything about the way that we communicate and connect with each other. And it's changed the definition of what safe is. So, you the example I use is when you land at the airport, you're very likely to text your spouse or your sibling or your parent or your friend or whomever to say, I landed and I'm safe.

And of course, air travel is incredibly safe. It was like 99.9999 % certain that you were gonna land safely, but you still text, right? And we check in with each other all the time for menial things throughout the day. And it's just this like receipt to prove that, you know, everything's good. You don't need to worry about me. I'm doing fine. And so among, you know, the adults in the room, that's a normative practice, but we didn't connect kids.

Right. And so all of this technology changed the way that we think about safety. But that paradigm wasn't thoughtfully extended to include the youngest, most vulnerable members of the family. And so parents have been doing the only thing they could do to be connected to those kids, which was to give them smartphones. And so the age that a kid would get a smartphone from the early 2010s until when I started Cosmo in 2020 had declined from 16 to 10, the average 10 year old.

Julianne Nienberg (07:08)
Hmm.

Russell York (07:09)
had a smartphone in 2020 and by now I think that age has gone even lower. And it's not because parents want their kids to have smartphones, it's because they want to be connected. They want to be able to text and say, I just left work or, you know, did you get on the school bus? And so, you know, it's not that the streets are less safe or that the kids don't want to play outside or the parents want to keep their kids inside on a screen. It's that we expect to be able to be connected and that...

makes it, that's a part of a parent feeling like they're being a good parent is knowing where their kid is and knowing that they can reach out to them. And so without that ability, it restricts the circumference, if you will, that kids are allowed to express their independence. And as you know, in childhood, as you're seeing with your kids, right, it's such a key ingredient to growing up and learning life lessons and doing some of those things on your own with friends, you know.

You fall off ⁓ a tree limb one time and you learn a lesson with a scraped knee or a bump on your head. And that's great. That's what childhood is for. It's low consequence learning, low consequence circumstances that accelerate the speed at which you sort of grow and develop and develop judgment and character and curiosity. And a lot of those things that parents really want for their kids to learn, but that are impossible to teach on an iPad.

Julianne Nienberg (08:28)
You know, I love what you said and I want to go back to something that you said earlier about how oftentimes parents will hand their kids a smartphone. And I'm curious now that you're in this space and have been since the creation of Cosmo, what's one thing that you wish parents knew about big tech or about family in this kid tech space that they might not know? And you know, as a consumer, you know, before Cosmo and being a Cosmo family,

I just, I would have probably made the same leap that lot of parents do when it comes to the choices in the tech space for my child. What's one thing you wish parents knew?

Russell York (09:07)
Big technology companies are the most valuable companies in the world. And 30 years ago, that was oil and gas companies. And so whatever you think about oil and gas companies, ⁓ or maybe say Wall Street, the big financial institutions, those are not family companies, and neither are today's big technology companies. They don't care about kids. They don't care about you. are profit-driven companies. They serve shareholders. And at the end of the day, whatever their marketing campaign says about parental controls,

is lip service, not an authentic effort to serve that user and that customer. ⁓ To do that correctly, you need to do more than put some parental controls on an iPhone, right? Family mode is not family mode when it's built by Apple. It's a marketing slogan. And so, I think there's just a little bit of an awareness to peel beyond the marketing campaign and that sense of security that they're trying to give you and understand that.

You know, these supercomputers that are in our pockets, these smartphones, which have more processing power than NASA had when they sent, you know, Manda to the moon back in the sixties. ⁓ you know, these are limitless technology devices. They can access anything they can do so much. had, you know, and, you can't fence that. You can't build a fence around that and say, well, this is the safe part for kids.

And even the companies that own those platforms that try and deliver parental controls and makes kids safe features, they're doing it and they know it's not completely possible either. And so you really have to start from the ground up. Technology needs to be built for the family. It needs to be built for kids. so at Cosmo, least the way that we've approached that is saying, okay, well, we won't use an iOS or...

Android operating system will build open source and we'll start from scratch and we'll build a Cosmo operating system. And that includes parental controls baked into the core of that software, right? Right down to the source code, right? Into the firmware of the device. And so when we say there's no social media, no internet, we're not saying we've blocked it. We're saying it doesn't exist. It's not there. And what is there are bespoke software applications that are built with parental permissions built into.

the core of those software features. And so just think that, I think it's fundamentally different. I think it's importantly different and for customers to understand that those big technology companies, which are the most valuable companies in the world, are not family technology companies.

Julianne Nienberg (11:32)
I think that what you just said is so important for families to hear because when I look at my kids Cosmo watch, love that they can talk to five people, four people, me, their dad and their two grandparents. And it is built that way. There is no, there's no loophole for them to get around. know, my kids can, they can hop onto my phone, right? They know my passcode and they can start clicking things and.

