Presented by Pabbot and THE BABY GEAR GAME PLAN

Shownotes

In this episode, Kevin and Paris delve into the complexities of smart baby monitors, discussing both their potential benefits and significant privacy concerns. They start by highlighting various hacking incidents involving popular baby monitors such as Fredi and Nanit. These incidents have raised concerns among parents about the safety and security of using such devices. Kevin and Paris stress the importance of understanding the limitations and vulnerabilities of smart monitors, urging parents to critically evaluate the claims made by manufacturers.

Evaluating Smart Monitor Claims

The hosts discuss the often vague privacy policies of smart monitor companies and the lack of specific actions they will take to protect user data. They emphasize the need for proof and transparency from these companies, especially when dealing with potential security breaches. Paris points out that while some parents may be comfortable with the idea of transmitting video and audio data over the internet, others may prefer a more secure, closed-loop solution.

Cost and Practicality

Smart monitors are not only expensive but also come with ongoing costs such as subscription fees. Paris and Kevin note that while these monitors offer advanced features like remote monitoring and milestone tracking, many of these features may not be as practical or necessary as they seem. They argue that the primary purpose of a baby monitor should be to ensure the baby's safety, not to serve as a source of stress or anxiety for parents.

Who Should Use Smart Monitors?

The hosts suggest that anxious parents might want to avoid smart monitors with extensive tracking capabilities, as the constant alerts and data might increase their anxiety rather than alleviate it. They also question the practicality of tracking a baby's sleep patterns, pointing out that the information gathered is often more for entertainment than for any real safety or health benefit.

Future of Baby Monitoring Technology

Looking ahead, Kevin and Paris discuss the potential improvements in baby monitoring technology. They envision features like better audio and visual quality, AI-driven recommendations for room temperature regulation, and even anticipatory alerts based on big data. However, they caution that these advancements should be driven by genuine safety concerns rather than marketing tactics aimed at exploiting parental anxiety.

Travel-Friendly Monitor Options

While smart monitors are often marketed as being easy to travel with, the hosts argue that traditional, non-wifi monitors can be just as convenient if you have multiple cameras. They recommend investing in a monitor with two cameras, allowing for greater flexibility and ease of use.

Conclusion

Kevin and Paris wrap up the episode by encouraging parents to balance the use of technology with their own instincts. They stress that while smart monitors offer exciting features, the basics of sleep safety are paramount. They recommend starting with fundamental safe sleep practices and consulting trusted resources rather than relying solely on high-tech solutions.

For those interested in non-wifi, closed-loop monitors, they have put together a guide outlining the features available in these more secure options. This guide aims to help parents make informed decisions based on their specific needs and concerns.

This podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only and is not medical, legal, or financial advice.

Highlights

• [00:00:00] Introduction - "Discussed various user research topics and methods."

• [00:05:00] Cost and Practicality of Smart Monitors - "The other thing about this is it is really expensive."

• [00:10:00] Who Should Use Smart Monitors? - "So who should connect and who should stay offline when it comes to baby monitors?"

• [00:15:00] The Illusion of Helpfulness - "It's the illusion of helpfulness really is what it is."

• [00:20:00] Future of Baby Monitoring Technology - "So the future, let's talk about the future baby monitoring, what might be coming next?"

• [00:25:00] Travel-Friendly Monitor Options - "One of the benefits that is marketed to people with the smart monitors is the ability to take them places with you."

• [00:30:00] Guide to Non-Wifi Monitors - "So if you're not going to use a high-tech monitor, we put together a guide."

• [00:35:00] Conclusion and Next Week's Preview - "Tune in next week for more discussions on baby products and parental concerns."

Transcript

Main Edit - Ep012 - baby monitor

[00:00:00]

Introduction to High-Tech Baby Monitors

Paris: today we're diving into the world of high-tech baby monitors. We'll explore the good, the bad and the downright creepy.

Evolution of Baby Monitors

Kevin: Baby monitors that come a really long way. We used this one, which was, low tech compared to what's some of the stuff that's out there.

We've been using it for so long and we still find features that we didn't even know about

on This monitor.

Yeah things that We wished that our monitor had it turns out it does.

There's all sorts of things that we just never wanted to use before like the talk button we never really used to talk button you were afraid that it would scare them and then now that they moved into big kid beds and they start playing around. I hit the talk button and I'm like, okay. Kids it's time for bed. And then immediately they just. Scramble or like drop in place to go to sleep.

But just so funny, cause they'd never listened to me like that in real life.

