A smart virtual assistant to parenthood
2020 will go down as the year when combining work with childcare became even more tricky for working parents due to the COVID-19 pandemic. To the rescue, a smart babysitter monitoring system is aspiring to become ‘parent’s little helper’. Invidyo is a smart virtual childminder that offers surveillance and documentation services of babies’ overall well-being. Moreover, it automatically captures their not-to-miss precious moments and gives parents the ability to quickly review the events of the day via smart daily summaries. This smart camera uses advanced artificial intelligence algorithms to automatically create a short summary clip containing the important moments of the day. In this way, it allows parents to review the events that took place in their absence very quickly. Another innovation is Invidyo’s use of audio analysis algorithms to differentiate between different types of loud noises in the audio stream. This enables it to detect the moments when the baby is crying and send mobile notifications to the parents. In addition, it gives parents the option to soothe their babies by playing lullabies directly from the mobile app using a two-way audio feature. The product also utilises face recognition technology in two ways: It makes sure that parents are notified immediately if an unknown person is detected in the vicinity of the baby. Additionally, it recognises the baby’s facial expressions, such as a smile, with the aid of emotion analysis technology, so that the parents are notified when the baby is happy. Finally, it assures that the baby’s environment is healthy through the use of temperature sensors and notifies parents whenever sensor values are out of the acceptable range.
Funding contributes to design and performance optimisation
The project funding enabled the company to redesign the mobile apps and make them much more user friendly and intuitive. Furthermore, the server-side scalability and the smart algorithm effectivity were improved, as well as the industrial design of the final product, which facilitates its mounting to the baby’s crib. “We undertook several design iterations and used groups of beta testers to make sure that our design meets the requirements of parents. With each design iteration we improved the mounting structure and we believe that the end product is one of the best out there,” says Ozgur Deniz Onur, project coordinator and founding partner of Mobilus company.
Overcoming the obstacles of innovation
The biggest challenge for the company was understanding the actual needs of working parents and creating a real positive impact in their lives. Onur explains that most of the new innovative parenting products feel more like a bag of cool technological features rather than essential tools that actually help parents with their daily struggles and enable them to raise healthy and happy children. “We spoke with several hundred parents to understand their needs, and also went to nanny hiring agencies to learn about parents’ main expectations from professional childcare providers. Of course, it helped a lot that most of the project personnel and managers were also parents of young children. In the end, Invidyo has evolved and continues to evolve towards a tool that helps parents monitor and improve their children’s wellbeing.” The product will soon be available on the European market, initially in Germany, Spain, France and Italy, aiming to reach as many customers as possible. While Mobilus are continuing to develop and add new and smarter features, they are also building a new product for the elder care segment, since the required technology in the field is similar and there is a growing demand in updated tools for the care of senior citizens.
Keywords
Invidyo, parents, monitoring, childcare, algorithms, technology, artificial intelligence
