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Rigging Up Baby
theodp writes "Over at Fast Company, Rebecca Greenfield explores the rise of extreme baby monitoring. 'In the imminent future,' writes Greenfield, 'any curious parent with an iPhone will have access to helpful analytics, thanks to the rise of wearable gadgets for babies. Following the success of self-trackers for grown-ups, like Jawbone and Fitbit, companies like Sproutling, Owlet, and Mimo want to quantify your infants.' Devices connect to a baby via boot, anklet, or onesie, and record heart rate, breathing patterns, temperature, body position, and the ambient conditions of the room. While the breathing and sleeping alerts will calm a lot of parents, Greenfield reports the real holy grail is the data garnered from tracking, which some companies plan to share with researchers.
'We're creating the largest data set of infant health data,' says Owlet co-founder Jordan Monroe."
Unlike a basic $35 baby-monitor, the $250 Owlet bootie and accompanying app can alert parents if anything serious has gone wrong, like if a kid stops breathing, or if his heart stops beating.
This XKCD comes to mind for some reason.
Babymonitor App, 4.0 stars, 4 reviews
Three five star reviews, then one one star review. "App did not warn me when baby died."
Want a slightly more serious take on it?
For the first 10 months of her life, her mother, Yasmin, kept detailed records of Elle's sleep patterns, feedings, and diaper changes, noting the data points with a pencil and paper on a clipboard. A few months in, she digitized the logs, graphed the data, and became a more knowledgeable parent.
Unfortunately for the Lucero family's sleeping habits, Yasmin never found a definitive answer. Per the data, Elle was just fussy.
That last line accurately sums up every infant I've ever had in my charge. Not sure what pattern you could discern from graphing all of this data, if my experiences are any guide it would make for one hell of a random number generator. I doubt one can find a better entropy source than a newborns sleeping "schedule". ;)
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
I know this will probably get lost in the comments but, when my mom isn't home I like to go into her garden, cover myself in dirt, and pretend I'm a carrot.
I actually think this could be a great thing. As long as insurance companies or other companies cannot link the data with who the baby is for profiling purposes, this could be a great way to keep parents informed about their child and also help us study possible causes for SIDS or other infant issues. Besides all the research benefits are the possible lives saved. I have had a couple friends who fell asleep with their baby and their baby suffocated on their chest. If the other parent is in the room and an alert goes off that their child has stopped breathing that could be a life saved.
Tinfoil hat time! So in 40 years, these will be required by insurers to screen for pre-existing conditions!?!!? No historical data on early-stage developmental physiology, no 95% subsidy off government single-payer coverage cost...
'We are trying to prove ourselves wrong as quickly as possible, because only in that way can we find progress.' RPF
While the breathing and sleeping alerts will calm a lot of parents,
I would argue the opposite is more likely to happen. Most parents are not qualified to properly interpret these data, and over-monitoring can cause excessive anxiety and obsessive-compulsive tendencies.
What, no burp duration or fecal viscosity histograms? Pathetic.
Please try our funeral planning app!
The premise that all analytics are helpful is false. Sometimes data is just data.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
Oh how did we ever survive without constantly knowing our kids' whereabouts? Do you remember the times? When we were scared shitless because little Timmy could not be tracked down via GPS? When kids actually could have secrets from their parents? Nothing spells "I love you, dear child" like calling when he's making out with his first love.
But I see the upside of it. Kids that are constantly monitored, prodded and nagged by parents will more likely develop a heavy resentment for total surveillance, and they will early in their life start to develop counter strategies.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I wouldn't be surprised at subliminal ads being targeted to toddlers who might play with tablets, so that they grow up being better 'consumers'. Brave new world.
Why do people "need" these things? Humans have been born and grown to adulthood for, oh, now many hundreds of thousands of years without the aid of monitors? Oh. Wait. I just responded to my own question. Human monitors are no longer valid. That's it! So... _this_ is what happens when you don't want to be with your child... and when you have "better" things to do, eh? Sad. Really sad, if that's the case.
The baby's picture is on the main screen on the phone, the phone mimics/displays all of the baby's vital signs, and gives readings on all baby-related matters... in this way, the device is the baby. However, we're going to depend on the same parent that can't care for the baby itself, to monitor the device that's monitoring the baby? How odd indeed.
Maybe they can then sell little baby clothes to put on your iPhone.
Politics; n. : A religion whereby man is god.
Seriously, is this the direction we're going in? I think I'm going to throw up.
Parents, please: Don't "share" the data from this sort of device with any third-party companies.