Paris: It's pretty fun to watch actually.

Just like we keep discovering new features with a baby monitor. People keep discovering new ways to use baby monitors. It really isn't the same as it used to be. We're doing all sorts of things. They're [00:01:00] becoming these almost medical devices. Do you really think this is for the better.

Kevin: One of the biggest hassles when you starting your baby registry is just learning all the terms. There's just so much jargon. And that is why we created the baby jargon decoder. It's a glossary with over a hundred terms. So you don't have to spend a bunch of time trying to Google each one of these. Scan the terms, look at them, or you can save it. Uh, as a bookmark in your browser to have as a reference it's available there's a link in the show notes

Paris: in some ways, Yes.

And in some ways, no.

You can have eyes on them all the time. But in some ways, It might just increase your anxiety as a new parent.

Security Concerns with Modern Baby Monitors

Kevin: When you say increase your anxiety why would these new monitors increase your anxiety?

Paris: For one, there is the possibility of hacking. Which I'm sure we've all heard about. But you

Kevin: You can't hack these, you can't heck the old school ones.

Paris: No. And theoretically you can.

However, you're going to see the person they're literally going to me. [00:02:00] So the low-tech baby monitors. there's only a certain distance that they work so you have to be in the proximity of the actual monitor itself. they don't work over wifi, they don't work over cellular or anything like that. You have to be in the actual proximity of the monitor itself, which you will know how long, how far away that is for our monitor that's about a thousand feet. For other monitors that could be as short as 400 feet. You will literally see the person. They'll be hiding in a bush but you do have to watch out for that.

Especially if you live in an apartment building where you don't know your neighbors, you don't know the people who are floors above you or below you.

Kevin: So what you're saying is when you take it online and you use the wifi version, now your ex exposed to more security risk

Paris: Yeah. Anytime you have something that, connects to wifi like that, you run the risk of hacking. In whatever form that may be. I'm sure some of you may have heard about [00:03:00] the washing machines that have been hacked The smart washing machines that have been hacked. Yeah.

Any time you incorporate the wifi into it, there is going to be a risk of being hacked and unfortunately, the risk is higher with baby monitors because there's just creeps out there.

Kevin: Yeah.

The Anxiety Factor

Kevin: So you said there was a couple of ways that the high-tech monitors could increase your anxiety.

Paris: Yes. That's one of them.

Kevin: The security around wifi and just protecting the device is one what's

Paris: the others are the smart devices that, incorporate breathing tracking or things like, in the case of the Owlet Sock where it monitors, heartbeat and, oxygen levels and things like that. Where they're not directly connected to anything they're not wired because as a safety risk. Things that aren't directly connected also run the risk of having problems. Glitch.

They glitch. So the glitches [00:04:00] can lead to super high anxiety.

Kevin: specifically with the owlet they're giving out false alarms and then that's just making parents crazy. I've actually seen a lot of reports of this just on social media where parents are saying, "yeah, I thought it was a good idea, but it freaks me out too much.

I'm switching to something else."

Paris: It's that. But then also there is the aspect of just tracking in general, where there might be like a slight shift in your child's overall way that they are because children grow quickly very quickly.

Of course they're going to change, but if you see that on your phone, in the way that it's tracking everything, It might give you anxiety, you might think Oh, they're behind or, oh, they're ahead. Or, oh no, this isn't right. This might be a problem with my child like you just might be overwhelmed.

Kevin:

Paris: Do you think those changes are for the better?

Kevin: It obviously raises some interesting possibilities for, what can be tracked and D maybe discovering some early issues or something like that possibly. I don't think it's there [00:05:00] yet.

AI and Baby Monitors

Kevin: The scarier thing to me is the AI being integrated, there's this new layer between parents and the baby that's like an AI decoder interpreter. I just wonder where that goes, because that can apply to almost any aspect of parenting in the future, and this is where it starts.

There's one monitor the Maxi-cosi see pro 360 that interprets baby's cries for you and it's trained on the data of like thousands of baby's cries. They say that it's not training on your data, so that's good. But, now you're using the AI to tell you what your baby needs that could be fine that could be helpful, but then what's the next thing Do you have a copilot for parenting essentially? And I think that's just, Pandora's box has been opened and that just gets into some really interesting territory when you think about parenting and the way that might happen in the future. It's some scifi stuff.

Paris: That's wild.

