Gabb in 2025: a year in review

If there’s one thing we learned in 2025, it’s this: Gabb isn’t alone in our mission.

For years, parents who questioned whether kids really needed smartphones felt like they were swimming upstream. But this year? The current changed direction. 

Schools started banning phones in classrooms. States introduced legislation to protect kids online. Alternative Device Fairs popped up in communities from coast to coast. 

And more parents started saying out loud what many of us have been thinking: maybe we don’t have to hand our kids the whole internet when they’re 10.

At Gabb, we’ve been building safer tech for kids for over six years now. And 2025 felt different. It felt like the mission started becoming mainstream, when choosing to delay smartphones shifted from being “overprotective” to being smart parenting.

This year brought incredible growth: new products, new partnerships, new recognition. But more than that, it brought proof that this approach works. Kids thrive without social media. Families connect better with boundaries. 

And communities are stronger when we support each other in raising tech-healthy kids. Here’s what we accomplished together in 2025.

Gabb at CES: Safer tech on a global stage

We kicked off January at CES 2025 in Las Vegas, one of the biggest tech showcases on the planet. Standing on that stage with our partner HERE, presenting Gabb’s mission to protect childhood, felt surreal in the best way. 

We were surrounded by companies unveiling the latest AI gadgets and smart devices—talking about why kids need less tech, not more. 

The response? People got it. Industry leaders, journalists, innovators  understood that building safer technology for kids isn’t anti-progress. It’s the future.

Gabb Foundation: A new non-profit that changes lives

In May, we launched the Gabb Foundation to help reduce stress on caregivers. It provides free, kid-focused phones to families navigating serious challenges, including unstable housing, domestic violence, job loss, or health crises.

Within seven months, Gabb employees donated $16,699 of their own money. Community members contributed $39,070. Gabb donated $15,396 in products. Altogether, that’s $55,670 raised to help families in crisis.

We gave 146 devices with a full year of service to families escaping domestic violence, fighting cancer, experiencing homelessness, and protecting kids from sexual exploitation and sextortion. 

These weren’t just phones and watches. They were lifelines for parents and kids going through hardship to stay safely connected.

If your family needs support or you want to offer your support, visit gabbforgood.org. 

Parents lead the safer tech movement

One of the best parts of 2025? Watching parents lead in their own communities.

Throughout the year, Gabb Parent Ambassadors showed up at 18 Alternative Device Fairs across the country. These weren’t corporate events or marketing campaigns, but more like living room conversations scaled up. 

Parents shared honest stories about raising kids without smartphones, answering the hard questions, offering encouragement to families just starting out.

From Indianapolis to West Hartford, Montclair to Scarsdale, these parents represented Gabb at fairs hosted by organizations like IRL, Screenaware, Team Unscreen, The Balance Project, and Okay to Delay. 

They stood at tables, handed out information, and—most importantly—listened. They talked with parents navigating the same questions and shared what worked for them.

That kind of peer-to-peer support can make all the difference. Because sometimes the most powerful thing a parent can hear isn’t advice from an expert—it’s “me too” from another parent in the trenches.

Gabb Music goes mainstream

This year, Gabb Music made some pretty big strides.

In September, we launched Gabb Music for any phone in the Apple App Store and Google Play Store, expanding our curated streaming service beyond Gabb devices. Now any family with any smartphone can give their kids access to music without the explicit content, predatory algorithms, or creepy recommendation engines that come with mainstream platforms. 

Kids search for songs, build playlists, download music, all without ads, questionable lyrics, and inappropriate themes and album art that come with other platforms.

Then in November, TIME Magazine named Gabb Music one of the Best Inventions of 2025. To say we were excited to get that news would be understatement.

Because it’s not just recognition. It’s confirmation that the world can see the value of a safer music platform. Kids deserve music they love that doesn’t expose them to content they’re not ready for. 

That’s not helicopter parenting. It’s common sense.

Oh, and we spent our first full year publishing the Top Gabb Music Songs chart with Billboard—the only chart that shows what kids actually choose to listen to when algorithms aren’t manipulating their choices. 

