Exploring Infant Monitors, Part 2

Over the last six weeks, our team has immersed itself in all things baby and parenting (see Pablo’s recent blog post). From ripping apart different types of monitors to wandering the aisles of Babies ‘R’ Us to talking to countless parents, we’ve done our fair share of research. Here’s a little about what we learned (or affirmed, given what we’d already heard about the market):

• New parents will try anything to make sure their child is safe, secure, and happy. We heard from countless parents who bought one monitor via their registry, and then ended up purchasing, two, three, even six more, as the system either didn’t work out (they ended up wanting video; too many false positives) or broke. This goes for almost every product they buy, whether it’s a carrying system (Baby Bjorn or sling?), activity station (ExerSaucer or Jumperoo?), or sleeping system (bodysuit, footsie, sleepsack, or swaddle?).
• Simplify, simplify, simplify. Because parents end up buying so many products, anything we can do to minimize the “junk factor” is welcomed. We initially thought that parents would want to have a separate handheld, bedside station, but talking to parents proved us wrong – it rapidly became apparent that the majority of parents prefer to use what they already have (i.e. a smartphone), as it’s one less thing to worry about.
• Parents rely on three things to make their purchasing decisions for baby-related shopping: word of mouth (one mom said she literally asked a friend to write a list of everything she should buy and followed it almost exactly); online reviews (Consumer Report, Buy Buy Baby, Babies ‘R’ Us, Amazon, etc); and parenting magazines (either purchased or, more likely, read while sitting at the ob/gyn’s office). It was astounding to hear just how socially sensitive these decisions are, though it also totally makes sense, as parenting is overwhelming and who better to trust than your friends and family who have done it before?
• The market is nuts. Prices for monitors range from $30 to $350, and there is no end to the variations you can purchase (audio, movement, video; ranges from 400 – 1000 feet; internet accessibility; walkie-talkie features; infrared; etc). This could be daunting for us, as we’re a small start-up, but we also know that we’ve got the hustle, know-how, and willingness to learn to make a great new product.
• Each parent’s sleep routine for their baby is a work of art. There are quite a few different solutions and ways of doing things, and each parent has their own discrete system that evolves over time. As a resource constrained startup, we can’t cater to every parent’s individual preferences off the bat, but we’re hoping that initially we can offer a couple of apparel options that will cover a large part of the market. From there, we can start to diversify for everyone else and add in different styles.

At any rate, we’ve loved talking with parents, and we look forward to speaking with many more. If you have any comments or questions, please contact Dulcie at dmadden@restdevices.com – we’d love to hear from anyone and everyone!