Kevin: But this is [00:06:00] truly the area that we're going into now with these baby monitors it isn't just better cameras and better audio, we're going beyond that, into now using basically the most cutting edge technology in terms of

artificial intelligence health monitoring and, this is something that I think really creates a huge divide between a low-tech monitor and a high-tech monitor now. But there's a ways to go.

Paris: Not when you say that there is a weird in between space between where it's like low tech, that also has the option for a connected device.

So that's like in between where it's not like necessarily a smart monitor. But it does incorporate your phone and wifi.

Kevin: We have no problem being close to our babies while we're using the monitor. It seems to me like overkill to have it on the phone. I know a lot of people have issues with it just draining the battery of their phone so there's that practical aspect.

Data Privacy Issues

Kevin: I guess it does add a [00:07:00] level of convenience, but the real thing to consider is that when you take your baby monitor online. And then these different touch points, like your phone and different things you're entering into that world of data security that comes with electronic devices that are connected to the internet and that may be fine for some things, no problem. You might feel a little bit different about it when it's your baby monitor, because now,

you have a lot more data security issues that you have to consider. Things like how long do they store those recordings for what happens in the case of a data breach? That's very sensitive information about your home, the location of your baby, all this stuff that's now out there.

Paris: I also have questions about it because if you turn that wifi aspect off.

That might be via your phone. Yeah. Okay. I'm disconnected from it. That it's no longer connected to the internet and then it's just closed loop. I'm not so sure that's actually true. I would think [00:08:00] twice I would look into it to make sure that is the case and make sure that you're not just leaving it open. Leaving the door open, thinking that you have a closed loop. When really you are open to

Kevin: It may be storing that data and then transmitting it later. Yeah. So it was something along those lines. I think that's one thing to look at. Like I went through and I looked at all of the privacy policies with, some of these most popular high-tech connected monitors. And I found a pretty big difference. The companies like Nanit and Owlet their policies did better

than some of the other ones, but once you get into some of the second tier ones that maybe haven't been vetted as much with, media scrutiny, ones that are coming from often foreign countries, they're also using the same sort of data capture but there was one that Basically said that data could be sent back to Taiwan. they have different rules around, what they can do with your data. So there's a lot of gray area there.

And I think, especially, if [00:09:00] you're going away from the major brands, who's entire brand relies on public trust and you're going with some of these lesser known brands they could just pop up and go away and come back as another name. You really need to carefully consider how that data's being collected what they do with it how comfortable you are with that when you buy one of those devices.

Paris: Yeah.

High-Tech Features Breakdown

Kevin: Paris, I know we've hinted at what some of these high-tech features are, but let's just break them down a little bit further.

Paris: Yeah.

Dream sock in particular that's actually designated as a de novo device by the FDA, which is unusual

Kevin: as far as baby monitors go, but I think it might be a thing that we see more of in the future.

Paris: Even consumer baby product wise is that that is pretty rare,

Kevin: Right, and actually this came about in 2021, the FDA raised concerns with Owlet ultimately that's a good thing for consumers and for parents, because that means that there's a lot more scrutiny around a medical device in.

Paris: Yeah. They're held to a certain standard.

[00:10:00] They do say that this product is for healthy babies though.

Yeah. So this is for your own tracking. .

Kevin: May not be as helpful as what you think.

The next high-tech feature, I think is interesting is crying interpretation.

Yeah. And we're just starting to see this. I think we're going to see more of it. The Maxi-Cosi pro 360.

Paris: Can I just say, I think it's a fun feature. However, you guys, as the parents of your babies. best don't rely on this thing. Get to know your baby and if you find that it is accurate, maybe that's helpful for like grandma and grandpa. It's maybe not like a feature to lean on, but if you did find it was accurate.

I guess you could be like, oh,

"The baby needs food. According to the Maxi-cosi. But honestly, the minute that you hear that sound, you already know, so you wouldn't even have to.

Kevin: I can see that because it just becomes [00:11:00] annoying.

Paris: Yeah,

Kevin: because you already know, and now it's telling you, okay.

Paris: It's the same as when those of you who already have a newborn baby, when you go out and about people, love to tell you why your baby's crying and they're always wrong. not always But almost always. Oh, he has to burp.

Nope. He's hungry.

Kevin: It's the complete opposite. Yeah. All the time. I feel like. What happens a lot too is especially, family and stuff. They'll just yell out a thing. they don't even think about it or process it, it's just oh, hungry.

Paris:

I think what it is they want to sound like they are the experts because they've done it. They've done this. Yeah. Which, yeah, they did a long time ago and we love them for that, but they aren't experts anymore, they haven't heard that sound, and also it's different from baby to baby.

