New parents know that one of the most unnerving experiences of having a new baby in the house is the sound of silence in their baby's room at night. Silence might sound like an odd thing to produce fear in a parent, but, tragically, the threat of SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome) is why it does. And it's never so real when you're lying awake at night in the room next to your baby or with their crib nearby, and you can't sleep because you can't hear any obvious sign that your baby is breathing normally.
That's why the company Owlet Baby Care created a new smart device called, you guessed it, “Owlet.” It's the next life-saving tech to come to us courtesy of the Internet of Things.
And it recently became ready for prime time, as the Owlet creators announced on in the following press release:
Andrew, Pia, and Easton. These are the names of the babies who were unable to breathe in the middle of the night, and their parents were alerted by the Owlet Monitor in time to intervene. Two of the children were turning blue when their mothers picked them up and stimulated them to start breathing again. This is our announcement to the world today: Owlet has strong initial evidence that it really can alert parents if, for some reason, their baby is unable to breathe. We are also happy to announce that we are now taking Owlet out of private beta and making it available to the public.
How Owlet Works And Why Parents Love It
To be clear — and the creators of the device are emphatic about this — Owlet does notprevent SIDS. It is not a magical cure. It's more of a tool to reduce the burden for worried parents who feel they must execute a vigil at the infant's bedside every night to make they are breathing normally.
The Owlet uses a smart sock worn by the infant — and, yes, the tiny little sock gadget looks adorable on an infant's foot — and this smart sock essentially tracks the infant's vitals. It's like having those handy vital monitors used in hospitals in your home — but without the giant screens, panels and wires.
The smart sock sends the baby's vitals to a base station, a sleek, small disc, which then relays data — the baby's heart rate and oxygen level — to the Owlet app on the parent's smart device.
As the Owlet site explains: “[Owlet] uses the same type of technology hospitals use to check heart rate and oxygen saturation. It’s called pulse oximetry and it’s in the clip they put on your finger when you go to the hospital. A small light shines through your skin and the amount of blood flow and oxygen levels are estimated based on how much light is transmitted to the sensor.”
If anything abnormal develops, rapid heart rate or sudden drop in oxygen level from suffocation, an alert wakes the parent, and they can attend to the baby immediately, whether that simply means stimulating the baby to resume breathing, removing whatever is causing blockage in breathing, calling 911, or all three. The three babies mentioned in the press release were cases in which the parent simply had to pick the baby up and stimulate them to resume breathing. So right away we see how a simple alert system like this can save lives.
But What If…How Owlet Anticipated Objections From Customers
Of course, any good company who has achieved Product Market Fit immediately knows the key objections that their customers will raise. In this case, Owlet anticipated that parents will wonder, “Well, what if my phone dies or our Internet goes out.” For this reason, Owlet designed their base station to issue alerts to the parent whether or not a smart device is hooked up or the Internet is working. It's not wholly reliant on the app, in other words.
It's always refreshing to see more life-saving IoT technology hit the market, and it's great to see companies who know their customers and can anticipate every angle. Owlet provides a great example of a product that makes a huge difference in people's lives and understands how their customers think. Let us know what you think about this new technology in the comments below.
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