Baby care is full of repeated tasks: carrying, pushing, soothing, preparing a bottle, tracking how much was consumed, checking a diaper, changing it, and watching a sleeping infant. Patent drawings show inventors trying to hand each of those jobs to a different kind of machine.
Automation slips into one task at a time. A wearable robot carries weight toward the floor, a bed reacts to crying, a diaper classifies waste, and a changing machine combines washing and drying.
Happiest Baby's SNOO offers similar functions, but a one-to-one implementation of this patent has not been verified.
A walking robot carries some of the baby's weight down to the floor
What is it?
Samsung Electronics combines a baby seat with a lower-body walking-assistance robot. Rather than placing the full load on the wearer's shoulders or waist, the seat sits on the robot and the load can be carried through its waist, leg, and foot structures toward the floor.
The patent also describes sensing the load on the seat and adjusting assistance according to the detected weight.
- ASSIGNEE
- Samsung Electronics Co Ltd
- PRIORITY
- 2013-10-02
- PUBLISHED
- 2015-04-02
- PUBLICATION
- US20150090756A1
- INVENTORS
- Jong Won Lee / Yong Jae Kim / Jeong Hun Kim / Se Gon Roh / Min Hyung Lee / Youn Baek Lee / Byung June Choi / Hyun Do Choi
When the adult lets go, the stroller brakes itself
What is it?
A flexible touch sensor checks whether a person is holding the armrest. If the person lets go and the acceleration sensor still detects movement, the processor can command automatic brake units at the wheels.
The stroller recognizes when the person pushing it lets go and stops, rather than driving itself.
- ASSIGNEE
- Cloud Network Technology Singapore Pte Ltd / Hon Hai Precision Industry Co Ltd
- PRIORITY
- 2013-09-12
- PUBLISHED
- 2015-03-12
- PUBLICATION
- US20150069727A1
- INVENTORS
- Hou-Hsien Lee / Chang-Jung Lee / Chih-Ping Lo
The sleeper hears fussing and changes its own motion and sound
What is it?
Happiest Baby's patent describes a moving infant platform with sound and motion sensing connected to a control circuit. The sensed response can change the device's motion and generated sound.
The company's SNOO Smart Sleeper likewise advertises automatic responses to fussing with changing motion and white noise. Harvey Karp is associated with both, but we have not verified this publication as a one-to-one patent implementation in SNOO, so it is listed only as related.
- ASSIGNEE
- Happiest Baby Inc
- PRIORITY
- 2011-10-20
- PUBLISHED
- 2014-09-11
- PUBLICATION
- US20140250592A1
- INVENTORS
- Harvey Neil Karp / Matthew R. Berlin / Jesse V. Gray / Bill Walter Washabaugh / Deb Kumar Roy
Formula powder and heated water become two stations on a tiny bottle production line
What is it?
The machine separates the powdered-formula path from the heated-water path. A bottle is held in a pivoting transfer arm, receives measured powder, and then moves to the water-dispensing position.
Instead of putting every ingredient through one nozzle, the bottle itself travels between two preparation steps.
- ASSIGNEE
- Acorn Product Development Inc
- PRIORITY
- 2002-12-19
- PUBLISHED
- 2004-12-07
- PUBLICATION
- US6829431B1
- INVENTORS
- Ken Haven / Jay Wilson / Dan Blaugrund / Vera S. Boudtchenko / Brandon Lee / Chang W. Lee
A sensor under the bottle measures what remains and records how much was consumed
What is it?
The detachable sensor measures fluid level in the bottle. The patent also describes using changes in that measurement to log feeding and logic that can infer whether formula or another fluid is being used.
Instead of manually entering every feeding amount, the bottle becomes the measuring instrument.
- ASSIGNEE
- Individual
- PRIORITY
- 2018-03-27
- PUBLISHED
- 2019-10-03
- PUBLICATION
- US20190298615A1
- INVENTORS
- Zak Wood
The diaper electrically distinguishes urine from feces and sends a notification
What is it?
Verily's patent places conductive elements in the absorbent region of a diaper and measures conductivity or impedance. A control circuit can use the measurement to distinguish urine from feces and transmit a signal to a remote device.
The design goes beyond a generic wetness indicator by trying to classify what happened before the caregiver checks.
- ASSIGNEE
- Verily Life Sciences LLC
- PRIORITY
- 2016-10-13
- PUBLISHED
- 2018-04-19
- PUBLICATION
- US20180104114A1
- INVENTORS
- Brian Pepin / Huanfen Yao
One chamber removes the dirty diaper, washes, dries, and applies a fresh one
What is it?
The apparatus includes a seat, leg holder, safety belt, diaper-removing arm, sprinkler, and dryer. Some implementations describe carrying out the sequence automatically after the infant is placed inside.
The machine combines diaper changing with the cleaning and drying steps that surround it.
- ASSIGNEE
- Individual
- PRIORITY
- 2016-01-13
- PUBLISHED
- 2017-05-25
- PUBLICATION
- US20170143168A1
- INVENTORS
- Iman Farahbakhsh
A camera over the crib reads breathing from the movement of a patterned swaddle
What is it?
Udisense's patent pairs a high-contrast pattern on a snug garment with a camera head near the crib. The processor analyzes movement of that pattern in the video to detect respiratory motion of the thorax.
Rather than attaching another sensor directly to the body, the clothing becomes a visual measurement target for a remote camera.
- ASSIGNEE
- Udisense Inc
- PRIORITY
- 2017-11-22
- PUBLISHED
- 2020-12-29
- PUBLICATION
- US10874332B2
- INVENTORS
- Assaf Glazer / Hadas Kaminsky-Glazer / Shaked Dovrat / Amnon Kami / Tor Ivry / Amir Katz / Mark Prommel / Oscar Frias / Marco Perry / Natalie Louise Barnett / Yanai Victor Ankri / Yena Seo Lukac
The dropped pacifier makes its own sound and light so the parent can find it
What is it?
A microcontroller with an onboard shock sensor sits inside the pacifier along with a speaker, LED, and battery. When a drop is detected, the device can produce sound and light for a period so a caregiver can locate it.
The patent also describes variants that react to a parent's voice, a baby's cry, or clapping.
- ASSIGNEE
- Individual
- PRIORITY
- 2019-05-17
- PUBLISHED
- 2020-12-31
- PUBLICATION
- US20200405582A1
- INVENTORS
- Inga Londeree
AFTER THE FIGURES
Baby-care automation looks less like replacing a parent and more like extracting repetitive micro-tasks
Across these nine patents, each machine takes on a particular task. It supports weight, detects an unattended moving stroller, responds to fussing, meters ingredients, logs bottle volume, classifies diaper contents, or watches motion during sleep.
That is why the hardware takes so many forms: an exoskeleton, stroller, bassinet, formula machine, bottle base, diaper, changing chamber, camera, and pacifier. Once sensing and control are added, objects from very different product categories address the same task of automating baby care.
In the future drawn by these patents, small decisions and motions, especially those repeated at night or on the go, are delegated to machines one by one.
SOURCES
Primary sources
- US20150090756A1 — Baby carrier
- US20150069727A1 — Smart stroller
- US20140250592A1 — Infant calming/sleep-aid device and method of use
- US6829431B1 — Device to automatically prepare infant formula
- US20190298615A1 — Baby bottle sensor with content volume sensing and content deduction logic
- US20180104114A1 — Smart diaper for detecting and differentiating feces and urine
- US20170143168A1 — Infant washer and diaper-changer apparatus and method
- US10874332B2 — Respiration monitor
- US20200405582A1 — Pacifier with Onboard Drop Sensor and Notifications