Kevin: It would be good just to see how AI can outperform extended family.

Paris: Yeah. I'm sure they can.

Kevin: That's really the competition.

Paris: Yeah. ' not going to be with

Kevin: moms.

Paris: And unless the baby is like around a specific person or a family [00:12:00] member. I'll like very often the chances are they're really not gonna be able to accurately pick up on it.

Kevin: Another high-tech feature. I want to mention too, is the AI sleep analysis. That's the other side of the AI, at least currently how it's being used in the baby monitors. And that's basically just trying to watch your baby through the camera and then interpret what's happening with the use of AI.

Paris: Yeah.

I assume that probably comes from the sleep analysis that they do for adults.

Kevin: Yeah. Maybe

Paris: I feel like they probably just translated it with some minor studies.

Kevin: That's a really weird thing here when we started to get into this, because there isn't a lot of great research when it comes specifically to babies and sleep.

There's just a lot of big holes, a lot of big gaps, things that haven't been looked at, it was really hard to find information and if someone has something share it with me, but it's even hard to find good information about [00:13:00] how light affects babies yeah in thier sleep. There's not a whole lot of study around that. Barely any, that does raise a really good question? Where are they getting the data to do this analysis? Most of these privacy policies will say that they, can collect your data to improve the product or their marketing. Maybe that's part of it.

Maybe the studies are being done in real time using the sensors. Because there's just not a lot of great information on it currently just in the data.

Paris: Yeah, honestly, I think that a lot of these products, especially the AI sleep analysis ones that are collecting information like that. That leads me to believe that they are currently Using it to actually make a product that I don't think that you're buying the actual product.

I'm not sure that's going to be super helpful for you, but. I think maybe in [00:14:00] five years it might be something that's.

Kevin: Yeah. So with the AI sleep analysis, what they're doing is they're looking at just movements for breathing, they might be, using other sort of sensors. Temperature sensors, things like that, to take readings and then they're obviously using

Some sort of data and algorithm to measure against that and, present some sort of sleep analysis. Some of this to me seems I'm not saying it's not based on real data, but it seems like a little bit of a medical theater.

Paris: Yeah. You know what. One thing that I read about Cradlewise. I'm not sure if any of you have heard of that, but it is like the Snoo, where it's a bassinet crib that rocks the baby to sleep. And it has in a monitor that's connected to it, to the crib so it's a smart crib. And so it takes all of this information in, and it can detect when the baby [00:15:00] wakes. And one of the biggest complaints with it was that it would detect a baby that's moving and interpret that as the baby's awake, but some babies, especially older babies, maybe three months or so old move around a lot. And some babies are more active at night than others. So at night. the crib would detect that the baby's moved, the baby's awake. When really the baby was just moving in their sleep. And what it would do is start rocking and singing a lullaby and woke the baby up.

Because it works for somebody else's baby. That doesn't mean that it's going to work for your baby, but AI does not know that. And there might not be an option to change that either.

So then that, all of this stuff brings up this question as to whether this technology is even necessary in, are we over-complicating baby care? I think what we're going to see is we're going to see something stick and we're going to see other [00:16:00] things fall away over time. Maybe they come back with more sophisticated features like this, cry assist thing. We've talked about before, how much we'd cry detection even in low-tech monitors.

Kevin: And I guess that could always get better with this. when do you really need to be woken up?

Real-Life Experiences and Concerns

Kevin: People claiming that their monitors got hacked and they're trying to like, catch it, live on camera.

Paris: Yeah.

Kevin: And you're seeing all this stuff. Do you, it gets a lot of views.

Paris: Huh.

It

Kevin: almost always gets a lot of engagement. Do you believe it?

Paris: Some of it. Some of it. I do. Okay. I do think like some people are faking it. But. The ones that I'm more inclined to believe are there's people on Reddit who are like, oh my God, my baby monitor was hacked and they don't have proof because there, everything cut out and they've only, something's been happening over months where their child's been terrified of their monitor.

And [00:17:00] then, there's a person on the other. Line. Eventually they find out that The person's been talking to their kid and this is why freaked out cause they may have heard it or they finally believed their child But they don't have any proof of it.

And then people all in the comments are like, oh my gosh, what monitor do you have? Yeah. Oh, yeah, that happened to me. Or that happened to my friend or my sister or my cousin. I'm way more inclined to believe those people. That their monitors got hacked over somebody who's caught it on video.

Kevin: Wait, so you think the hype is real.

