Connected parenting: wearables, smart monitors and apps sought after by millennial parents

Date: januari 17, 2019

The Consumer Electronics Show has been a firm fixture in our calendar for announcing new products, since our first attendance back in 2014. This year we launched the Owlet Band, a thin fabric band which can read and record the baby's heart rate, count its kicks, identify contractions and track the mother's sleeping position. The band won two CES awards in the categories of Wearable Technology and Tech to Change the World and will be available in the UK late 2019.

We weren’t the only ones to showcase new baby tech, this year also saw breast pumps, baby learning monitors and virtual reality foetus scanning launched at the show.

Our latest survey reveals that there is a significant appetite for technology amongst today’s parents and carers of newborns.

The most sought-after technology for parents of babies up to 18 months include:

Smart video and audio monitor (77%)
Smart room thermometer (73%)
Smart night light (72%)

Smart technologies are connected to smartphones and devices, meaning parents can keep an eye on and control the environment for their baby even if they’re not in the same location. With a third (32%) of parents saying their sleep is at its best when someone else is watching over the baby, it’s no wonder that many are turning to technology as a helping hand.

Rewind 18 years

This is in contrast to the turn of the millennium. 75% of parents with children now aged between 7 – 18 years old relied on simply getting up and checking to care for their baby at night, with less than half (46%) using an audio monitor. 64% of these parents believe that the technology available now would have made being a new parent easier. Technology they would have found most useful include:

Smart video and audio monitor (57%)
Smart night light (49%)
Portable baby rocker (45%)
Wearable monitor (39%)

Technology has quickly become an integral part of all areas of our lives. Whilst many parents at the turn of the millennium were relying on radio frequency baby monitors, nowadays parents are able to track everything from video and audio through to heart rate, oxygen level and temperature. Having this information at their fingertips gives parents that added peace of mind and helps ease some of the anxiety that naturally comes when caring for a newborn.