While babies are great in most ways, they're not exactly conducive to getting a full night's sleep. Realizing this, pediatrician Dr. Harvey Karp joined forces with Swiss designer Yves Béhar (of the Fuseproject firm) and a team at MIT's Media Lab to create a solution. Five years later, the automated Snoo baby bed is the result.
Throughout the night, Snoo rocks the baby and plays back soothing in-the-womb-like white noise.
When the integrated microphones detect that the baby is crying, the bed starts jiggling the infant and increases the white noise – it keeps this up until the crying stops, at which point it resumes the gentler rocking. Parents wishing to monitor or manually control the bed can do so via an app on their smartphone, using a Wi-Fi connection.
An optional organic cotton swaddle can be quickly wrapped around the baby and attached to the bed using built-in clips, to keep them safely lying on their back. There's also an LED night light, the intensity of which is dictated by an ambient light sensor.
If you're interested in getting a Snoo of your own, you can preorder one now for US$1,160. It can be seen in baby-jiggling action, in the video below.
For a non-automatic take on a motorized baby-rocker, check out the Fisher Price Cradle 'n Swing.
Sources: Happiest Baby, Fuseproject via Inhabitat
