Sproutling's new wearable tracks your infant's sleep patterns
Baby wearables. With the boom in fitness trackers, you must've seen them coming, right? Now, a pair of ex-Apple and Google employees has launched the Sproutling baby monitor, a device the company likens to Nest in terms of design and simplicity. Unlike the Withings Baby Monitor camera, however, it's meant to be worn around your baby's ankle. That way, it can monitor parameters like heart rate, skin temperature and body movement, while also tracking the room's temperature, humidity and light levels. All that data is sent to a smartphone app, which crunches it to create simple notifications. For instance, it can tell you whether her heart rate is higher than normal, if she's sleeping on her back, if it's warmer than ideal in the room or whether she's now awake and not in a good mood.
On top of that, the system can learn a baby's habits over time and predict things like when he's ready to wake up or if the room's too warm to sleep. Sproutling said it worked with parents, engineers and pediatric specialists to develop those features while keeping the app user-friendly. It's also built from hypoallergenic silicone, and can be tossed in a washing machine thanks to the removable sensor. Though we've seen other baby wearables like the Mimo Baby, the Sproutling's setup looks simpler and possibly more comfortable.
The Sproutling uses a wireless charger that also assumes most parents are kinda busy: To power it up, you just place it on a charging "bowl" which doubles as the environmental sensor. The company said it tried to make notifications simple for busy parents so as not to overwhelm them with information. (To avoiding any "What does this mean? Call the doctor!" reactions from paranoid new parents.) The Sproutling is now up for pre-order at an early-bird price of $249 (it'll run a hefty $299 at retail), and will ship early next year.
