PROBLEM
Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) is the sudden, unexpected death of an infant under 1 year of age that remains unexplained after a complete investigation.
In the United States, SIDS is the major cause of death in infants between 1 month and 1 year of age. SIDS is sudden and silent, occurring most often during sleep, with no signs of suffering. Annually, approximately 2,500 infants die of SIDS in the U.S., and as the third leading cause of infant mortality.
Secondary
research
Though the precise cause(s) of SIDS is unknown, eliminating controllable risk factors is a recommended practice
Risk factors
in baby's
sleeping
environment
Baby's
sleeping
posture
Use of a non-safety approved mattress or crib
Use of a drop side crib
Use of wedges, positioners, or bumper pads in cribs
Use of an overly soft mattress (should not conform to the shape of baby’s head or body)
Presence of soft or loose bedding (e.g., quilts, heavy blankets and bumper pads)
Use of a non-fitted sheet
Presence of other soft or extraneous items (e.g., pillows, stuffed toys)
Presence of other adults, children or animals in the same sleeping surface as the infant (including in beds or couches)
Presence of excessively high temperature (above 72°C)
Studies have found that the side sleep position is unstable and increases the chance that infants will roll onto their stomachs—the sleep position associated with the highest SIDS risk.
In 2005, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommended that healthy babies should be placed on their backs to sleep as the main way to reduce SIDS risk.
USER RESEARCH
Expert
Interview
1
1/ Sleeping on the tummy elevates risk.
2/ Sleeping on the sides is also risky.
3/ Sleeping on the back is the safest.
4/ Pillows, quilt and cushions are the major causes of death according to
the pictures of recovered baby sleeping scenes sent back from the
family whose infants died of SIDS.
5/ This project has a strong meaning for research and will help collect
data to understand the causes of SIDS
Parents
Interview
2
1/ Having a baby at home is a nightmare, especially for those having a busy working schedule
2/ "I always hear my baby crying and suddenly wake up in the middle of the night to check
if my baby is safe"
3/ I want a product to tell me whether my baby is safe or not, but I don't want to expose my
baby's images or video to these baby monitor companies.
4/ I would like to save the images locally.
5/ I want a baby monitor that can give me an accurate enough alerts.
6/ I don't want to put the monitor on or in the crib.
7/ I don't want the baby monitor to replace my supervision.
8/ I want the baby monitor to remind me to play with my kids for sometime.
9/ I have a baby monitor at home, but the app looks silly and not professional at all.
Competitive
Analysis
3
PROS
CONS
1/Voice communication
2/ Fix the monitor on the crib
3/ Fisheye camera - better view.
4/ Baby album
1/No full view of the crib.
2/ Most babies will want to pull, tug and put their mouth on the gadget
1/non-contact sleep and respiration tracking
2/ Fit into the context of the child’s environment
1/It's bad at determining baby is sleeping/awake/not in crib
2/ Don't work well in low light situations
1/Crying detection
2/ A tree limb that you mount to your wall and then you wrap the Lollipop camera arm around it.
1/Terrible connections.
2/ Some detections not work.
3/ Horrible App.
1/Real-time breathing data
2/See the movement of your baby with vision mode
3/Instant alerts - baby is crying or beginning to wake.
1/Bad detection accuracy
2/ The video is too large to upload
3/ The app is so buggy.
INSIGHT
1/Fisheye camera
2/ Do not fix the monitor on the crib, but hang it on the wall.
3/ Take photos of your infants.
1/Using machine learning model to have higher detection accuracy.
2/ Fit into the context of the child’s environment
1/Cute appearance and smart mounting strategies
2/ A user-friendly app without making too much sounds
1/Good mounting system.
2/ Compressed the video.
3/ Give instant alerts or messages.
4/ Track the movement of the kids.
Collative
Finding
4
User's Expectation
0/ Detect if there are risk factors in baby's sleeping environment.
Raise parents 'awareness of the importance of infant's sleeping environment.Measure temperature and air quality(if someone is
smoking) with sensors.
1/ Save images and video locally or at least protect the privacy.
2/ Instead of an app, we build a web app with dashboard to show
more information.
3/ Cute and child-friendly shape.
4/ Do not mount the monitor on the crib.
5/ Give instant alerts but do not send messages all the time.
6/ Parents can customize when they receive alerts.
7/ Infrared vision.