It just feels a lot safer. And in terms of data collection, these are things I hadn't really thought about. And I heard you do a previous interview. And just what you were talking about in terms of big tech and privacy and data collection on our kids and how that's used towards marketing towards our kids, right? Can you talk a little bit about that too?

Russell York (12:17)
Yeah, absolutely. you know, the the again, I think this is an interesting topic to look at in a historical sense. It used to be that advertising like if you looked at dollars spent in the American economy on advertising, it was television, it was magazines, it was newspapers. Maybe billboards fall in the top five of advertising spent 30 years ago. And today, a vast majority of those dollars are spent in digital mediums. Right.

And the reason for that is because you can target the customer and you can manipulate their buying journey with so much more precision. And the way that they're able to do that is because they know exactly who you are. They know what color you like, they know what time you go to bed, they know what food you like to eat, they know what your political preferences are, they know what your gender is and what your sexual orientation is. They know so much about all of us and that data ⁓ is richer.

if you have it starting at a younger age, right? If you know how a kid grew up and what kind of an education they had and what kind of social life they had and what kind of parent-family dynamic they had. If you know all of those things from a young age, if you know what time they were waking up when they were eight and nine years old or how they went through puberty, right? If you know information like that, that customer that you plan to sell to for the rest of their lives, you now have new hooks.

into their psychology that allows you to continue selling the products. Now, look, I'm not a sky's falling person. I'm not a tin hat person. I think you can take this topic too far and get a little bit over your skis on the thesis. But at the same time, if I'm a parent and I don't have to start forking my kids' data over to these technology companies at that age when they should be swinging from tree limbs and living a more natural life, then yeah, I'm probably going to...

try and do the best that I can to make sure that that data footprint stays really small. And it's, I think, something I can give to my kid, right? That they can start life with a clean slate and they can make their own decisions about how they want to interact with technology.

Julianne Nienberg (14:25)
I mean, we think about how much, and this goes along with what you said earlier, how much parents are working to protect their kids from external dangers. But sometimes I think we often forget that there's a lot that big tech.

can learn about our kids from a very early stage. And so I love that the Cosmo Watch allows our kids, it gives them the freedom to be kids. It gives them the freedom, as you said, to be out running around in the neighborhood. And as parents, we don't have to worry they're collecting all this data on our children from such an early age and that the Cosmo Watch can truly be a source of connection and

bring the family together while also giving our kids a little bit of independence and freedom. And one thing that you talked about in your questionnaire is this sense of connection positivity and satellite parenting. So I will say I'm a millennial parent.

And I don't think I had ever heard the term satellite parenting. I've heard helicopter parenting. And I'll tell you what, in the last few days of being a solo parent, my helicopter has like, it's gone, it's gotten a little intense because I'm managing three kids and schedules and we're trying to, I'm still trying to bake in, you know, time for them to be kids. And we've got summer swim team going on. But tell me about satellite parenting, cause this was totally new to me.

Russell York (15:38)
Yeah, this is a funny one. Satellite parenting, don't think it's, I don't think any, I haven't heard, I don't know where I heard it or if I heard it or if I made it up. I'll take credit for it if no one else wants to. Put it on a t-shirt. no, ⁓ mean, helicopter parenting is a well-known concept, right? It's like being somewhat micromanaging, somewhat controlling, somewhat, ⁓ yeah, just all over your kid and their lived experiences. And ⁓ I think it has a negative connotation, by and large, though, at times.

Parents need to do what they gotta do. And so if you got a helicopter, you got a helicopter. But the idea of satellite parenting is like, okay, well, how do you zoom out, right? And give your kid that space and freedom, but still be a parent, right? And parents need to know what's going on. There's such thing as too much freedom too early. And so with our device, of course, which is powered by a proprietary GPS system that we've spent years developing and...

you know, this device wakes up and it's got a hundred satellites and it can tell you exactly where your kid is with pinpoint accuracy all day. ⁓ Satellite parenting in that sense allows you to let your kid and go and have freedom, but you know where they are. And if you need to swoop in, you can do that. You've got their coordinates, right? And so it's something I think that's in the middle, right? It's giving your kid space and it's giving yourself frankly, a little bit of space, but it's not, you know, ⁓

divesting yourself of all the responsibilities of being a parent. And ⁓ so I think that maybe in this day and age and maybe for the millennial parent generation, this makes more sense to kind of try and pull back a little bit from the way that parenting has been going over the last 20 years and reclaim a bit of that 90s childhood, but do it in a modern way, right? And I think to do it in a modern way is actually maybe better than it was because, you know, frankly, the 90s were...

