As you may know, we’re into rapid prototyping at Rest Devices (check out this stellar – and inadvertently hilarious – post by the folks at Makerbot). We use our Thing-O-Matic 3D printer for just about everything, and we just got a desktop injection-molding machine that takes our plastics development to the next level. Our compulsive habit of “iterating › testing › iterating” has served us exceptionally well as we’ve worked on Peeko. Not everything works (not so surprising), but some things actually end up working really well (super surprising). And, perhaps best of all, we’ve been able to do this on a ridiculously fast timeline. Yes, we work hard, as seen in Thomas’ histogram of his caffeine consumption for the first three weeks of product development here, but our ability to cycle through ideas and gather feedback has been critical to our process thus far.

There are a hundred different things that we’ve worked on, and here are a couple of highlights:

• Our sensor design has changed quite a bit. Not only did we have to make the sensors more appealing for baby apparel – the goal is to get moms to squee with delight when they see the Peeko bodysuit—we also had to increase the durability significantly. The SleepShirt sensors were designed for about 7 nights’ worth of testing, but Peeko is meant to be used day-to-day. Add the never-ending struggle to dress a squirmy baby, and our engineering team has had an interesting challenge.  The results, while not visible to the naked eye, have thus far been a great new sensor design we are currently testing. Stay posted to see how these continue to evolve!

Our bodysuit progress thus far.

• We are by no means experts in smartphone app design, but we knew parents could tell us what we’re doing right and wrong and go from there. We also can’t discount the emphasis we have placed on displaying data to parents—our goal is to provide parents with peace of mind, not more anxiety. To do so, we’ve been working through the best and simplest ways to show parents that their baby is, in fact, a-ok (and the most convenient way of letting them know that something is awry). We’re admittedly not there yet, but we are focusing a significant part of our effort into getting this component right, and we look forward to hearing from more parents as we test over the next several weeks.

Phone app snapshots

Dulcie and Chao in a heated debate over our app user flow!

 

We are incredibly thankful to all the parents we’ve worked with and who have answered question after question; we know that parenting is exhausting, and your help has pushed this product to where it is now. We can’t wait to get a great product into the hands of every caring parent, but, in the meantime, we’ll keep iterating, testing, and proto-typing!

And, if you’d like to provide feedback, we’d love to hear from you! Just contact me at pbello@restdevices.com or Dulcie Madden at dmadden@restdevices.com.

Pablo & Dulcie