As someone who spent most of last night rocking a teething infant, I can tell you: parenting is hard. It will always be hard, but maybe technology and design can make it a little easier. That’s the goal of BleepBleeps. They’re a line of connected devices built to make parenting go a bit more smoothly.
BleepBleeps are the brainchild of designer Tom Evans, who wants to help parents keep their sanity with the help of his robot friends. (Robot roll call!)
I spoke with Evans a few weeks ago ahead of the launch of the Kickstarter campaign. Our conversation played out very similarly to his campaign video so it’s probably easiest for us all if I just embed that.
Parents clamber for things to make raising children easier, so it’s not surprising the first of the series of BleepBleeps “Sammy Screamer” has very nearly hit its Kickstarter goal of $20,000 in the first day of the campaign. I’ve been watching the counter on the page slowly tick up while I write this post. 100 backers snapped up the early bird price offering of Sammy Screamer at $55. There are still about 150 left at the price of $60.
While there are other motion alarms out there, Sammy Screamer does seem to be a useful new take on the idea. It’s versatile in where you can put it and what it can protect, and the smartphone integration is a brilliant touch.
One major difference in my conversation with Evans and the campaign video is that when we spoke, the intended launch product was going to be the thermometer Tony Tempa. Evans said there was some pushback from consumers about the idea of using any kind of DIY medical device on one’s own child. (For what it’s worth, I posed this question to Geekosystem readers on our Facebook page and you brilliant and daring bunch mostly seemed to support the idea of building something and using it on your kids.)
Sammy Screamer and the rest of the BleepBleeps line won’t be DIY projects when they launch, but when I spoke with Evans they were still in an open design phase where interested persons could download specs and a 3D-printable model of the housing for Tony Tempa.
While most of the BleepBleeps are fairly simple, Ultra Stan the an ultrasound scanner, Master Bates the sperm count analyzer, and ovulation tester Olivia P Sticks all seem like fairly innovative ideas for home prenatal and pre-prenatal medicine. There’s no word on price for these models, but I doubt they’ll be cheap.
If you’re a tech and design-savvy parent, then BleepBleeps might be just the thing you’re looking for to help you solve some of your parenting woes.
(via Kickstarter, image via BleepBleeps)
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