where we all got in quite a bit of trouble. ⁓ At least I did, maybe you didn't. I don't know what your childhood was like, I ⁓ think it's connection positivity in my mind is ⁓ what's the harm of being connected with your kid if it's done the right way, right? If it's not a big tech solution with all that baggage, then... ⁓

why not know where your kid is? And I think that some parents, because you've got so many kinds of families and so many perspectives on technology, on the one end, I hear from parents that say, why does my kid need a smartwatch? I grew up without one. I was fine without one. And that's true. And you certainly don't necessarily need one. But I don't think it's fair to be ⁓ sort of anti-technology with kids when it's built and designed the right way. think connection positivity is the idea that ⁓

You know, it's there's a there's a baby in a bath water thing here with technology. And there's so many miracles that come from what we have advanced in the last 20 years with these smart devices. And to say that kids just shouldn't have any of that or parents shouldn't have any of that ⁓ is a really blunt response to a nuanced issue. And so I think that actually there should be an effort to give families some of these miracles of technology in the right way.

but they just need to be designed for the family. And families benefit from this. We talk to parents all the time that tell us like, my kid has been wanting to go to the park and play with friends for months now and we weren't able to do that. And now this was kind of that bridge, right? And we hear from whole neighborhoods that say, well, we'd all kind of taken the same view of our kids playing on the street. But once that one kid got the watch and we all talked about it, we all felt comfortable letting our kids play together because one kid was connected.

Like it only took one to domino sort of the entire street. And of course that spread to other kids getting watches and suddenly the whole neighborhood is connected and the kids are planning play times together. And of course the parents can oversee all of that communication. They've got all the parental controls there. it's just, think like connection positivity in my mind is just saying, okay, we can be against smartphones and we can be for technology.

Julianne Nienberg (19:42)
If back to school season has you juggling pickup times, practice schedules, and trying to give your kids more independence without the stress of a smartphone, then let me introduce you to our family's favorite tool, the Cosmo Junior Track 5 SmartWatch. We've been using Cosmo for the past year, and I can honestly say it's a game changer. No internet, no social media, just calling, texting, GPS tracking, and safe zones with only the contacts you approve.

It even has school mode, which turns off distractions during the day, but still allows you to reach your kids if you need to. It's the perfect mix of freedom for your kids and peace of mind for you. Grab my discount code in the show notes and check out the Junior Track 5 today.

Julianne Nienberg (20:23)
You know, as you were recanting these stories, something came to mind earlier this spring. My middle child started baseball and he plays baseball at a huge, community park. And my daughter obviously wasn't playing baseball and she would kind of bum around and say, mom, like, what can I go do? I'm like, well, there's a playground. Go figure it out. But then she was reminded that there's a big trail up on a hill. And we had gone on this trail together as a family. And because she had her Cosmo,

I was okay with her going up on the trail and there's parts of the trail, know, I can't see, can kind of see her peeking through. And so she was able to gather some friends. And I remember at one point, you know, when you're, when you have multiple children, it's like you're.

Attention just kind of skirts from like one kid. Here's one kid. You're if your head's constantly on a swivel I'm paying attention to my kids baseball game and I get a call from her and she's up on the trail and she tells me mom I'm here I'm here with my two friends and we're gonna you know We're just gonna be up here on the trail and I knew she was already over there But just the fact that she felt you know, she had

the Cosmo watch to be able to call me and say, hey, we're here. I'm just kind of giving you an update. And it was like the sweetest conversation. I was so appreciative that she checked in with me. And like you said, it was just that connection positivity. I feel like it strengthened my trust in her and her sense of freedom to be able to go out on this trail. It's not even, I mean, it's like less than a quarter mile long and it kind of butts up next to a cemetery. So there's this, know, like kind of.

Russell York (21:47)
Nice.

Julianne Nienberg (21:47)
creepy factor. And so she, I think she took such pride that, I can go out here with my friends. And thanks to the tracking, I could see exactly where they were. saw them like bobbing along the trail on my parent app. And that was just, it was one of our first examples, at least this year, that my daughter's getting older. I do want to be able to give her freedom to do things like this, but I also want to have a way to check in with her. And this was just such a great example of that. And we've had a couple more, you know, stories like that where my son

He wanted to walk home from the elementary school. And he's six. And the elementary school park that we were at is about half a mile away. And so something that we talked about earlier is just parents, they're wanting to give their kids freedom, but they're feeling a little anxious in doing that. And it almost feels like this, the term free range parenting feels taboo. I don't know if you got that sense as you're doing research with ⁓ consumers and customers and parents, but it feels almost like as a parent,

this free range parenting lifestyle is something that we have to fight hard to protect. In a perfect world, what does a healthy neighborhood of the future look like to you? In your findings, talking to parents, what do you want to see neighborhoods and kids and families in a perfect and healthy neighborhood? What does that look like to you guys?

