As we move into a new age of wearables and smartwear, it seems that developers are coming up with more and more modern ways to keep track of the health of our family members, whether they be human or animal. We’ve seen trackers for children but a new trend is rising in wearables for babies that help monitor everything from their temperature to sleep activity.
Mimo is one of these new health tracking devices that aims to enable you to create a ‘smart nursery’ in your home. The gadget costs $199.99 and consists of a wearable monitor for your baby, three sleepsuits and a base unit. The free accompanying Mimo app allows you to view a live feed of data from the device wherever you are in the world and share data with others such as a partner, relative or babysitter.
Babies can’t be watched all the time, especially not while they’re sleeping, so monitors and health trackers may offer reassurance for new parents who worry about their baby’s health when they are put down in their cot to sleep.
The Mimo sleepsuits are called ‘kimonos’ and the turtle shaped tracking sensor attaches to an area on the side of the kimono where it sends information via low-powered Bluetooth to a lilypad shaped base station, which then sends it on to your device via a cloud. The Kimonos are made from soft cotton with the sensors on the outside to avoid irritation to baby’s skin and they can be washed and tumble dried on a low heat.
The starter set for this wearable baby monitor includes three kimonos in ages 0-3 month, 3-6 month, 6-12 months. Mimo stress the importance of a comfortably fitting kimono so such rigid ages for rapidly growing babies could be a little unrealistic. However, you can purchase an extra two kimonos in one size for $29.99 which may well be needed for particularly messy babies.
Mimo works best when the baby is asleep and quickly tracks a number of things via your phone or tablet- you can listen to your baby through live audio, monitor their sleep status and check whether they’ve rolled onto their front or side using data from the accelerometer, monitor the baby’s skin temperature and monitor breathing through respiration sensors. This live feed would be very reassuring to a parent and offers much more real-time data than a traditional audio or video baby monitor.
Mimo’s app isn’t just about relaying live streamlined data as it also stores your baby’s personal data history for you to view. You can rewind time and view information from when you first got the app to compare and see changes. You can also view sleep insights on a graph from previous nights to view quiet sleep, active sleep and awake periods. In addition you can set alerts when any changes happen such as if your baby wakes up, rolls over or exhibits any breathing irregularities.
Mimo has studied thousands of hours of baby data to make sure alerts are accurate and the software uses a combination of data to determine what the baby is doing and whether the patterns are normal. This means that the app won’t send alerts when the turtle sensor has been removed from the kimono or when the baby is awake and moving around.
Mimo have created a great wearable baby monitor, with a more convenient design and more affordable price than competitor Sproutling ($299) which would be especially great for those parents worried about SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome). However the idea is let down by the YouTube advertisement on their website homepage which trivialises the idea of caring about your baby’s vital signs and attributes it to a female only problem that they call ‘baby brain’. Whether meant as a joke or not, this ad does undermine the usefulness of Mimo, which could only really be bettered by including a camera in the lilypad base unit.
Advert aside, Mimo is one of the best baby wearables we’ve seen and is a helpful device for those parents who worry when they put their baby down to sleep.