Paris: Yes.

Kevin: And the claims on text-based platforms, or at least on Reddit, are more believable,

So to me, there's this element of it being, The Blair witch project.

Paris: Yeah,

Kevin: it seems a little bit like what is the one show? The ghost show with the

Paris: ghost adventures.

Kevin: I was like, ah, oh,

Paris: I would touch it. Just moved.

Kevin: Yeah. There's a little bit of that,

But that's [00:18:00] not to say that it isn't. maybe they're not faking it for the sake of views.

Maybe it could just be like, you're freaked out and then you post it and you could be very genuine about that. And still,

Paris: yeah. That's the thing, like when it's caught on video, everyone is automatically pretty much like fake. Fake. Why were you even recording? Like I yeah. That is a valid question.

Why were they recording? But however things happen all the time and it's oh my gosh, I just got this on video. What.

Kevin: I know

Paris: it's wild. So I don't know. I think that there's definitely credit to a lot of them. It does happen. A lot more frequently than, some people would like to believe.

And unfortunately,

Kevin: But you're saying it happened, it just happens a lot where someone puts something out online, it could actually be their experience. And then everyone's just no, it couldn't happen. It's just out of control.

Paris: They're like fake. [00:19:00]

Kevin: Yeah.

Paris: You just want to tangent, that's such a weird and specific way to get attention.

Kevin: That's happened to us. No. Yeah, it's happened. It's happened to me multiple times in multiple different ways. And it's oh, you're just trying to one person will be like 10 people might be like, oh, this is so helpful.

Paris: Yes.

Kevin: And then there's going to be going

Paris: here just trying to get attention, yeah.

Kevin: Oh, sure. Whatever. There are

Paris: people who are trying to get attention. Oh, of course. Everyone's

Kevin: trying to get attention. Attention is just. It's just part of like social life in general,

Paris: on the other forever.

Some people, if they do have the proof, it's oh my gosh, I've got to warn other people. Here's the proof other people that they don't have proof. But they still want to let people know. And yeah, they are trying to get attention, but. Other people's attention so that they know about this risk to their children.

Kevin: Also, there's probably something to just like pointing out to somebody that they're trying to get attention on social media is maybe the dumbest damn thing in the entire world. Oh [00:20:00] yeah, they've just put it out for the entire internet, of course they're trying to get attention. If you want to watch somebody, who's not trying to get attention.

Baby Monitor Privacy Concerns

Kevin: Watch your baby on one of these baby monitors with a high-res video feed on your smartphone.

It's oh, my monitor got hacked. Here's the video proof Okay. You're going to put out a video of your baby. Of that moment that you didn't want anybody to see. I don't want to

Paris: blur out the face or, crop it right. Or

Kevin: their baby's turned around or something, which yeah. That's the same thing we do.

we don't show our babies on this channel or on social media really, that makes sense. And I know they're just trying to like, expose the problem, more so than broadcast

Paris: their

Kevin: monitor feed, but

Paris: yeah, cause it is it's that's a scary thing and it happens.

Kevin: And you want to let other people know, even if that, I think sometimes it happens where someone thinks something happened.

Paris: I really do think that some people consider it an urban legend where it's, it may or may not have happened to someone at some point and oh yeah it's just [00:21:00] like something to scare you away from like the cool tech, I don't know.

Kevin: B

Hacking Incidents and Company Responses

Kevin: But you look at some of these monitors, like there was the problems with the reports of the Fredi monitor and the hacking around that.

And then media outlets reach out to them for comment. And you would think if there's if there's no problem that they would respond back and they didn't respond to media.

Paris: There was several reports of the Nanit monitors being hacked And the way that Nanit responded to those people is you don't have any proof because the hackers had turned off the cameras

and so all that they had was what they heard through their baby's door.

Kevin: This isn't making any accusations because who knows. a lot of these cases are so much, he said, she said, and I think there certainly is a percentage where it is crying Wolf. And I think. It would take a lot better investigative journalism than what we can do here to actually break down which ones are [00:22:00] real.

So it's possible that Nanit has, addressed that issue but the last I had heard of it, they were denying it, because there wasn't proof of it. Yeah.

Evaluating Smart Monitor Claims

Paris: So you do have to be aware of those things with smart monitors, especially.

Kevin: there's a lot of claims in the privacy policies about, how you're protected, but there's not a lot of information specifically about what they're going to do. So that's one thing.

Paris: You might need.