Russell York (23:07)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. We talk about the idea of taking back the neighborhood. And actually, before I get into the neighborhood, I love the story about your daughter on the trail. Something that sticks out to me about that story is a part of the equation that is really important when it comes to childhood independence. I remember this from my own childhood, same kinds of stories where you venture off. Sometimes you don't know where the boundary is that your parents have set. And maybe there wasn't a clear conversation. You don't want to get in trouble.

Julianne Nienberg (23:12)
Mm.

Russell York (23:36)
Right? But you do want to go down the trail. Like it's where your friends want to go. And so the ability to just quickly call mom and be like, Hey, just so you know, this is where I am. And I, I don't want to get in trouble. So I'm telling you exactly where I am. And mom's like, that's great. Have a good time. Right. And suddenly you're like, cool. Now I can really enjoy this experience instead of wondering the whole time, you know, if I'm gonna, if I'm stepping in it with mom and dad. and so I love that cause it works both ways, right? Kids want to check in too. They, they want to be free to go and do things. And so where's the boundary? Let me just check in real.

And that when it comes to the neighborhood, it's the same thing, right? I last year went on a mission to talk to 100 customers. And so I talked to 100 customers in 100 days. And these were just amazing conversations where I heard from a cross section of families ⁓ in different kinds of neighborhoods and different kinds of cities, rural areas, urban areas. ⁓ One of the common themes was it was so simple. was like my kid wants to go to the park, but it's eight blocks away and there's a street.

It's like a four lane street between here and there that they have to cross. And we've talked about crosswalks, we've talked about looking both ways, and we've talked about all these things. But at the end of the day, it's just like for everybody to feel good about it, the watch was the helpful kind of linchpin of that. So I talked to this one family, they got their Sunno device for Christmas. And so it's late December and he's got permission to go to the park. So he gets on his bike and he bikes off to the park. And honestly, he was going alone because he just wanted to use the watch for the first time.

And so he's going on his first solo mission with the watch and he gets to the park and it had rained a bunch the night before and there was caution tape up around the park because there had been some flooding. And so he gets there and you can imagine this is your first time going this far from home without mom and dad. You're exercising your independence and then there's this curve ball. The park looks like it's kind of shut down, but is it shut down? Like I can go under this tape and play on the play sets, right? Like, I don't know.

So he calls mom and dad, there's caution tape up everywhere and there's water in the park, what do I do? And that's it, that's the whole point. It's not rocket science. We're not trying to solve anything like mind blowing here. We're trying to solve for small moments of a child trying to create judgment about what the right thing is to do or not to do and to give parents the ability to speak into that in real time as opposed to maybe after the wrong decision was made.

And so, yeah, the parents said, well, just come home this time. You can go tomorrow. Right. And that's it. That's the whole story. And so when I talk about like what Cosmo is doing and what it looks like to take back the neighborhood, ⁓ I just mean, you know, connected connection positivity. ⁓ Let the kids outside. Let them go explore. Create some ground rules about when to check in. Right. You know, give me a call if, you know, if you're not sure. Give me a call. Right. ⁓ And be back by the time.

streetlights come on, whatever it is in your situation. And I think ⁓ with that kind of permission, the landscapes of our neighborhoods could change a lot. It would be amazing to see more bike gangs rolling around the neighborhood. There's this magical thing that happens. I remember this again from my neighborhood growing up. ⁓ My parents knew all the other parents in the neighborhood. And it's not because they went door to door talking to everybody. It would be because when they were trying to find us, they would walk around the neighborhood and we'd be in this person's backyard or that person, this person having a barbecue or there's a volleyball game going on.

whatever the kids, and then all the parents would run into each other because the kids were playing together. And so kids actually network the neighborhood. It's this amazing sort of like, you almost want to David Attenborough narrate this thing. Like the way that kids bring together the tribe, the village, ⁓ it's an invisible connection force, but parents and therefore the adults in the neighborhood are better connected when the kids are outside. So set the kids loose.

connect the parents and it makes the neighborhood safer. And that's like the wildest knock on consequence to everything. We feel like neighborhoods aren't safe because we don't know our neighbors. We don't know our neighbors because our kids are locked inside. They're not being the glue that networks the community.

