The Sproutling "Smart" Baby Monitor
August 12, 2014If you're a parent, you probably remember the stress and worry you felt when your newborn was sleeping. Has she rolled over? Is he awake, but not making any noise? And the ultimate worry... has she stopped breathing? The Sproutling Baby Monitor aims to put an end to all of these stressful situations with a smart monitor that alerts you, via smartphone, to unusual heart rate, temperature and much more...
The Sproutling Baby Monitor is actually quite ingenious. It's comprised of a wearable band that fits over the baby's ankle and a separate inductive charger (wireless charging) that monitors additional conditions. All monitored conditions are viewable on a smartphone.
The ankle band is a soft, breathable, washable material that contains a sealed silicone sensor unit. The sensor can be removed in order to wash the band. The sensor monitors the baby's temperature and heart rate, as well as the baby's position.
The charger looks like a small bowl. It's designed as an inductive charger so the monitoring band can simply be placed in the bowl to recharge. In addition to charging, the bowl also has sensors built into it that monitor sleeping conditions in the room such as room temperature and humidity, light and sound levels.
All of these parameters are monitored and sent to your smartphone via wi-fi. The smartphone app is designed to be simple to use. It doesn't provide graphs or tables of numbers. Instead, it provides more of a summary of the baby's condition, letting you know that the baby is asleep and a prediction of when he will awake. If the baby is awake, the app let's you know this and also the baby's emotional state (fussy or perhaps happy).
In the rare case where a warning is necessary, such as an unusual heart rate or temperature or perhaps there is too much noise in the room, a push notification is sent to the phone.
There is little question that the Sproutling Baby Monitor brings baby monitors to the next level. However, is it worth the $249 price tag? Most likely. I remember a night that was incredibly worrisome with our first baby. Our little guy used to wake up two or three times each night. And then one night he didn't wake up. It threw us into panic mode. Was he simply sleeping through the night for the first time? Had he stopped breathing? What should have been the best sleep for us in a year turned into the most terrifying night of the year. Luckily, everything was fine. Had we owned the Sproutling Baby Monitor, we wouldn't have had to worry at all. The price is probably justifiable to most parents.
Currently, the baby monitor works only with iOS. An Android version should be available in the first half of 2015.
Image Credit: Sproutling