Kevin: Proof. I don't think these companies are really going to expose themselves from a legal standpoint

Paris: I guess it does make sense because if the video, if it wasn't recording, literally anything. It glitched. Yeah, the hacker came through. To them, that is just, you turned everything off. And you want it free or you want to return it after having it for how long. Yep. So

Kevin: it could be bigger issues for that then from a manufacturer, if that's true.

And a lot of these cases.

I even [00:23:00] get from the manufacturer side of it some of the news reports. I'm like, I really didn't, they didn't really show anything like there was any like wrongdoing, and it just feels a little bit icky.

Paris: I think that they have a duty to address it, personally. I think that they need to address it. And I think that they need to, if they cannot prevent it from happening, I think that they have a duty to make it clear that it is possible for this to happen.

Kevin: it really just comes down to how comfortable are you having a, any sort of.

Transmission of video, audio data onto the web from a device in your nursery. Yeah. If that's something that doesn't bother you and you're very comfortable with all the parties involved in how that happens, whether it's the manufacturer, of the monitor or any of their partners.

That's the other thing you have to think about is that they have usually third-party partners that help deliver that service then go for it. Fine. I know we weren't all that comfortable with it, [00:24:00] which is why we went with the closed loop solution. And the other part of this is so many parents are like, oh, that's fine. I'm so intrigued by this technology. They buy one and then very shortly thereafter, once they start using it, they get freaked out by something and they go no.

I'm going to do something else.

Paris: Yeah.

Cost and Practicality of Smart Monitors

Paris: The other thing about this is it is really expensive.

But I do see the upsides to it. Let's say like one of your partners travels or your partner travels a lot for work or you yourself travel a lot for work.

One of the parents travels.

This might be great because then they can be like a part of things a little bit more, they can keep an eye on the baby too. And know what's happening on that front?

Who Should Use Smart Monitors?

Kevin: So who should connect and who should stay offline when it comes to baby monitors? One thing that's really obvious to me is if you are a very anxious person, if you're very anxious about your baby.

You might want to stay away from anything that does a whole lot of tracking because.

[00:25:00] The tracking, won't be helpful in some ways, This technology is fairly early and there's a lot of warning sensors and things that are coming with it that can scare you even more. And so you definitely don't want to, be having knee-jerk reactions a lot of times to some of these warnings.

Paris: And also, I just am wondering what are you even going to do with this information? The tracking of your baby's sleep.

What are you going to do with it?

I know that if I had the information about the twins, I wouldn't have done anything . it

Kevin: that is actually a really good point because it isn't safety.

Paris: No

Kevin: it's entertainment. It's really entertainment.

Paris: Their sleep changes all the time.

And you have regressions all throughout the first year. You'd be like, Oh my gosh, there's something wrong. Like every time you hit a regression, but that's just a natural part of the process. [00:26:00] So what could you even do with information?

I don't think that would be helpful. I think it only exists just for anxiety. Perfect.

Kevin: entertainment for sure, because, okay. it's only meant for healthy baby. You're going to be putting your time into looking at it and, tracking things with it. Going back and reviewing recordings. That are really difficult to come up with an actual, purpose for.

Paris: Maybe if you're going to crochet.

I don't think anyone's buying this for crochet. I know there's data is beautiful. I think that was like a Reddit group or something.

Kevin: Yeah.

Paris: It's for that sake. Almost, I don't know, maybe.

Kevin: Yeah. Maybe there's health things down the line that it could help with. I don't know. Just like having that data on hand, I don't really know.

Paris: I guess you could look at him and be like that's why my baby's cranky.

Kevin: Yeah. It would be interesting if anybody has like any real usefulness.

The Illusion of Helpfulness

Paris: We've just now even [00:27:00] realized it's the illusion of helpfulness really is what it is.

Kevin: Yeah.

Paris: It seems like something that's crucial, vital.

You must know all the information about your baby's sleep.

Kevin: One of the things that we always have issues with over and over when it comes to baby products.

we have a lot of problems when products are just preying on parents, anxiety.

they make their whole business model based parenting anxiety. about things that may or may not be facts. and I think with a lot of these products too, are almost always very expensive. So there's this.

Paris: common trend with the subscriptions. Not even just a subscription tiers of subscriptions.

Kevin: they're expensive and there's this sunk cost fallacy. always like justifying the purchase to yourself. some of those same people end up recommending it. but then there's also a big number of people that get it and like, why did I waste my money?

So I think you always see The same pattern with [00:28:00] these products. sales are fueled by anxiety are overpriced and it's aggravating. It's just aggravating.

