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An innovative baby monitor by tech-savvy women is making parents' lives easier

An innovative baby monitor by tech-savvy women is making parents' lives easier

Wednesday February 15, 2017 , 3 min Read

It was two years ago that Aardra Kannan Ambili, Sanchi Poovaya, and Ranjana Nair had walked into the house of a friend who had recently had a premature baby. They were shocked to see the tiny baby covered with quite a number of electronic devices. The anxious parents were also putting their hands on the baby's chest to track her breathing at regular intervals. Respiratory trackers made for infants are usually battery-powered sensors that need to be hooked on to the baby's body, making this a major concern among parents. This gave these three engineering graduates an idea to build a non-contact respiration and sleep software, and therefore, 'Raybaby' was born.

Image Source: The Ladies Finger

Raybaby, which looks like any ordinary baby monitor, was invented by RIoT (Ray IoT) Solutions, a startup founded in 2015. This company was founded by these three woman engineers and scientists and before anything else, friends. Ranjana, while talking to The News Minute, describes her 'perfect team',

We were the perfect team to create a smart baby monitor, not because one of us has a Masters in Mechanical Engineering from Cornell or another has published research papers on artificial intelligence in University of Georgia. We were the perfect team because we were the highly qualified babysitters for our friends and family for the past 10 years of our lives.

Raybaby is a major breakthrough and these three intended it to be one. They understood the tough competition in the market and knew that they needed to do something which had not been done before or no one was doing currently. It seems like any ordinary baby monitor but ensures there is no direct skin contact or interfering wires. This helps with maintaining the baby's hygiene and comfort. Raybaby uses ultrawideband radar technology, a technology much like ultrasounds. The monitor detects a movement as tiny as a millimetre if it is within a range of 5m, even if the baby is covered by a blanket.

Paired with an app, Raybaby offers stats on child's respiratory rate and also on different sleep states. It also alerts the parents of any slight change which might indicate fever or any illness. Weekly graphs are also created which could help the paediatrician during the regular check-ups.

This company is also the first in India to have an investment from a hardware startup investor, HAX, of Rs. 1.07 crore and to receive support from the multinational Johnson and Johnson. As a part of a HAX programme, they moved to Shenzhen, China in September 2016. Their products will hit the market in the latter part of this year. The product's market price is going to be $250 and has been priced at $129 as part of a launch campaign. Talking about their business approach, Ranjana tells The News Minute,

We wanted to collect pre-orders for our Raybaby and get market validation, test our messaging. India is not exactly an early adopter community. They buy tried-and-tested brands. So, we moved to San Francisco to do our crowdfunding campaign and talk with buyers like Target and Best Buy to get Raybaby into retail stores. We are figuring out the Silicon Valley scene now.

This product is a blessing for all the anxious parents who constantly worry about their baby, giving them some peace.

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