8/ "I want the baby monitor to be easy to use and simple but
reliable."
9/ "I want my baby monitor's camera to be less visible or I feel my
baby is being 'watched' by a robot.
Microsoft's Expectation
1/ They have already done some work on baby's sleeping posture. We will first detect risk factors, then detect baby's sleeping posture.
2/ Make everything open-source, to benefit more people
3/ Have a accuracy of above 95%
Ideation
Design Objectives
First Step
1/ Infrared Camera -- train image with night vision.
2/ User-friendly dashboard.
3/ Battery powered -- without cables
4/ Kid-friendly enclosure / give physical feedback.
5/ Train the model with toy babies
6/ Parents train their individual model on their edge device with the images of their babies.
7/ Machine learning model to detect objects.
Second Step
1/ Iterate and improve the enclosure and dashboard based on usability test and evaluation.
2/ Train the model with real babies' sleeping postures
Brainstorming
Attractive
Animals
Toy
Child-friend enclosure
Round corners
Educational
Hide the camera
Compact
Candies
Cartoon
Blinking LED
Camera
Toy camera
Track history
User-friendly Dashboard
Color
DIY - Change-able enclosure
Open-source
Customized level of risks
data visualization
Mood Board
Sketch
PRototype
Iterations
Final Prototype
In order to reduce cost and get rid of digital screens, we add LED indicators and cute round circle on the top of enclosure to indicate risk
The infrared light source is too bright at night, so we cut a round translucent acrylic to cover it during the night.
Battery powered -- to make it wireless only need to charged during the day.
Problem:
1/ We can't hold it on the wall because the raspberry pi is too heavy and it is not safe enough for the kids.
Front-End Design
I did the front end developing using flask to connect data sent from clouds and sensor with the dashboard.
We upload images instead of video with a 0.5s frame rate. We show more graphs and user can turn off all the alerts they don't want.
Problem:
At that time, we don't have enough time to do UI design.
USer evAluation
Likes
"I love the design and the cute shape!!"
"Actually I love the tripod, I can put it on anything!"
"I love the magnet chargers, it is convenient and make me feel safe for me kids"
"It sends my instant alert messages to my phone when high risk factors detected in the crib"
Problem
For UI interface
1/ "There is too much information in the dashboard, I don't really need to know every graphs and every reading."
2/ "The dashboard is beautiful, but it looks kind of unprofessional, not looks like a standard baby monitor app"
3/"I want to know more about what should I do instead of just telling
me there are risk factors existing in the crib"
4/"I have twin babies, can I have only one camera?"
5/"I don't want my wife to be seen in the camera, especially when she is breast-feeding my baby, I want to stop the video at the time."
For prototype
1/ "The indicators LEDs are too bright in the night for kids. Even they are coved with translucent acrylics."
2/ "It's better to make it rotatable or I have to change the angles and direction of the tripod manually"
3/ "It's kind of heavy as a baby monitor. I am afraid to mount it on the wall."
UI Design
In order to provide more user-friendly dashboard. I translated users' insight into design features.
1/ "There is too much information in the dashboard, I don't really need to know every graphs and every reading."
-Separate real-time information and history reading
-Give scores on each day's safety level and users
can understand the data in a more intuitive way.
2/ "The dashboard is beautiful, but it looks kind of unprofessional, not looks like a standard baby monitor app"
3/"I want to know more about what should I do instead of just telling me there are risk factors existing in the crib"
4/"I have twin babies, can I have only one camera?"
5/"I don't want my wife to be seen in the camera, especially when she is breast-feeding my baby, I want to stop the video at the time."
- Change the color.
- Show information in a more organized way.
- Give tips and recommend people to read more articles and buy some certain products.
- Show weekly progress (in associate with scores)
-Add two or more devices.
-Add two or more users
-Customization options to stop videos, audio, alerts
-Customization options for sensitivity, camera access
"Protect privacy."
"Open-source"
-Users upload the images of their babies and their
sleeping environment into the cloud to train on their own machine learning model
-Less information and in a neat block layout.
-Audio, video, led alert, text alert options.
-Only show average readings
-Show overall scores -- Haven't been tested yet- I think it will help users know better how safe their babies sleeping environment
-Tips on how to improve
-Have some business possibility?
-Add one or more devices.
-Upload your images into the cloud. read the instructions.
-Customize privacy issue and risk level.