Safety-led innovation There is no doubt that the impact of COVID-19 on live events and the revaluation of parental ‘wants’ during a lockdown world has led directly to innovation from brands and manufacturers. With direct-to-consumer and e-commerce channels flourishing, the focus has been delivering high tech, useable, easily controllable safety-led products that give parents peace of mind. Examples include Lumi by Pampers, which was developed with Verily, Google’s life sciences sister company. Lumi is a smart nappy that tells parents when their baby needs changing, and comes with a system that includes a WiFi - connected night vision video camera that also monitors room temperature and humidity.

Then there’s the Owlet Smart Sock Baby Monitor, which lets parents track their baby’s heart rate and blood oxygen level; the Cubo Ai Smart Baby Monitor, which uses Ai face detection technology to alert you if it recognises that your baby’s mouth and nose are covered; and the Nanit Plus, a HD monitor that tracks sleep and breathing motion. Also notable are the Snoo Smart Sleeper, a responsive baby cot, and Graco’s Sense2Snooze Bassinet (available in the US), which uses Cry Detection Technology to detect and automatically respond to baby’s cries to help soothe them back to sleep. It’s clear that the long-term focus is on having an integrated group of devices that all speak to each other, and that can communicate with parents’ existing home tech systems – offering greater flexibility and efficiency.

Just the beginning While exciting, this trend is not

all plain sailing. Despite the ultimate intention of these products being to help parents relax, the question still remains whether being constantly connected (even via apps) could have the opposite effect and actually drive anxiety. Only further research will help to conclusively answer this. Then there’s the data, which we know a thing or two about. These devices collect significant data related to families and newborns, and so how that data is processed and protected over the coming years will be an ongoing point of scrutiny. Data laws are currently far more relaxed in the US than in the EU where we have GDPR and PECR to consider, the US is still in the early stages of changes to their data protection laws and the next few years will be pivotal for personal privacy. What’s less uncertain is that the connected digital device and tracking trend is here to stay. Babytech is set to play a vital

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There is no doubt that the impact of COVID-19 on live events and the revaluation of parental ‘wants’ during a lockdown world has led directly to innovation from brands and manufacturers.

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has always been dictated by ever-evolving consumer demands. Modern families are ready and asking for this technology and when that happens, we have a platform for serious growth.

role in new family dynamics over the coming years and as more medium-sized brands from the nursery sector look at developing products, it will not be long before the rest of our industry joins them. FanFinders is the number one supplier of 1st party opt-in data in the UK baby market.

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