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Withings Smart Baby Monitor spies on infants, beams info to iPhone
Withings, the same company that brought you the world's first internet-connected bathroom scale and announced an iPhone-based blood pressure cuff yesterday, has now announced the Smart Baby Monitor at CES 2011. This device features a wide-angle lens, 3 MP sensor and night vision with infrared LEDs to light up your spawn. The Smart Baby Monitor is primarily made for use with the iPhone, and it's more than just a one-way monitor. Sure, you can check to see if the baby is doing OK through video and audio beamed to your iPhone, but you can sing lullabies to your little one from another room as well. But wait, there's more! Withings equipped the Smart Baby Monitor with humidity and temperature sensors, so you can check on the ambient conditions in the nursery while you're in Vegas partying making dinner. The monitor is a small, white box that turns on when you open the lid and shuts down when you close it. If you're not paying attention to the video or sound, you can set alarms to go off when there's a certain amount of activity or movement in the crib, or if the temperature or humidity goes out of pre-set limits. Withings has not yet determined a price for the Smart Baby Monitor. The product is expected to arrive in late March, 2011.
Withings fittingly debuts iPhone-connected blood pressure monitor at CES
Trust us -- no one on the Engadget staff wants to know what their blood pressure is right about now. For those trapped in the hurricane that is CES, there's probably no better product to have laying around than this... but only if you're looking to confirm your suspicions about being in a high-stress career. Withings, the company best known for its connected scales, has just revealed the planet's first iPhone-connected blood pressure monitor, with an aim to make measuring vitals as easy as pie for iOS users. The idea is fairly simple: just plug the arm band into your iPad, iPod touch or iPhone, dial up the gratis app and start the process. All of the data is logged on the user's secure online space, and there's even a secure sharing feature that'll beam your abnormally high rates right to your frightened physician. It'll go on sale tomorrow around the globe, with the asking price set at $129 / €129. Update: Looks like iHealth beat these guys by a dozen hours or so. Splitting hairs, but there it is. %Gallery-112205%
iHealth, Withings both launch iPhone-connected blood pressure monitors
There are lots of solid therapeutic approaches to treating hypertension (high blood pressure), and they range in cost and complexity all the way from free and easy up to expensive and elaborate. While it might cost tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars to treat a heart attack, it's much simpler and cheaper to focus on prevention through diet or medication -- plus monitoring blood pressure every day to make sure the plan is working as expected. Cheap and easy sounds good, but getting it done is another matter. "When dealing with patients and asking them to make a lifestyle change, one of the biggest problems is compliance," says Dr. Andrew Brandeis, a San Francisco physician. "I can either give you a pill for your blood pressure or tell you to eat less salt, and one of them is going to be easier than the other -- one of them is better than the other. But getting people to exercise more, to eat less salt; it's not always easy to get them to do what they need to do." That's why Brandeis is excited about the new iHealth blood pressure monitoring system, introduced today in the runup to CES; competitor Withings has also announced a similar product. Both cuffs provide a new level of convenience to the digital blood pressure monitor market, enabling far more granular intraday measurements that let you know exactly how various daily activities (a meal, a cup of coffee) affect your inner equilibrium. %Gallery-112496% %Gallery-112498%
Road Tested: The Withings Scale, an Apple accessory you can stand on
In the Apple accessory ecosystem, there are thousands of different items for the Mac, iPhone, iPod, and iPad. Out of that huge world, I can think of only one accessory that you can actually stand on -- The Withings Connected Body Scale (US$159.00). I've had the pleasure of using one of these internet-connected scales for about a year now, and I find it to be a help in my daily battle between being a foodie and trying to maintain a decent weight. Although the Withings Scale can be used with any computer, I like to think of it as an Apple accessory, since I can use my Mac, iPhone, and iPad in various ways to check my diet progress. Withings provides a free iOS app (WiScale) that gives you password-protected access to your weight information, or you can visit the main Withings website to view the same data on your free account. The scale measures and calculates your weight, fat mass, and BMI (Body Mass Index), and then it transmits that information to the Withings servers via a Wi-Fi connection to your network. Within a very short amount of time, that information can either be accessed privately via a variety of methods or can be sent to the world via Facebook, Twitter, or a blog widget. %Gallery-102184%
Switched On: Where the Withings are
Ross Rubin (@rossrubin) contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology.
