The ingenious baby gadgets that will give parents peace of mind

Hong Kong executive Bruce Griffin travels frequently for work, with trips to far-flung locations such as Mongolia and Queensland, Australia. No matter where the job takes him, each night finds him at home reading his two-year-old daughter a bedtime story.  “We have an iBaby monitor installed in her bedroom, it lets me see the baby, talk to her, play her music - all via an iBaby app on my phone,” Griffin says. “I can be in touch no matter where I am – it’s made business travel for me a lot more palatable.”

From the nursery to the playroom, kitchen and garden, the latest in family technology offers parents a helping hand, and ensures the safety and wellbeing of little tots around the home. The iBaby M6 monitor used by Griffin offers complete access to the child, with a built-in, two-way radio, night vision, motion and sound alerts and the ability to pan 360 degrees – you feel as though you are in the room with the child even if you are a world away.

If your baby is sick, you can track their temperature and medication timetable via Pacif-i, the world’s first Bluetooth pacifier, designed by British firm Blue Maestro. “I know first-hand the difficulty in taking a sick baby’s temperature,” says Kristin Hancock, co-founder of Blue Maestro. “It is easy to lose track of readings and the timings of medication.” Thanks to a sensor in the silicon teat, Pacif-i determines when the child’s temperature is most accurate and then time-stamps and plots the data on a graph, which is sent to the parents’ mobile devices. Parents can record when medication was administered, set-up alerts and share data with carers and medical professionals with the tap of a button. Taking the temperature is just the start, an in-built proximity sensor in the Pacif-i also allows parents to track a child’s movements and set a perimeter, if the child wanders beyond this point an alarm is sent to caregivers via the Pacif-i app. Perhaps best of all, lost pacifiers will be a thing of the past, Pacif-i has an inbuilt buzzer alarm that lets you track its exact location. 

Parents-to-be haven’t been forgotten either, with a range of ingenious gadgets to help from pregnancy to birth. The Shell by Bellabeat tracks fetus heartbeat and movement, relaying results to mum via her mobile or tablet.  The device can also be used to play music to the baby in utero. Once the baby is born, this stylish gadget, which is made of sustainable wood and resembles a small dome, transforms into a modern-day baby monitor.  As a monitor it tracks baby noises intelligently; the Shell can recognise different types of cries and alert parents when necessary. It will also keep an eye on temperature and humidity in the child’s room, a handy detail to have for those living in a hot, tropical climate.

So if you have little ones in the home make sure you are getting all the advantages that family technology has to offer. Let it help you keep track of and eyes on your children, use technology to soothe upsets and monitor health – giving parents peace of mind in the home.