Baby monitor
Devices and systems for monitoring the presence and general well-being of children and infants when out of plain view are known as “baby monitors”. It is well known that infants, because of their small size and light weight, are particularly subject to injury in auto accidents. Infants as passengers are safest when restrained in an infant carrier or infant car seat; the safest position for such an infant carrier is strapped into the rear seat, with the carrier facing backwards. After the birth of their child, parents often need a room monitor. These devices allow parents to monitor the activities of their child from a remote location, usually from another room within the same home or from an area just outside of the home. Many parents wish to monitor their infant child’s condition when they are separated from the child, for example, by being in another room, and they cannot see or readily hear the child. Infant monitors are increasingly used by parents to monitor an infant while the parent goes to a different location away from the infant, such as a different room while the infant is sleeping.
Baby monitoring can involve more than just determining if a baby is crying. The sounds or absence of sounds can indicate a number of different activities or conditions related to the baby. The particular sounds or lack of particular sounds can indicate if the baby is awake or asleep, breathing or not breathing, coughing, strangling, falling or climbing out of the crib. Information about the baby’s position and movements is very useful. For example, rapid movements may indicate restlessness; frequent shifting and turning may indicate a rash, fever, dirty diaper, etc.; an upright position may indicate that the child is awake and is attempting to climb out of its crib; prolonged sleeping in the prone position may lead to an increased risk of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). Use of a baby monitor permits a baby’s caregivers some level of additional freedom. Instead of periodically checking on a baby throughout the night, parents will be immediately awakened if the baby is crying to indicate a need to be fed, changed, or otherwise comforted.
The monitors, also called baby monitors, infant monitors, or child monitors, usually have a transmitter and a receiver. The monitors transmit signals representing the activities within the monitored room to a receiver located in another room. Baby monitors may comprise either video cameras and/or audio microphones that are placed in close proximity with the child which transmits a signal to a remote video monitor and/or amplifier/speaker to thus enable the supervising adult to remotely monitor the child/infant. A typical infant monitor includes a transmitter or infant unit and a receiver or parent unit wherein the infant unit transmits sounds made by the infant to the parent unit. The parent unit then reproduces the sounds made remotely by the infant and transmitted to the parent unit from the infant unit. The transmitter and a receiver of a baby motor can be powered by a battery or an A/C current source (usually with an inline transformer). The transmitter contains a microphone or other sound detecting device and is placed in a location near a baby. The receiver contains a speaker and placed in a location near a parent. A sound detected by the transmitter is transmitted to the receiver for output to the parent to hear and respond to accordingly.
Usually the monitors transmit activities of an audible nature such as a child’s crying, breathing, or any other activities that generate audible signals. The typical baby monitor includes a transmitter or baby unit and a receiver or parent unit wherein the baby unit transmits sounds from the baby to the parent unit and, in some monitoring systems, the parent unit may also transmit the parent’s voice to the baby unit. Based on what sounds are heard or not heard, a caregiver can make a decision concerning whether to respond or not. One type of monitors includes a plurality of light emitting diodes (LEDs), which light in series to indicate the level of the sound received by the receiver. This acts as a visual alert for the parent in that as the sound level increases the number of LEDs that light also increases. As an added alert the color of the subsequently lit or higher sound-level LEDs is a different color from the lower sound-level LEDs (usually red and green, respectively). This visual alert is useful in an environment where there are other noises that may cause the receiver output to go unheard by the parent.
Although radio frequency infant listening devices are available, they only provide a one-way audio link between the child and the parent. They cannot provide information about the child’s status, such as its sleeping position, whether it is asleep or awake, or its movements when awake. Parents frequently wish to monitor their child’s activity while not within an audible range of the child. Baby monitors have been used to provide such a function. Baby monitors have been developed that allow two-way communication so that a parent may talk to the infant being monitored to reassure or soothe the infant. These two-way baby monitoring devices and entertainment devices typically exist as separate units in a child’s room. For example, the baby unit of the monitor is typically located in the child’s room in some area near the crib, while the entertainment device is typically a separate unit that is attached to the crib. Entertainment devices, such as mobiles, have also been configured to provide a one-way monitoring function as well as to provide remotely operated entertainment features.