Easily the most cliché – not to mention the most frequent – statement leveled at soon-to-be parents is as follows: “Oh, your life will never be the same!”
Of course it won’t. Having a child is quite literally a life-changing event, and that should (but so often doesn’t) go without saying. What’s more important is to address the ways in which having a baby changes your life. There are positives – oh, so many positives – like affording you the opportunity to mold a young mind, to re-experience the world through the fresh eyes and ears of your brood and, of course, to at last have the ideal cover to explain why you’ve got so many toys littering your living room floor.
But parenting also comes with its own set of unique challenges, and chief among them, particularly for new parents, is a drastic spike in stress and anxiety. You can read all the books and attend all the classes, but suddenly being made responsible for a tiny, defenseless human being is still going to hit you hard. And that’s okay.
For many parents, me included, this anxiety often manifests at night. When the house is dark and still, the space between your door and baby’s crib becomes all the more vast and treacherous. Is she sleeping? Is he breathing okay? What if she turns over? What is he can’t turn over?
There are countless baby monitors available specifically designed to act as your eyes and ears in that faraway nursery, but they can only tell you so much. Today’s sponsor, Rest Devices, aims to do much more. Their Mimo brings smart technology to the baby monitor market, and best of all it integrates with that already indispensable accessory, your smartphone.
The Mimo starts with a clever bit of wearable tech, a special kimono-style onesie fitted with machine-washable sensors. With the addition of the removable (and adorable) Mimo Turtle module, these sensors can monitor you baby’s skin temperature, respiration, movement and activity level. These metrics are relayed to the Mimo’s in-room base/recharge station the Mimo Lilypad via Bluetooth, which in turn uses your home Wi-Fi network to stream this data to your phone in real-time.
You can use the related Mimo app to set alerts, view trends and even listen in on baby thanks to the Lilypad’s built-in microphone. All of this combines to afford you the peace of mind you need and the information you crave, without the constant compulsion to go creeping across the house all night.
The Mimo system is currently available at Babies R Us and Magic Beans (for those of you in Rest Devices’ native Boston), but GeekDad readers can enter below for an opportunity to win one of your very own. Register between now and 11:59 PM Sunday, August 31st for your chance to sleep soundly with Mimo, the world’s first smart wearable baby monitor.
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Giveaway rules:
Open to US residents only.
One entry per physical address.
Must be 18 or older to enter.
Winner will be chosen at random from all valid entries.
Winner will be notified via the email address supplied at time of entry.
Prizes are supplied by 3rd parties, and GeekDad.com cannot be held liable for items damaged or lost in shipping.
From a Pediatrician’s perspective, just to temper the enthusiasm about this product and offer some perspective, there is no evidence that vital sign monitoring (temperature, respiration, etc) is: one, accurate; and, two, that has any positive impact on a baby’s well-being/overall health. We over rely on data of unclear importance from medical devices – we have no idea how to interpret any data from these non-medical products. Thanks for the post.
I understand what you’re saying but I don’t think it’s meant as a solution to any kind of medical problem. It’s meant to keep mom in bed and glancing at her phone every hour instead of up and down the hall to baby’s room to make sure they are still breathing. I wound up cosleeping because the idea of having baby so far away where I couldn’t constantly be watching her to make sure she was alright was unbearable. Even with her in bed with me I woke up every 30 min to check her. Then as she grew I didn’t like the idea of her being left alone in a dark room feeling confused and abandoned. If my baby doesn’t understand that objects have permanence how does she understand that I didn’t just leave her in this room alone and am never coming back. Maybe I’m overly sensitive but I know I’m not alone, so a device like this offers another option for the overly hormonal and sensitive parent 😛
Devices like FitBit and such aren’t accurate either. What’s really important with any of these “internet of things” kinds of devices is that their inaccurate in a reliable fashion. That is to say, as long as the inaccuracy is consistent, we can establish a baseline, so that if something changes, we know to start paying attention.
Did I really take 5000 steps today? No, but I know if that same devices says 5500 tomorrow, I did better than today. Is my baby’s respiration really 30 breaths per minute (I made this stat up)? No, but if it suddenly drops to 10 or less, I know to get in there and check, because it deviated from the established norm.