A new baby monitor for parents promises to take the anxiety out of naptime. At first glance, the Sproutling Baby Monitor looks a little like a high-tech house-arrest anklet. It promises to do so many things that it begs the question: Do parents really need to monitor 16 variables and vitals every time they put the baby down for a nap?
The flexible monitor Velcros around the infant’s ankle and uses Bluetooth to send data to a puck-shaped wireless hub and charger. The charger also has sensors that measure environmental factors like the amount of light and sound in the room, and then transmits all that data to the app. All told, the Sproutling monitor transmits 16 measurements per second — everything from the baby’s heartbeat and body position to how noisy the room is. That’s more than 1,000 data points each minute.
The app translates that data into a few key metrics. For example, Sproutling gauges what your child’s normal skin temperature is and then sends you an alert if it suddenly spikes or drops. Using an internal gyroscope, it can determine if your baby is sleeping on her back or stomach, and alert you when she rolls over. The app will factor in the baby’s movements, normal sleep patterns, and the amount of light or noise in the environment, and then use that data to predict when your child will wake up and whether she’ll be a gurgling bundle of joy or a screaming hellion.
The Sproutling monitor is the antidote to helicopter parenting; the goal is to give new parents peace of mind without having to constantly hover over the crib. It is suspected that the Sproutling app will give Millennials yet another excuse to spend all day staring at their phones — only instead of playing Candy Crush they’ll be watching their kids’ heartbeats.
Sproutling will sell the monitor direct to consumers for $299; to celebrate the launch, an unspecified number of units will be available for $249. The app is currently available only for iOS, though the company says an Android version is coming soon.
Sources: yahoo.com, sproutling.com