If there’s one thing I learned at CES this year it’s that there’s no such thing as being “too young” to be connected, and you don’t have to walk very far on the show floor here in Las Vegas before you find all kinds of gadgets aimed at the youngest members of your household.
Smart Clip
The first piece of baby tech that caught my eye was Intel’s new Smart Clip that tags along on your baby’s car seat and keeps close watch to make sure — heaven forbid — the little one isn’t left behind. The clip connects with your phone and blows up your alerts as soon as it detects a baby in the seat when the car isn’t in motion. It’s a simple, smart little device that could go a long way to prevent the 40 deaths that occur every year from babies being accidentally left in vehicles. It goes on sale in late 2015.
Grush
If I had a nickel for every time I tried to think of a way to turn the chore of brushing teeth into a game I’d have enough to buy one of these Vegas casinos here at CES. Grush is the answer I’ve dreamed of, and it uses a gadget that kids these days seem powerless to resist: a smartphone.
The key to the Grush magic is the Bluetooth-equipped toothbrush that acts like a video game controller for your kids. It connects to your smartphone (or tablet, if that’s your style) and as your kids brush away the day’s grime, their motions are being used in-game to do a bunch of cool things like conduct an orchestra and crushing monsters.
A parental dashboard it built right into the app and keeps tabs on whether the day’s brushing chores have been completed, in case you need to use it as some extra allowance leverage. Grush is coming in the first quarter of 2015, and it’s priced at $59.
Glgl
Leave it to the company that surprised us with the “smart fork” back at CES 2013 to return this year with a baby bottle that keeps your little ones from chugging painful air bubbles along with their liquid meals. It’s called the Baby Glgl and it’s the world’s first smart baby bottle.
They key to the entire system is the base unit — which, by the way, holds any type of baby bottle you happen to prefer. Inside this innocent little plastic housing is a motion sensor that can detect exactly what angle the bottle is being held at, and then teaches you exactly what angle is ideal for the youngster on the other end.
Simple little arrows tell you whether the bottle needs to be moved up or down, and signals when it’s at the perfect pitch so that your baby gets their dinner without gulping air along the way.
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mamaRoo
Take the 4moms mamaRoo baby seat for example — this thing is more high tech than anything I’ve ever sat in, and it’s made for infants!
This super smart little seat is the ultimate in auto-rocking your little one to sleep, and it comes with five different pre-programmed motions that simulate everything from a soothing rock-a-bye to a gentle ride in the car, and if you’ve ever hauled a baby in your backseat you know exactly how quickly that can send them off to dreamland.
You can even control the mamaRoo via your smartphone thanks to built-in Bluetooth connectivity, so feel free to start a gentle swing motion from a neighboring room if you hear your little one starting to squirm — and if you need a secret weapon you can use the built-in speakers to play some calming sounds to seal the deal. The 4moms mamaRoo seat is available right now for $269.99.
