Category: Kids/Babies

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Connected Objects Kids/Babies

Miraffe connected playmate puts a digital portal in the hands of kids

For little ones, the world is full of mystery, prompting their torrent of questions from the moment they can start forming them. For parents, this is a wonderful moment. Knowing that they’re responsible for educating their children is a huge responsibility made easier with the internet. For the most part, it’s better if a child discovers everything on their own. The Miraffe is a clever compromise between the two.

Since a child can’t just log on to Google or Wikipedia and seek out the information they need, the Miraffe acts as an intermediary. It can recognize objects in the world and give children information on it along with simply being a toy with which to entertain with. It’s essentially a Wi-Fi enabled, 4″ HD screen with a quad-core 1.3GHz processors, 1GB of RAM, 8GB of storage, and a 5 MP camera.

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Kids/Babies Maker/Development Robots/Drones

Codeybot drives a programmable wedge right into your adoring heart

The past ten years or so have seen a huge push towards STEM subjects in the United States to shore up the youth for a future society dominated by computer programming and robotics. But no matter how important the programming skills are, children w care about the future implications of learning them unless it’s fun to learn first.

Enter the Codeybot, another crowdfunded little robot designed to engage children in the fundamentals of coding from the creators of the Makeblock. What’s immediately noticeable is how its LED panel and extremely appealing, wedge-shaped single-wheel design serve to grasp the usually fleeting attention spans of children. To maintain it, children program Codeybot with an iPad app using the mBlocky language. (Sorry Android users.)

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Connected Objects Kids/Babies Sensors/IoT

Butterfly Bluetooth thermometer lights up your life like a baby’s smile

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.)

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Kids/Babies

Cubetto programming skips electronics in a Montessori-inspired quest

Learning about programming concepts at a young age should simple, fun, and more like a game because, at those ages, children are able to soak up far more information compared to when they’re older.

This idea motivated the English-based Primo Toys to create Primo, a physical toy used to teach young children foundational concepts of coding. Now, three years later after a successful Kickstarter, Primo Toys is back again with an updated version of Primo: the Cubetto.

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Kids/Babies Maker/Development Robots/Drones

The Kamibot papercraft robot combines coloring and coding

Even among coders, it’s been said that the act of coding can be endlessly boring. Imagine trying to get a kid to pick it up — let alone stick with it! The key with anything worth learning is to make it fun, and that’s doubly true for little ones. The three-man team at 3.14 is trying to do just that with its Kamibot.

The Kamibot is a LED-equipped puck-like robot designed to take on a number of different papercraft costumes for a revolving door of new personalities. For adults, that’s a gimmick. For little ones, it’s like getting a brand new toy every time they print out another skin from the company’s website. Kamibot is based on an open-source Arduino technology, allowing kids to dip their toes into wirelessly coding their Dracula or robot-skinned, well, robot with the MIT-developed Scratch language — all while keeping them entertained in the process.

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Health and Wellness Kids/Babies Wearables

AllerGuarder wristband lets you guard against kids’ allergies

editors-choiceKids’ food allergies are a significant cause of concern for many parents –- especially when their children are away from home, be it at school, at a party, or elsewhere. AllerGuarder offers parents a solution to that dilemma.

patent-claimedAllerGuarder is a smart wristband that broadcasts kids’ allergies via a low-frequency Bluetooth transmitter that is built into the wearable device. The wristband constantly broadcasts a 50-foot radius alert and anybody within that zone who has downloaded the free Android or iOS app is automatically cautioned about a child’s allergies on their smartphones or tablets.

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Kids/Babies Nutrition/Hydration

Proacmom smart baby bottle delivers push-button heating

The problem with baby bottles is that it can be really hard to get the milk inside them to reach the perfect temperature for babies and to then stay at that perfect temperature for very long. That’s especially the case while traveling.

Proacmom is a smart, rechargeable baby bottle designed to solve that problem. It heats milk in the bottle with just the push of a button, then warms and promises to hold the milk temperature for hours. Proacmom features an LCD thermometer strip that gauges the milk’s temperature, enabling feeding to be done at an optimum temperature. Its double wall insulating layer reduces thermal loss and retains heat, so frequent reheating isn’t needed. Included are a detachable lithium-ion battery and control unit, and Proacmom can be charged using a Micro USB mobile charger, car charger or PC.

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Kids/Babies Smartwatches/Bands

Keep an eye on your tykes with the video calling dokiWatch

Parents are constant concerned about their children’s wellbeing. In this hyperconnected world, though, giving them a full-featured smartphone is often a bit of an overkill, especially since parents may want to avoid the excessive screen time younger ones are exposed to.

The dokiWatch introduces a happy medium. The kid-centric smartwatch is made out of colorful, soft, and flexible plastic that house a GPS tracker along with GSM and Wi-Fi technology to allow parents to accurately track their offspring’s every move. dokiWatch one-ups Apple with the ability for children to video call, voice and text message their guardians or any other friends that might have shared a contact with.

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Kids/Babies Technology

This mechanical canine is a CHiP off Aibo’s shoulder

As devoted owners of the  Sony Aibo face the mortality of their precocious robo-pups, the rest of the world realizes how close a mechanical companion and their human caretakers can really be. Aibo isn’t the only case of digital attachment: everything from the Tamagotchi to, a certain extent, the AI we interact with every day in the form of Siri and other virtual assistants all kindle this unlikely connection.

WowWee, an established company that specializes in creating intelligent robots, is looking to assuage fears of post-Aibo loneliness with its CHiP robot dog. Instantly, the charming four-wheeled, dual stereo-ed computerized canine barks, whimpers, and growls its way to the heart by showing affection to whoever is sporting the included smart band. With it, the user can have CHiP follow him/her around, control it directly or issue it a ‘sic ’em’ command. Crucially, the band contains a like button to reinforce behaviors and change its personality over time.

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Kids/Babies Virtual Reality

With NEODiVRjr, little ones can experience VR without the bulky gear

In the consumer segment, virtual reality is all the rage. As such, it’s easy to forget its applications elsewhere, such as therapy. Inspired by his trips to children’s hospitals and the benefits staff there reported when using VR experiences with sick and hard to work with children, inventor Mike Blazer thought it was important to try and help in his own way. The NEODiVRjr was born as a result.

The lightweight virtual reality is specifically designed for kids, featuring a kid-friendly bridge space between the lens, a compact frame, and a detachable handle for casual use. The Extreme version supports head mounted use, flip open lens, Bluetooth game buttons, and the use of eAVR which translates real-world movement to the virtual experience. Both versions utilize the 6th generation of the iPod Touch, a device the creator feels is kid-friendly yet powerful enough to run the types of apps necessary.

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