Julianne Nienberg (27:40)
You know something that you said in terms of just creating boundaries it reminded me When we had that situation or when we had that ⁓ experience with my daughter at the park After that experience because we knew that we were gonna have more baseball games at the park there I created I created a safe zone on my on our smartwatch for the kids that we had a couple of safe zones we have one around our house and the neighborhood behind our house and then we had one for the baseball fields and you know if

If my daughter went out of the boundaries of the safe zone, I would get alerted and I could say, what's like I could call or a texture say, hey, what's going on? You're going a little too far. But that's one thing that I love and that we've really utilized as a family is the concept of the safe zone being a control that the parents can utilize on the parent control app. And it puts, you know, like you said, this kind of safe boundary. And my kids know, like I have a boundary put up.

that you are not to cross like this point in the neighborhood or this point in the park. Otherwise, it will ping me and say, hey, so and so, your kid has gone out of the boundary. So they know that. And they kind of, they want to know, well, how far can I go? And it just kind of opens up this whole dialogue of creating safe boundaries in order to just, you know, to help them feel safe. And it's funny because you talk about that kid that went up to the park. ⁓ We were actually at the park together as a family. And

It kind of lends, you the story lends itself to this idea of giving our kids more freedom. And so my middle, he is my spirited one of the bunch. we were getting ready to leave. had the other two ready to go in the car and he says, I'm going to run home. And I said, okay, well, I did some math in my head. like, we're about a quarter mile from home. He's never done this by himself, but why not? I said, sure. And he, he was stunned. He looked at me, his eyes were so wide. He's like, seriously? I'm like, yeah, dude, go ahead.

And I got in the car and it's actually kind of like a big road. I said, you know exactly how to get home. We've biked this way many times before. Like show me what you got. And it's funny because he said he had a red ball that he was carrying. He ran the whole way home and there were times where he could see me driving on the road and there were times that he couldn't see me. So I'd have my daughter in the back saying, peek out for your brother, make sure he's coming. She's like, yeah, he's coming. But he ran a half mile home.

And he got home and the first thing he said to me, he said, I can't believe you let me do that. And I said, you know what? I can't either, but now we know, I had faith in you that you knew the exact way to come home and he did. He actually had his smartwatch. So I said, if anything happened, I knew that you had a way to get ahold of me, but it was just a great exercise as a parent in.

you know, boosting his confidence and showing him that, yay, you know, I trust you, you've done this before. And we have a safeguard in place. We have our watch in case something should happen, but I had eyes on you, even if you couldn't see me. And it was just so funny, because even my daughter said, I couldn't believe that you let him do that. I'm like, I know, but look, he did it. He ran a half mile home. He ran the entire time. And it kind of opened the door to allowing, you know, it was an experience that allowed me to say,

Like you said earlier, like we talked about earlier, yes, they can. And yes, me as a parent, I can loosen up a little bit and give my kids the freedom to roam a little bit more now that they're getting older. when you're doing your research with parents, what other concerns are parents coming up with that are preventing them from letting their kids like roam the neighborhood?

Russell York (31:08)
first of I love that story. I bet your son slept great that night. ⁓ You know, get that energy out, run home from the park. Sounds like a good idea, right? ⁓ No, I love that. The blockers to families letting their kids out in the neighborhood are ⁓ limitless. mean, we say there are as many kinds of families as there are families, meaning every family is a little bit different.

⁓ So I've heard the whole gamut, a lot of different things, so many different kid profiles. Like you said, your middle one is the spirited one. And so maybe you have different ground rules for that one in your head than for the other ones. One of the things that I hear from parents is ⁓ that their kids' life during the day, right? Let's say they're at school and then they're at afterschool programs, maybe they're at camp, right? Whatever the thing is. ⁓

they have these hours and hours and hours on end where they're not necessarily, you know, with you at that time. And then they come home and you ask them, was your day? And you get a couple of word answers, right? And you're trying to figure out what, you know, where their mind is at, what they learned that day, what they were exposed to, what they might be processing. And so we find that a lot of, a lot of parents have told me that they get these small updates from their kids throughout the day. They give them a picture or an insight into what's going on. So there's one parent was telling me that their kid was at a, ⁓

touring a farm after school. And as happens when you're in real life on a farm, not everything went to plan. And when they got to the chicken coop, it turned out that a fox or some carnivore had broken in and had mangled a couple of these birds. And the kids were sending pictures of the birds to mom. So mom's getting pictures of mangled birds. I mean, slightly appalling, slightly shocking. ⁓

But the kids thought it was great, right? They were so just eyes wide open. This was something they'd never seen before. They didn't think that they were ever going to see anything like this. Feathers everywhere. And it was because she'd gotten that little update during the day, something she was able to prepare to talk to them about later, life and death, the circle of life, these kinds of topics, making sure that we all have the right idea about mortality or what it means when the fox gets into the hen house.

And I think that, you know, that's something that matters in the neighborhood too. You know, in my neighborhood growing up, was ⁓ one house that we were supposed to stay away from, right? And it was just, think, a cranky old couple that probably didn't want kids on their lawn, something like that, right? ⁓ But, you know, it was the kind of thing where, you know, in the lives of parents and kids today, you know, you might want your kid to be able to share updates with you if they see something.

