Caring for a feverish child is a consuming process. Parents not only must keep a close watch on the child’s temperature using thermometers even during stressful times like in the middle of the night, but they also have to keep track of the all the measurements to better inform doctors of the child’s health.
Butterfly aims to make this easier to do. It’s comprised of a dime-sized temperature sensor, a base station, and a mobile iOS/Android app. The water-resistant temperature sensor can be stuck onto a child’s body to constantly gather temperature readings. These readings are sent to the base station and displayed on its small LED screen, and reflected in the three colored lights Butterfly uses to quickly inform parents at a glance. (A blue light is normal, a yellow light means elevated temperatures, and a red light means a fever.)
All this data can be referenced on the Butterfly mobile app and over time, it’s all compiled into easy-to-read graphs. A Butterfly system can be had for $156 and is expected to ship September 2016 while its Kickstarter campaign is looking for about $112,000 by April 26th, 2016.
Besides the Butterfly’s use of glanceable information in the form of its lights, there’s nothing really here that separates this product from something like the IDo smart thermometer or the Fever Smart. It’s definitely a leg up on products like the FLO that although use Bluetooth to make taking a temperature easier, still needs someone to actually take that temperature, giving up the comfort of having constant readings available.