Sproutling is taking pre-orders for the world’s most sophisticated baby monitor. You will need a baby by 2015 to make good use of it.
The Sproutling Baby Monitor is made of three devices. The first is, naturally, a wearable ankle band sensor for babies. It is “soft, breathable and hypoallergenic” and can monitor the little tike’s heart rate, skin temperature, movement and sleep patterns.
There is a separate charging station that wireless charges the bad but has its own set of sensors to monitor the baby’s room temperature, humidity, sound and light.
And, there is an app on a mobile phone, the third piece which analyzes the information and sends real-time notifications to the parent. It tells the parent when the baby is fast asleep, awake (which should be obvious because babies have a unique non-technical way of letting you know you are needed – crying) or just experiencing changes in position, temperature, or heart rate.
That’s an awful lot of stuff to know for an anxious parent but the makers are nothing if not soothing voices of medical reason. They claim that their product gives parents insights that help them better understand their child and do things like predict the best time for sleep, for example. Sproutling claims that its app has data analysis algorithms that “create a model specific to each child” and that they are not just about producing a wall of data.
So, the Sproutling monitor isn’t just a way for parents to keep an eye on things when they can’t be on watch in the baby’s room, but it is also supposed to tell parents when a child is likely to wake up and whether they are going to be fussy, angry or calm.
The overall aim of the monitor is to create a complete controlled environment for the child knowing if the baby’s room is too loud or too hot and allowing parents to make informed decisions about how to spend their time. That kind of reads like, we’ll track the baby so, if you have other things to do you go an do it.
Of course, this means that the parents either extreme helicopter parents or Type A personalities or just really not up to the challenge of having a child and would much rather get a robot nanny.
Too cynical?
Who are we to say. Babies are not easy and especially not for first time parents, but no amount of data analysis is going to give you really parental insight. They are all different and they are difficult to fathom at the best of times with even the most experienced parents.
But, if you have $249 you can get in on the limited preview of the product at Sproutlings. The monitors are not going to ship until 2015 so, you still have time to make a baby, too, if you don’t have one to use the monitor on.