It's see something, say something kind of thing, right? If something happened, right? You don't want them to wait a couple hours to tell you. You might want to know right then, right? And so that's part of what we hear parents telling us is they want those updates from their kid during the day. If you've encountered something, if something's confusing to you, if you don't understand it, it's best to just let me know, right? And so again, connection positivity.

is really simple. It's just like, and to me, again, it's almost crazy that I'm on a podcast talking about why it's a good idea for parents and kids to be connected. It's like, literally everyone you know has a cell phone. 99 % of American adults have a cell phone to be connected with each other because they found such incredible value in that. And we're sitting here scratching our heads about why kids should be connected. Like, of course kids should be connected. They're the ones who...

Julianne Nienberg (34:24)
you

Russell York (34:41)
Probably should be the most connected. They are the most vulnerable members of our society and we push them outside every day like it's 1970 like there's no technology and they just have to run around Unconnected if you left home without your phone, you would have so much anxiety, right? Because we've all developed this attachment to the phone and it's not attachment to Instagram It's like what if someone calls me who needs me? What what if I can't get a hold of somebody? What if I can't use the maps and figure out where I'm going? What if I can't find you know, those kinds of

It's the utility of connection that we need. And the idea that kids need that is like one plus two equals three, or I guess they'd probably say two plus two equals four, whatever the common map equation is there. that's what it is. The stories that I could tell about families and kids and connectivity and neighborhood safety and all these things, ⁓ it's almost so obvious it hurts. ⁓ And I think that people are catching on to that. And that's why this category and this product

is growing so quickly.

Julianne Nienberg (35:40)
Well, when you talk about connectivity, one thing that was fun to read about in your questionnaire was how you like to spend time connecting in the outdoors or just kind of resetting. Tell us about what you like to do outside. It sounds like you had a fun and rambunctious childhood. How do you like to spend time outdoors and what are you looking forward to sharing with your son as he gets older that is time out in nature?

Russell York (36:06)
Absolutely. mean, my dad was a consulate outdoorsman, army veteran, grew up in Montana. And just ⁓ even though we grew up in San Diego, he was always trying to get us some of that, that feeling of being outside in nature. so every weekend was a hiking weekend and we'd be on some trail somewhere and I'd be wearing some oversized backpack, trucking along, getting, getting dust in the boots. And, ⁓ you know,

Those early childhood memories are special, you know, in a sleeping bag under the stars looking at a satellite flying over with your dad, right, and making breakfast over a campfire. Those memories to me mean a lot, and I still seek those out with my dad. We still go hiking. We still go camping. ⁓

My mom does not. Mom is not into that at all. We make different memories gossiping at Starbucks or something. But with dad, it's very much an outdoor relationship. And I would love to have that with my son. ⁓ I still get out there and I'm waiting until he's ready to go. ⁓ And I think that for a lot of families, whether it's literally camping or hiking, ⁓

there are sacred things that families do. You were saying you're in Michigan for the summer and you guys are tearing it up out there, right? And that's something you've been able to do with your kids. ⁓ I think for families to all have the ability to live those outdoor summers and share, what are the statistics? The time that you spend with your kid after 13 or 14 years old, it just plummets for the rest of your life, right?

Julianne Nienberg (37:35)
you

Russell York (37:36)
And to the point that, like, you know, if you're, if you're really counting the days, you've got, you've got just so many summers before, you know, your, relationship with them fundamentally changes. And that's not just something that you get, it's something they get to, right? And we build for both customers here. We build for kids and we build for parents. And something that we're really conscientious about is remembering this isn't just a safety device. For kids, it's equally, ⁓ a connection to their parent thing that it's like, it's like their co-pilot, right? That helps them through childhood.

⁓ It helps them to have a magical childhood and avoid some of those pitfalls and trip ups. And we hear a lot of those stories. And so when we're talking about maximizing 12 or 13 summers, ⁓ to me it's like, why would you risk ⁓ having a misstep or a wrong turn if connection could prevent that? And so we're very pro connection for that reason. And I think it's helpful in allowing parents to maximize that time.

Julianne Nienberg (38:35)
You guys have just recently launched the Junior Track five. Tell us all about this new updated smartwatch that Cosmo has launched.

Russell York (38:44)
Absolutely. Junetrek 5 has been years in development ⁓ and this is by far our most exciting product yet. ⁓ I can tell you I've traveled around the world ⁓ networking through the technology that wound up inside of this device. ⁓ We've found the most cutting edge equipment to put in here. So this really is a technology product. ⁓ This is not a little kid's toy.

⁓ This is a superpower piece of technology. The big headline here is that we heard from parents, 80 % of parents that ⁓ we spoke to and that we've been polling over the last few years have told us the number one reason they bought a watch was for the GPS capabilities. And when we looked around the entire market of smartwatches, not just for kids, but adults as well, we noticed that the GPS thing came with a lot of trade-offs.