Paris: Yep.

I don't even know this stuff about my own sleep.

Kevin: That is becoming more of a thing. Just generally.

Paris: Yeah, Do you think that's the first step to knowing how to get better sleep is

Kevin: When it comes to this, it doesn't have a whole lot to do with sleep quality at the end of the day.

Paris: Yeah.

Definitely not where you start when it comes to sleep safety is your monitor.

Paris: Definitely not.

It really starts with just practicing basic sleep safety.

Kevin: If you're going into trying to get a high tech monitor for sleep safety purposes. I would highly encourage you to start with the basics of sleep safety. The things that you can do no matter what, just, laying them on their back, alone, not having anything else in the crib using a firmer mattress

Paris: surface.

Kevin: Go to just go [00:29:00] to aAP dot org slash sleep safety. We'll have a link. Below you can see for yourself with those safe sleep practices are because what I recommend when it comes to anything. that has to do with your baby's safety and I'm not talking about marketing, actual stuff.

Go directly and read it from the professionals. Do not pick, do not take it from a guy and Tik TOK. Do not get it from Reddit. Just go. It's available for you to read from these trusted, respected organizations. If not, the governmental resources.

Paris: It's for your baby's own safety.

Like just, it doesn't take very long, just read it.

Kevin: The recommendations are pretty extensive, sometimes people disagree, but whether or not you disagree, whether or not you're going to depart from those, at least you have read it and you know what those recommendations are.

Paris: The risks are. Yeah.

Future of Baby Monitoring Technology

Kevin: So the future, let's talk about the future baby monitoring, what might be coming next? Hopefully these [00:30:00] things are moving in a direction where they are actually providing real, tangible benefits in some way.

Paris: I know some of them are doing milestones which I found, which I find odd. I don't know. Do you find them odd? Yeah. Because how many babies are really making milestones in their crib. Ah, not too many. But I do love that some of them are doing if you take your monitor to other rooms or in the playroom or we're in the rest of the room, you can outline. Danger zones.

So you can get alerts when your baby touches goes past this area or in this vicinity, which I think is helpful. Actually, you don't have to be watching really closely for that specific thing. If that is if it's something that you can't a hundred percent baby proof or something like that obviously you want to take all the risks out of whatever room you can, but if it's something that you just can't. I can't for whatever reason I think that's a really great feature to have.

Kevin: [00:31:00] Yeah.

So robot babysitter.

Paris: Yeah. Yeah, just to like for certain areas, I think that's like a nice thing.

Kevin: Yeah. One of the places I see the technology improving, where it's helpful is just better audio, better visual, better night vision.

Paris: Or noise reduction? Nope.

Kevin: No noise reduction. Some of that when it comes to baby monitors, some of the simple things actually make the biggest improvements.

It's like the levels between volume, like continuous volume adjustment would be big, the temperature sensors working. Yeah. As well as they possibly can, even if it's using, what if it used AI to give you recommendations on how to regulate the temperature in the room? I guess part of it, that would be very helpful.

Paris: Having it dimmable. Like super dimmable,

the screen, would be great on some of these closed loop ones. Also having a clock on there. Yeah, amazing ours does not some of them do have that, but ours doesn't

Kevin: On the AI side, if you could integrate some of the best care practices [00:32:00] into the feedback you're getting from some of the sensors from the monitor that would be good, like recommending a T O G rating for a sleep sack based on the monitor sensor some things like that, they just might cut down a step on the parent's part.

Paris: I think roll alert would be nice too, especially for as a feature that you could turn on and off, before baby can roll back so let's say your babies on their back and they can't roll from their stomach to their back, but they can roll from their back to their stomach that happened for one of our babies.

So it would be nice to have an alert for that. Which I think that some of them do have that roll alert, Nanit, I believe does. Okay. Which is really cool. The breathing, I think that's nice too.

Kevin: It's going to be better as it gets more accurate.

Paris: Yes. Yeah.

Some of the smart monitors have the tracking where they can track your baby in the room. So it doesn't necessarily have to show the entire room, it just follows your baby.

Kevin: What about this? What about where [00:33:00] the tracking plus the AI becomes anticipatory? So it actually tells you what your baby's going to do before they do it.

Paris: Oh, that would be cool. It's too much, but I think it's interesting.

Kevin: Not only are you responding to your baby? You're anticipating your baby. Based on big datasets that have been put together about other babies and the signals that your baby might be giving it at any given time that it gets into some interesting territories.

