Being a first time parent is utterly anxiety-laden. Why is the baby crying? (Answer: she’s tired). Why is she so quiet? (Answer: she’s sleeping). Am I ever going to have time to shower again? (Answer: dry shampoo is your friend).
In our collective years as parents, we’ve seen a lot of gear meant to help parents cope, but we’ve never seen anything quite like the Raybaby monitor.
Raybaby is a baby monitor that tracks your child’s sleep and breathing without coming into contact with her at all. This isn’t one of those under-bedsheet breathing monitor pads that raises the ear-splitting alarm every time your baby rolls off the pad. The Raybaby sits away from your child like a video monitor, and uses ultrasound to track how your baby is breathing and sleeping. It can even tell when she’s running a temperature.
It’s incredibly precise, tracking with 98 per cent accuracy.
The Raybaby talks to an app on your phone collecting two types of data: respiration and sleep information. It sends alerts when breathing patterns change and can even observe tiny changes that indicate a baby has bronchitis or asthma.
The sleep tracker can record how long your baby has slept and answers the greatest question of the parenting universe: how much your baby needs to sleep. It can also tell you when your baby is awake, when she rolls over, and like some kind of magical nurse, it even helps with sleep training.
On top of all the handy data gathering skills, the Raybaby is good with the sentimental stuff too. From footage gathered while monitoring your baby, it builds a picture and video collage so you can show all you friends and family how amazing your child is, even when she’s sleeping.
Raybaby’s design is slick and contemporary. The body of the device is white with red, yellow or blue, and the base is natural wood, so it looks like a little on-trend robot sitting in your nursery.
You can snap up Raybaby on pre-order (the first batch sold out!), for delivery in November 2017. Usually priced at US$249, it’s on special for US$199, with shipping to Australia available.