⁓ If it was a GPS device that was super accurate with multi-day battery life, like a Garmin product, it probably couldn't make phone calls. And if it was an Apple Watch, it couldn't last on a battery for more than half of a day if it's using a standalone phone number and it's not paired with a smartphone. And so what we thought was, well, could we make a super power, super accurate, real-time GPS capability in a device that's not going to die before your kid gets out of school, right? The battery drain before your kid gets out of school.

And so that's what we've worked on here. We've developed something called Halo GPS. It's built on a dedicated GPS positioning chip within the product, and it's enabled with a GPS or assisted GPS, which is basically a mental map of where every satellite in the sky is. So as soon as you request a location from the device, it's going to check with a pre-established constellation of satellites and send back a super accurate location to you. I've loved testing this out. We've been working on the testing for last few months.

and just walking around my neighborhood with my iPhone in one hand and my Cosmo watch on my wrist and just seeing how spot on accurate it is, how real time it is and sometimes more accurate than my iPhone. That's not a marketing slogan but it just happens to be case sometimes. ⁓ Apple don't come for me.

⁓ But the ability to know exactly where your kid is, when you need to know where your kid is. And of course, in some circumstances, that's because there's a real need to know where your kid is. Maybe you were at the mall and they ran off, maybe you're at the beach, maybe you're wherever. And so we know that it has a safety component. ⁓ for us to be able to deliver on the mission for families, to really deliver peace of mind, it meant that we had to be...

tack sharp, razor accurate real time with GPS. So this was not a small accomplishment to get Halo GPS built into Junior Track 5. I think that's gonna be one of the big steps forward here. But we've got a whole bunch of new software here as well. We heard from lot of parents that when they give their kid a watch, it's the first time their kid can message friends and family on their own.

And so they wanted a little bit of oversight, right? Let me co-pilot your introduction to messaging. So we have the ability for parents to review text messages. And it works in real time. So you can watch messages if you want to and give some feedback. ⁓ We have focus modes that allow for ⁓ more customization when it comes to school time or bedtime or weekends or those kinds of things. Voice to text on the watch, know, kid walking home from school. You want them looking where they're going, not typing on the watch face so they can just...

voice transcribe their text messages. There's a lot of great new things in Junior Track 5. It's smaller than previous generations to fit on those little kids' wrists. So we're really thrilled with where this product landed up.

Julianne Nienberg (42:25)
we got to be one of the first families to try out the Junior Track 5. So thank you, first of all. And secondly, I have to say the GPS has become noticeably my most favorite feature because there is such an upgrade and improvement from previous versions of the watch. And so, know, my two kids, my two big kids are at camp right now and I both have watches on them and they might be, you know, separated.

into different like groups, but I can I can almost see like on a granular level like what part of the campgrounds they're at versus the other and it's as a parent, you know, it's just it's like you said that connection positivity. It makes my heart feel warm and fuzzy to know that they're there where they're supposed to be that they're safe. But also that they they too like they love their watches like they they wear them around and kids start to ask me what's that and I love that. You know, like you said earlier, you got the focus modes.

and things like that and the ability as a parent to filter out certain things that I don't want them to have access to. And right now we've got very minimal apps on there. My daughter loves access to the weak junior. ⁓ But also I don't want her to get into the habit of like, you know, diving or scrolling through and reading the news. So I put I put a 15 minute timer on it. And so she knows if you know, the timer goes off, hey, it's time to shut it down and go do something else.

And I love that you guys have thought of that because I think I heard you say in a previous podcast episode that you've done that and I'm paraphrasing here So if you didn't say this exactly my apologies, but you said, know We don't want your kids to wear the watches all the time. It was something like that But it it really hit home for me in the sense that this is a company that really values kids playing kids living out childhood the way that it should be played with also the added bonus of

you know, safety and technology in a family friendly format. And I love that because There's like 80 % of the time they're not wearing their watches because most of the time my kids are, you know, they're eight and six and four and a half and they're with me and we're just having family time together. So nobody needs to be calling or text messaging somebody else. But when there are instances that they're at camp or they're at swim meets and the swim meets get crazy,

they have a way to connect with me that is safe and allows them to check in and say hey mom like I'm OK and it allows me to see that they're in a safe spot. So these are some of the new features that I have noticed from previous versions that our family is like really just latching onto right away. So first and foremost, thank you and congratulations on the launch of this new product.

Russell York (44:57)
Thank you very much. I'm so glad to hear you guys have gotten good use out of it and that you're seeing that GPS ⁓ capability. Yeah, and what you're saying about it not being on the wrist all the time is true, right? Like ⁓ it's a mission oriented device. Use it when you need it. We talked to lot of parents that have a special drawer in the kitchen, which is where those devices go when they're not in use, right? They don't need to be necessarily on your kid's wrist while they're doing homework.

