Idea: Baby-on-board alarm · Sat Jul 28, 02:17 AM
It’s a terrible, sad fact: all over the country, babies die from being left in the car. It’s terrible not only because the baby dies in a fairly gruesome fashion (usually it’s heat, not cold, that does the job, though there are cases of death by hypothermia as well), but because it absolutely ruins the lives of the family that’s left as well. The person who was responsible bears a crushing load of guilt, and their spouse must, I think, blame them, regardless of circumstances.
Why does this happen? How does someone forget a baby in the car? Usually it’s a disruption of routine, often combined with fatigue from lack of sleep. I’ve never done it myself, but I basically live in terror of it happening. I’m amazingly absent-minded. I have a routine I follow every time I get out of a car: lights out? doors locked? have car keys? no baby in the back? But routines are not failsafe, especially when a day is going badly.
So I started thinking about the subject, and came up with what seems like a workable idea: the “baby-on-board” alarm. The basic idea is to have an alarm that will sound when you open the door to leave the car while you have an infant in a car seat. (That’s not the only circumstance where this occurs, but it’s by far the most common.) Thinking a bit about the possible design for such a thing, I came up with the following list. Bear with the flaws…I’m no automotive engineer :P. I’ve also included what I think some of the concerns with each solution are.
- Pressure sensor in the carseat, linked to the door-open sensor. May be difficult to work out the linking protocol, given the number of carseat manufacturers and car manufacturers. Then again, they did manage to work out that thing where you can clip the top of your carseat to a special bar behind the seat, so obviously there is some mechanism in place for coordinating these things. This may also face trouble if you tend to place non-baby things in the carseat at times. It also requires adding electronic hardware to carseats, which could increase the price and be subject to baby-induced death (they are hard on their seats).
- Body heat sensor, linked to door-open sensor. May be problematic in hot weather. Same linking problems etc.
- Sound sensor: if the door opens (or opens and closes), and there is someone still in the car breathing, it sets off the alarm. Probably tricky to get the right sound detection algorithms, filter, and avoid false alarms.
- Video sensor, keyed to the presence of faces in the car. Software is problematic.
- Seatbelt sensor in the carseat, linked to the door-open sensor in the car. Seems like a workable solution; has the same issues as the pressure sensor.
- Manual switch: when you put the baby in the carseat, flip a baby-on-board switch. When you open the door, the alarm goes off. The biggest problem here I think is that people in the situations where babies get forgotten might also forget to flip the switch.
- Alarm that goes off every time you open the door. This is probably the cheapest solution, but an alarm you hear all the time loses its power to actually alert you.
Unfortunately none of the solutions that seem most workable seem very cheap. They could perhaps be an option, though. Even better would be an aftermarket installation kit, given the number of cars out on the road and the turnover time to wait for everyone to have a “baby-safe” car. Not only that, many owners of older cars would be happy to pay to have such a system installed. I know I would.
Anyway…just figured I’d toss the idea out there, see if anyone had any comments on it or ideas for how to make it actually workable. Ideally someone would point me to a link where such a system is already on the market, and then I could just buy one (and point out the value in marketing…). Heaven forfend I actually have to start trying to figure out how to wire up some hardware to build such a system.
Update
The Washington Post just ran a story on this topic, Devices Scarce to Protect Kids in Cars.. They have a link to the Child Minder, which is a $65 probably-good-enough solution that involves a unit that attaches to the child’s car seat (replacing the chest buckle) and another unit attaching to the key ring, which raises an alarm if you move more than ten feet away while the chest buckle is fastened. It’s not ideal, but it’s better than nothing….
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well there are alarms when you don’t fasten your seatbelt that shut off when you do close it.
I don’t see where it would be so hard to reverse a connection so it goes off until the belt securing the carseat is released when the engine is turned off?— ravencha Sunday June 18, 2006 #
Good point! I think the difficulties would be A) wiring up rear seat belts to have that functionality (AFAIK it’s only ever done in the front seats, currently) and B) somehow hooking up the car seat belt to the car electrical system (usually child car seats have their own, separate seat belts). Seems like that might be the most reliable method, so far, though.
— David Sunday June 18, 2006 #
Why not the after-market solution? Could make something blue-tooth for a BT enabled car. Could make something self contained that attaches to the seatbelt and has its own alarm. Sell it with it’s own micro-switch (wireless or wired) Should be pretty cheapo if you go wired. I’m thinking the whole thing could be made for under $50…modificaitons may take some time. (Whoda ever thunk that my bomb-making skills would be usefull for saving babies?)
— Jarod Monday June 19, 2006 #
the irony being that babies are also well known for “making bombs”.
I feel nervous typing those words.. is that a helicopter outside?br— ravencha Wednesday June 21, 2006 #
Would it be possible to have some sort of device that you toss in your pocket and another next to the baby and when they are let’s say 10mts apart they beep … something like that could work for leaving babies in cars or anywhere really
— gabriel Tuesday July 11, 2006 #
I agree it’s a lifesaving idea. I am a physician and love children — it pains me to hear of these types of preventable deaths of children. I’ve been working on this idea for some time — looking for the right engineer to make it work.
Any takers?
Bob
— Bob Wednesday July 19, 2006 #
I’m in the same category, but am beyond the small children years. More recently, I have thought that some sort of proximity alarm would be nice for keys, pens, etc. There are now proximity alarms that are made for kids and would help remind you not to leave a child in the car. Check out the link: http://www.brickhousesecurity.com/cguard24.html
Hope it saves a child’s life!
PMH
— Paul Heath Sunday July 23, 2006 #
Thanks for the link, Paul! I’m going to pick that up for the short-term personal solution, and continue to ponder the wider-ranging issues….
— David Monday July 24, 2006 #