Caring for a baby is made all the more difficult by one simple fact: the child can’t talk to you. An infant can’t tell you when it’s hungry, tired, or ill, it just communicates with the means available to it, by crying, smiling, or murmuring something incoherent. This communication gap is exactly what the Exmobaby smart garment is designed to close. The clothing collects data from your baby, sends it to your computer, and ultimately “provide a record of the child’s physical states”.
The Emobaby garment, seen above, appears to be a normal baby suit (jumper? onesy?) but it’s much more complex than those worn by the rest of the kids at day care. This one is outfitted with non-contact ECG and can measure movement, skin temperature, and moisture, and then send the collected data off, with a range of up to 100 feet. Aside from the three sensors and some elastic keeping them close to the child, the garment is completely normal: it’s washable, hypoallergenic, cotton, and comes in pink or blue.
While the idea sounds interesting enough, and baby monitoring is nothing new, Exmobaby’s web site was enough to have me questioning the entire undertaking.* First of all, their tag line alternates between “[emobaby] knows how your baby feels” and “We know how your baby feels”, both of which are entirely dystopian and, let’s face it, creepy. Next, look at the art they use to display the sensor placement [on the right]. While it is informative, it looks like an advertisement for the next version of The Matrix’s pods. (Wondering how many watts your babies produce?) Next, check out their FAQ. The language is cold and clinical, not at all what you’d expect from this sort of product, though it does talk about how its data transmission produces minimal radiation, which is nice.
The Exmobaby kit fits babies up to 12 months old and costs $1000 for the base model. That price will get you the garment, 6 months of online service, the PC and smartphone software, and a Zigbee transceiver. If you want the Deluxe model, which includes one of each of the four garment sizes, it’ll be $2500. Right now the Emobaby seems to be aimed at businesses, hospitals, and healthcare buyers, but adventurous parents are free to purchase them too.
Exmobaby is produced by Exmovere, a company that specializes in biomedical engineering. Their most well-known product is the Chariot, which is sort of an upright wheelchair, based on the Segway.
Exmobaby via Kevin Kelly
[*Brief side note: At first I was pretty convinced this was a hoax but I've look into it and called them up, and it doesn't seem to be.]
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