Right? not that they're distracting devices, you know, like you said, there's not a ton of games on there. You haven't installed a bunch of distracting software. It was one of the fundamental design choices. Again, we talked about this at the beginning of this conversation about big tech, right? In the case of our devices, the app store is on your end of the equation. It's in your parent app. And so you get to decide what's on there. You get to set the time limits. ⁓ Really the foundation of the architecture of this product, it's a parent directed product.

And so you can customize it to the needs of your family and whatever that mission is, if it's a swim meet product, then it comes out for the swim meet, right? And the rest of the time it doesn't need to be there. And so I love to hear that. I'm so glad you were able to test the device and we so appreciated your feedback on that as we were getting it ready to come to market. And we're excited about the other families getting to try it out.

Julianne Nienberg (46:08)
One thing before before we begin to wrap up here I I thought was so interesting from your questionnaire a little tidbit But you biked solo across the country in college like tell me a little bit about that before we wrap up here

Russell York (46:22)
Yeah, I guess I've got a couple screws loose. If you're going to be an entrepreneur or do anything, you're starting a podcast, so you've got the bug. You've got to be a little bit, you got to think outside the box. I don't know, for me, just, one summer I didn't have an internship or a job lined up and I was going to school in DC. My family lived in San Diego and I just thought, why not hop on a bike and go do it now? Of course I...

I was a kid, so I didn't know what I didn't know. I hadn't ever really biked before and I had no idea how hard it would be. ⁓ But it was one of those formative experiences in my life where you just, the way to bike, this is what I say, is the way to bike from coast to coast is just to not stop. You just have to keep going. ⁓ And so as long as you don't quit, you'll make it eventually. And that's true in so many things in life. ⁓ So that was a great experience for me. I get teased for mentioning it.

It's been 15 years now and it's maybe, you know, I still brag about it, but ⁓ it was a great experience. And I think kind of like growing up in childhood, you go through certain things that really shape who you are. And a lot of those moments happen when you're, you know, in this age of six to 12, you know, ⁓ and parents are really trying to make those kinds of experiences. Doesn't need to be as crazy as biking across the country. It can be, you know, spending the summer on the lake or going camping, but we're all about that at Cosmo.

Julianne Nienberg (47:43)
I love that, you know, it's clear that you've had this spirit of adventure your entire life. And when you talk about biking, there's Mackinac Island here in Michigan. I don't know if you're familiar, but it's it's an island where there is no cars. And so you have to take a ferry to get on. And a lot of people either walk the island or bike or, you know, take a horse drawn carriage. And at the age of five, we've taken all of our kids and they have biked the entire loop. It's like an eight.

8.4 mile loop around the island. My first did it on training wheels and the same thing we told her we said just keep going. You know she was having a blast. It took us probably five hours to do eight miles, but we just kept telling her keep going and so the next time you know my middle turn five he did the same thing. He was on two wheels much faster than my daughter, but.

just keep going. When we get to the end, have fudge and ice cream waiting for us. But I love to see that you've had the spirit of adventure. You know, you've had this love for the outdoors. And one of the things that we do here on the podcast is that we ⁓ we issue an outdoorsy challenge to parents and to listeners for the week. And so what's one thing it's a simple doable tip or suggestion for families to try this week. What would your outdoorsy challenge be for listeners this week?

Russell York (48:57)
Gosh, wow so much pride. I was not listeners. I was not prepared for this I'm like I need to make sure I don't suggest anything too crazy I don't know is throwing the ball with your kid a good one I mean grab the mitt and a baseball and play catch with your kid. That's a classic

Julianne Nienberg (49:12)
That is a classic and you know what? It hasn't been suggested yet, so you're the first to suggest that if you're listening, grab a mitt, grab a ball. It doesn't even have to be a baseball. Grab a ball and just play catch with your kid. I know my husband and my son. They've kind of entered into this stage of childhood and parenting where they're both starting to really enjoy that. So yes, absolutely. That is the legit outdoorsy challenge. Russell, thank you so much for joining me today and for sharing both your heart and your vision at Cosmo.

It's clear that it's not just about creating tech, but it's about creating this cultural shift for families and helping families feel connected. So thank you for your time. And I loved hearing about your own childhood adventures.

Thanks for reminding us that it's OK to let go and that outdoor play is real and that technology when used properly can be something that connects families and can be a bridge, not a barrier. So Russell, thank you so much for your time today.

Russell York (50:05)
Julianne, thank you so much for having me. This was a great conversation.

Julianne Nienberg (50:09)
And for all of you listening, I'm going to have all the links for Cosmo, the Junior Track 5, as well as the discount code that you can use to buy, to shop now, and I'll have it all listed in the show notes.