Paris: What about instead of like humidity sensor, It had like a poop sensor where it could smell if your baby's pooped. So you could like,

Kevin: I'm sure there's other ways to sense that's probably not that hard.

Paris: It'd be nice. As far as I know, none of them have that. That'd be a nice feature.

Kevin: Yeah, some of these just don't come up.

The sound is great. In the marketing. And that might be why it doesn't ha they're not, being brought about, which I think is actually another interesting aspect of this whole thing is that a lot of these [00:34:00] features are very marketing driven. Especially, towards expecting parents first time, parents and they're not necessarily the most practical things that you need out of the monitor.

Paris: They advertise to the things that they think that you want, the things that they think that you care about, people who don't have babies yet. They're not born yet. Which is part of, that's part of the problem because those things don't necessarily line up with what actually you want. After the babies arrived.

Let's all make more of a hullabaloo about the things that you actually need.

Kevin: I don't blame parents for this, but when it comes to. Something that you're afraid of, Safety wise, I speak for myself. I would be more willing to spend money on that to make sure that wasn't a problem.

Paris: Huh.

Kevin: And, I think that's the case.

And sometimes that means, spending the money, whether or not actually any real concern or not. Or whether or not spending that money is going to change the change outcome.

Paris: Yeah. But you know what it is important though, to know that there [00:35:00] are some things that appear to be problems that aren't necessarily problems.

They're things that you just feel uncomfortable about that are just a phase it's like things like your baby is sticking their arm out of the crib. Or they're

Kevin: leg. Yeah.

Paris: You and I both freaked out about it and we'd go in there and fix them and then they'd wake up and. It's actually, it's

Kevin: worse to. It's

Paris: worse to fix it and they can probably pull their leg back out of there. And it's just a short amount of time that happens. Yeah, it seems a little freaky a little scary and it's new.

But it's not that big of a deal and I'm sure that there'll probably be some kind of if there's not already some kind of added thing that they're going to try and sell you to prevent your child from doing that.

Kevin: Yeah,

Paris: it's not like it's not one of the important things out there.

That's not something that's a big deal.

Kevin: That was for our babies. It's going to be different for [00:36:00] somebody else's baby in terms of what they can be concerned about with whatever they're doing in the crib, right?

Paris: Yeah.

Balancing Technology and Instincts

Kevin: And I think just being able to pay attention and understand like your own instincts versus a technology. Yeah, it is very important and we all, anyone who's working with newer technologies

knows it doesn't always work. Whether that's AI, whether that's hardware, there always seems to be, something goes wrong at some point. So I think, you definitely can't over rely on it. You still have to just, have that balance of utilizing the tech, but then trusting your own instincts and I think this is one case everything's fairly new. It may develop, it may get better if you're watching this a year from now, it may be a totally different story, but right now I think you're going to be basically in the same spot, just using a low-tech monitor. Yeah, I don't see. You're just that you're just going to get dramatic benefits from these high-tech monitors at this point, other than contributing your baby's data to future development possibly.

Travel-Friendly Monitor Options

Paris: One of the benefits that is marketed to people with the [00:37:00] smart monitors is the ability to take them places with you that they're easy to travel with you just take them off and you take them with you. You can do that with your other monitors. Yeah. I do recommend though, getting two getting a monitor with two cameras. That's super helpful. You could just leave one where it's at. Never have to touch it. Just leave it. And then the other one you could take with you wherever you want to and obviously then your monitor screen you take that to. It's so easy. It's super easy. Easy to do it like that. With the, with the high tech monitors some of them you are able to connect two monitors or two cameras to it. But it can be more expensive that way want to have the one, but then if you just have the one, then you don't really have the ability to, put it in two rooms later on when they're toddlers, you might want to also, have it looking at the same room, two different directions

if it doesn't [00:38:00] pan or just put it in a different room entirely. You wouldn't really have that ability. You could just, physically move it if you wanted, but it would just be in my opinion,'\

\

Paris: a better thing to just get the closed loop, get the two cameras and take them with you.

Guide to Non-Wifi Monitors

Kevin: So if you're not going to use a high-tech monitor, We put together a guide. your closed loop. I don't want to say low-tech cause they're out there. They can be fairly high tech. They're just not internet connected.

Paris: Yes. Yeah.

Kevin: You're non wifi connected monitors. We put together a guide for that.

Go ahead and get that. It has all the currently available features of the closed loop monitors not one monitor might have all of those things, but not need all those things. So it's just a guide to help, what's out there, what's available. So you can check off which and look for those specific features.