Turns out, when you give kids good options, they make good choices.

Giving kids a voice: The Kids Advisory Council

On December 2nd—Giving Tuesday—we launched the Gabb Kids Advisory Council.

We flew in Emma from Louisville, Kentucky; Nikoli from Santa Rosa Valley, California; Alex from Middleton, New York; and Lila from Buckley, Arizona. These four kids spent the day at Gabb headquarters  as Gabb advisors. They sat in meetings. They shared feedback. They challenged our assumptions. They reminded us why we’re doing this work in the first place.

Why? Because we can’t build technology for kids without including kids in the conversation. Their voices matter. Their experiences matter. Their ideas matter. 

Showing up in Walmart and Gabb OS 2

In October, Gabb launched in over 100 Walmart stores nationwide. This might not sound revolutionary, but it is. For years, parents had to order Gabb devices sight unseen, trusting online reviews and hoping it would work for their family. 

Now? You can walk into Walmart, pick up a Gabb phone or watch, feel the weight of it, ask questions. Accessibility matters and meeting families where they shop is a great way to further spread the safer tech message. 

We also rolled out Gabb OS 2 for the Gabb Watch 3e in December, bringing smoother performance, better safety features, and improvements based directly on what families told us they needed.

If you’re curious if there are Gabb products in a Walmart near you, you can use Find Your Store tool to find out.

Disconnecting to reconnect

In March, we hosted our second Digital Detox Challenge alongside the Global Day of Unplugging. The goal? Simple. Put your phone down. Look up. Reconnect with real life.

Participants logged 13,896 hours unplugged—over 100% more than last year! We kicked things off with a 1990s-themed party at Gabb HQ (complete with Bop-It! and Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots), and our team pledged to model healthier tech habits. 

Because you can’t ask families to unplug if you’re not willing to do it yourself.

We also deepened our partnership with the Goode Foundation in Burley, Idaho. They run a Digital Detox Challenge for teens, challenging them to stay off social media through high school, and earn up to $1,600. 

This year, they expanded the program to include 7th and 8th graders, and Gabb helped make it easier for teens to participate by providing safer phones. These kids are proving that you don’t need social media to have a social life. 

And honestly? They’re thriving.

Serving our community with Gabb for Good

Through Gabb for Good, our team spent 2025 showing up for the community in tangible ways. 

We supported the American Heart Association’s Go Red Luncheon. We mentored Utah Valley University students. We led STEM activities for girls at She Tech. We fed families at the Road Home. We taught 5th graders about entrepreneurship at Junior Achievement BizTown. We celebrated the ribbon-cutting on a Habitat for Humanity home we helped build. We ran in the Do it For James 5K to raise awareness about sextortion.

In September, we held the Mahalo Market—a silent auction where Gabb employees contributed handmade goods to raise money for the Foundation. In November, we assembled 100 Thanksgiving meal kits with Tabitha’s Way Food Pantry. 

In December, we hosted Sensory Santa for kids with special needs and ran an Elf Brigade to provide holiday gifts for 23 kids through the Utah Parent Center.

Service isn’t a side project for us. It’s woven into who we are. We know that protecting childhood through products is an important part of the solution— but it isn’t the whole solution. 

A safer, more resilient future for our kids is built through relationships, presence, and showing up when it matters most.

What 2025 taught us

This year taught us that we’re not alone in our mission to protect childhood. 

Parents are tired of feeling powerless against Big Tech. Schools are done pretending phones in classrooms are fine. Kids—actual kids—are speaking up and saying they want better options. And families everywhere are discovering that delaying smartphones doesn’t mean isolation. It means freedom.

Thank you for being part of this community. Thank you for trusting us with your kids’ first tech. Thank you for showing up at device fairs, sharing your stories, and supporting other families on this journey. Thank you for proving that a different path is possible.

Here’s to 2026—to more families choosing safer tech, more kids thriving offline, and more communities rallying together to protect childhood.

We’re just getting started.

What was your biggest win with safer tech in 2025? What are you hoping for in 2026? Let us know in the comments.