I was a free-spirited child before the term existed. Growing up before cell phones, my parents’ main communication device was a very loud voice, and one only used after the sun went down and “Eat!!” was served. Freckle Phone creator Sam Terris tells me that he was also free-wheeling and, as he recalls, had a lot of sovereignty.
The loss of that independence, the ability to wander over to your friend’s house, play outside on a swing set by yourself, or explore in the stream that runs down the hill behind your house, has, the researchers claim, played a significant role in children’s growing anxiety and depression. It’s something ‘Free-Range Kids’ advocate Let It Grow president Lenore Skenazy has built an entire advocacy group around.
In her TED talk on this topic, she said that where once there were three worlds: “the children’s world filled with bikes, adventures and games, and the adult world, so boring… then there was the family world where everyone was together, but now they are all kind of merged, and especially [so] since phones, because even if the children are not physically with their children, they can text and talk and follow them.
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This makes some intuitive sense, and of course, what better way to solve it than with another phone?
“It’s the first phone for kids that encourages real-world adventure,” says Terris when I talk to him about the cute, square, wearable device.
There was a lot of internal argument at Freckle about whether to call it a phone or not. But in the end, Terris says, “If we don’t call it a phone, all the questions we ask are the ones like, ‘Can you make video calls?’, ‘Is there a camera?’, ‘Does it have tables, phone functionality. [and so on]?’ So if we can call it what it is, what a phone is, it allows us a little more space to talk about some of the newer things that we’ve built.
In fact, the roughly 3-by-3-inch by 0.61-inch-thick device doesn’t look or function quite like a traditional phone.
Yes, it’s a 5G device running on Freckle Mobile’s MVNO. Yes, there is a phone number. And text messages. And call with parent-approved numbers. There are two cameras (12MP and 5MP), microphones and speakers. But the similarity ends there. A skin-over Android system does not offer downloadable apps or access to the Internet; instead, there are tools and AI [features] custom designed for real-world adventure and exploration.
The Freckle platform includes quests, chat (AI or hard questions sent to parents), maps, walkie-talkies and custom characters. In some ways, it’s like a child’s backpack full of fun things to help, as Terris told me, “facilitate those stories and adventures.”
Terris thinks that the current products designed to help parents care for their children are “wrong”. They are, he told me, “thinly veiled ankle monitors or like parental spyware, like linen.”
Freckle Phone is different and designed to bring that freedom back to kids (ages 7 to 13) while maintaining a level of connectivity that could ease the concerns of modern parents.
The interface is simple, fun, and has on-board AI (Freckle uses a mix of models, including Gemini and a small local model) that automatically engages and can help kids understand the world they’re exploring. Kids can ask a question or use the camera to take a picture of something in front of them – a plant, animal or object – and get instant details about it.
The phone also encourages play, letting Freckle Phone owners use NFC to tap the phones and initiate walkie-talkie mode. The phone also includes tap-to-pay in case parents have loaded the on-board wallet with money for groceries, fast food or a bus ride home (if parents let their kids that far).
At the end of their day, Freckle Phone provides a way for the child to share their adventures. Each Freckle Phone has a customizable on-screen character who wears a backpack.
“So in the backpack of this little character are these things that we call artifacts. They are little memories; these are generated by the use of the tool. [There’s] our curiosity camera, [or] If you play music, there is also a small music player here, also places you went, like points of interest on your map, collaboration stories you told, the descriptions of those badges you earned.
It all sounds pretty good, and the Freckle Phone looks like fun. The square screen is a decent size, but with a thick black bezel around it that Terris insists has grown on him. The device should ship with a shoulder strap and in three colors (green, blue and burnt orange). In the video I saw, all the kids were wearing their Freckle Phones. It probably won’t survive a drop in that stream, but the IP54 rating should handle a good downpour.
The phone can be about the children back to a free roaming past, but it is also linked to habits of the present. Freckle Phone comes with little charms called “dots” that you can magnetically attach to the back of the phone, and there are digital cards that you can exchange with the aforementioned NFC capabilities.
It’s also potentially priced right, starting at just $199 for a device with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of onboard, non-expandable storage. The wireless service will run you $25 per month.
Terris admits that they didn’t invest too much in the camera specifications in this first version, but “we found that the kids liked the act of taking the photo more than rummaging through it later.” Maybe so, but the parents who later look at the photos feel differently.
The more I looked at Freckle Phone, I realized that “phone” might be the wrong description of it. Freckle Phone is potentially another wearable AI device. Recent history has not been kind to the humane and rabbit R1s of the world. How, I asked Terris, could his startup avoid a similar fate?
“I think the issue with the ‘flops from before’ [a term I used] is like, they didn’t solve a really clear need, and there wasn’t a really obvious use case,” said Terris, who bought a Rabbit R1 early on, and while he really appreciated the effort, the shortcomings were also all too clear.
“[There] was not an obvious place to plug it in my life, and I think that some of the software presented was not really realized, and therefore it was kind of a half-baked product. I think with Freckle, what’s amazing is that there are enriching experiences, through prompt activities and quests and helping kids find friends and navigate [the world]but it also provides the basic service of communication.”
The choice of including a colorful and useful screen was also important. “I think the screen is actually a great visual enabler that has really high utility.” And that utility serves the needs of the children, he added.
Long-term, Terris hopes to build on Freckle’s foundation with a regular cadence of updates (he says they have a backlog of about 1,000 new features). Eventually, it will “kind of feel like Christmas morning for our users every few weeks, and they get to unlock a new feature.”
Freckle Phone is scheduled to ship in the US in December. There is no advertising or even a large ad spend. Instead, there will be homemade videos, some influencer collaborations, and maybe some updates based on feedback from a very special beta tester: Olympia Ohanian. Her father, Alexis Ohanian, is one of the company’s investors (he is married to Serena Williams). “She was a vocal beta tester, so she’s really helpful,” Terris said.
Is a wearable AI phone enough to educate children and raise the spirits of an entire family? Only time will tell. The concept of Free Range Kids may have legs, but it may not be ready to run yet – with or without Freckle Phone.
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