Yes, now we can extend the concept of a pre-existing condition straight down to infancy!
Healthcare will not see any improvements until the concept of heath insurance is thrown away.
We're almost there. Awesome.
This will drive the parents up the wall in no time.
It may have a beneficial effect, parents sane enough to avoid it might have a better chance
of raising sane kids.
The weathermen learned it first. People start ignoring tornado and hurricane warnings if there less 20% chance of it happening that day. Earthquake forecasters cant get anywhere near that accuracy.
No way in hell will I ever buy or use services that track my kids' anything unless that data is 100% controllable by me and me alone.
Hear that for-profits?! Keep your fucking noses out of my child's life until they can decide for themselves. That goes for Facebook & the like as well - seems completely irresponsible for any parent to post their child online to me. The powers of the Internet want one thing and one thing only: to invade your life in every way possible as long as there's a buck in it.
Be responsible. Don't allow your children to become victims of the unknown digital future if you have the choice.
Wife is pregnant. We've gone to a few "baby" classes. They talk about the "unknowns" of what causes SIDS and all the things people "think" cause it (no real proof or idea). But every one outright dismisses the use of any monitoring to alert you if the baby stops breathing, because there is no proof it helps.
So, they have no proof to what causes SIDS, but since there are no studies saying that monitoring helps, don't waste your time with it?
Seems strange to dismiss something, when you have no proof either way it works.
So one can now "be a parent" without having to actually be physically present and not even have to hire a body double? Awesome!
They plan to sell the data collected to researchers.
Why do we have to pay so much more than manufacturing and distribution costs for the device then?
In addition,"The Final Cut" is a gem of a Robin Williams movie on this subject many may not have seen-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Final_Cut_(2004_film) (below is wikipedia summary)
The Final Cut is a 2004 film written and directed by Omar Naim. It stars Robin Williams ... ... The story takes place in a near future in which people can pay to have their babies implanted with memory chips. These "Zoe Implants", developed by EYE Tech company, record every moment of their lives, so that they may be viewed by loved ones after one's death. The plot centers on Alan Hakman, a "cutter", whose job it is to edit the Zoe footage into a feature-film length piece, called a "Rememory".
The Final Cut is about subjectivity, memory and history; posing the question, "If history is what is written and remembered, then what happens when memories are edited and rewritten?"
The film won the award for best screenplay at the Deauville Film Festival and was nominated for best film at the Catalonian International Film Festival and Berlin International Film Festival.
vote GOP and pre-existing conditions = go to lockup with you want to see a doctor
Let's train our babies and kids to get used to being watched and monitored at all times. Then the next generation won't mind the NSA spying on us as much. Good work! SMH
If it follow the purpose of these devices you should leave them rigged up until they are 18.
My ex-brother-in-law is a wildlife biologist. He's done a lot of field work. He told a story at Christmas a few decades back. He took his 7 year old son out hiking is some deep woods. Being concerned if something went wrong he put a radio tracking collar on him, just part of the stuff in his lab. I asked him how it worked. He deadpanned, "I hated shooting him with the tranquilizer dart from the helicopter." I almost lost my egg-nog.
Since our child was about 18 months old I have had extensive video monitor + computer analysis of her sleep. It was amazing.
Surprising things we have learned.
- Not uncommon for a child to be awake for 1 hour on some nights. (Happily stays in crib, just moves / looks around)
- Ideal bedtime has been between 5:30 - 6:30, any later and quality and length of nighttime sleep is greatly diminished. (Norm sleep is 11+ hours of sleep minus breaks)
The hardest thing about this tech is letting go, it's easy to get dependent on the data.
My biggest gripe with all these monitoring system is the reasoning behind it: (from the post)
While the breathing and sleeping alerts will calm a lot of parents...
In what I see around me the opposite is true. Woried parrents scramble to these kind of devices and often will have their condition aggrivated even when no real danger exists.
Don't get me wrong: if the docter has flagged you child as having a risk for e.g. crib death these things are a godsent. Problem is that everybody is buying them even when the baby is perfectly normal.
My wife and I have a daughter that had made it over 4 1/2 years so far with no baby monitor other than us checking on her periodically....
Using data gathered along a persons entire lifetime, they will find some algorithm and start sorting people early on.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
Kids are 2 now. We pulled out the video baby monitor on the theory that they might injure themselves with the AC power cord until we could install it in a baby-proof fashion.
It turns out that after a week of not having the baby monitor, we've decided that life is much better without it! Look, if they get into real trouble, they are fully capable of screaming to be heard down the hall and wake us up.