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Create your own smart baby monitor with a RaspberryPi and TensorFlow

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Re: Create your own smart baby monitor with a RaspberryPi and TensorFlow

#81

Please, please, do not use something like this as the only method of monitoring a child’s safety. This sort of thing has given me honest to god nightmares. My day job is managing development and infrastructure of internet connected cameras, with motion detection, notifications, and all the rest of it. Every now and again someone new will start on the marketing team and put together something about using them as baby…

A baby monitor is to detect if a baby is crying not if a baby is dying. It seems like your exaggerating the user need (system engineer in HW+ SW and father of 3 here). Most use cases for baby monitors are “im relatively nearby, but want to hear if the kiddo’s waking up”.

This solution is great.

Re: Create your own smart baby monitor with a RaspberryPi and TensorFlow

#82

Please, please, do not use something like this as the only method of monitoring a child’s safety. This sort of thing has given me honest to god nightmares. My day job is managing development and infrastructure of internet connected cameras, with motion detection, notifications, and all the rest of it. Every now and again someone new will start on the marketing team and put together something about using them as baby…

[deleted]

Re: Create your own smart baby monitor with a RaspberryPi and TensorFlow

#83

Came here to post basically the same comment as everyone else, so I’ll save my words. My child was born in June and we have been using a WYze camera with RTSP enabled + a kindle tablet with TinyCam installed and it has worked flawlessly. Highly recommend for a budget setup.

I recommend a simple audio one. Video is unnecessary.

It’s easier to hand off to babysitters, “just works”, and honestly your kids not gonna die because you dont have a 24/7 video feed of them. Just make sure the bed they’re in is the right kind (nothing to get tangled or entrapped in).

Re: Create your own smart baby monitor with a RaspberryPi and TensorFlow

#84

Does anyone else just, you know, watch the baby or stay near enough to hear them when they go off? We didn’t have any clever stuff for our kids and it was tiring but ok (both full time jobs, no family to help us)

Cosleeping is what we did for our twins until they were about 1y old. They've turned out fine. I mean, what did pre-tech societies do?

Re: Create your own smart baby monitor with a RaspberryPi and TensorFlow

#85

Please, please, do not use something like this as the only method of monitoring a child’s safety. This sort of thing has given me honest to god nightmares. My day job is managing development and infrastructure of internet connected cameras, with motion detection, notifications, and all the rest of it. Every now and again someone new will start on the marketing team and put together something about using them as baby…

The possibility of failure is maybe a good reason to consider not selling this as a product for fear of lawsuits because if you have millions of these out there what happens when one fails and a baby dies of SIDS. However I suspect baby monitor companies have figured out a trivial legal or technical solution to this issue and I really doubt baby monitors are engineered to the standards of a life saving medical device.

Re: Create your own smart baby monitor with a RaspberryPi and TensorFlow

#86

Please, please, do not use something like this as the only method of monitoring a child’s safety. This sort of thing has given me honest to god nightmares. My day job is managing development and infrastructure of internet connected cameras, with motion detection, notifications, and all the rest of it. Every now and again someone new will start on the marketing team and put together something about using them as baby…

Even if you get the perfect training data, the state-of-the art neural networks will not be 100% reliable. Convolutional neural networks work by recursively recognizing shapes. In theory, the first layer should match the picture on something like this and conclude "it's probably an eye":

  o o X o o
  o X X X o
  o X X X o
  o o X o o
(above, "X" denotes low relative brightness, "o" denotes high relative brightness).

The next convolutional layer is supposed to see something like this and conclude it's a face:

  (eye)        (not a bumper)    (eye)
  (not a door)    (nose)     (not a wheel)
  (not a shovel) (mouth)   (not a window)
That's in theory. In practice, each input to the second layer will be a vector of probabilities. Like 90% eye, 80% wheel, 1% door. The output will also look like a vector of probabilities, and the layer is supposed to figure out a linear formula matching inputs to outputs that results in the best statistical outcome. So it can very easily come up with kernels like this:

* A: (an eye or a wheel) and maybe a bumper to the right of it

* B: (an eye or a wheel) and maybe a bumper to the left of it

* C: (two wheels) side-by-side

In this case, the baby face will be encoded as A together with B and definitely not C. Because each next level produces a linear combination of the previous level's outputs, the "or a wheel" parts will get nicely canceled out as long as the "2 wheels" kernel input is a low value, concluding that it's a face with a confidence of 99%. Until the light falls from a different angle and the baby holds a round lego brick near their face, suddenly yielding 80% confidence that it's a car.

Drawing parallels to organic life, neural networks are good at replicating inborn instincts. Like animals instantly recognizing predators, food or poisonous plants. But they are still far away from having a situational awareness needed to make judgement calls in most real-world situations.

Re: Create your own smart baby monitor with a RaspberryPi and TensorFlow

#87
post #64
post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where my partner usually steps in is not safety, but time. It is great if you're able to build some things yourself. But the kid and in particular your partner need your hands on deck, not on the workbench for days on, just to end up with an unfinished crib. And there are so many other, more important things to do that cannot be outsourced that easily. And once the first kid is in the house, expect interruptions. Oh,…

Yes, I fully understand the time problem. I put off building the crib until my son was 4 months old expecting to be able to finish it in 2-3 weeks. It took over 8 weeks and by the time it was done it was at least 1-2 weeks overdue. And a lot of the work was done between 10pm - 2am when everybody was asleep, which took away from my sleep! I'm still glad I built it (now that it's done!), but yes, outsourcing it certain…

Got a picture of it?

Re: Create your own smart baby monitor with a RaspberryPi and TensorFlow

#88

Please, please, do not use something like this as the only method of monitoring a child’s safety. This sort of thing has given me honest to god nightmares. My day job is managing development and infrastructure of internet connected cameras, with motion detection, notifications, and all the rest of it. Every now and again someone new will start on the marketing team and put together something about using them as baby…

The possibility of failure is maybe a good reason to consider not selling this as a product for fear of lawsuits because if you have millions of these out there what happens when one fails and a baby dies of SIDS. However I suspect baby monitor companies have figured out a trivial legal or technical solution to this issue and I really doubt baby monitors are engineered to the standards of a life saving medical device…

[deleted]

Re: Create your own smart baby monitor with a RaspberryPi and TensorFlow

#89
I don't have a baby, but I might have the need for a baby monitor. A sick family member who needs help sometimes in the middle of the night. Training TensorFlow to hear her yell "Help!" isn't going to do the job. For now, she reaches over to her phone, presses the home button, and says "Hey Google, call $familymember". It works, unless she can't reach her phone for any reason.

I had looked at this article wondering to see if it could be a valid replacement, but instead it's a very hopeful hobby project that I wouldn't trust anyone's safety to. It's definitely cool, but I think it's more suited for identifying a barking dog or a meowing kitten than a Human In Need, baby or otherwise.

Re: Create your own smart baby monitor with a RaspberryPi and TensorFlow

#90
post #52

No thank you. Baby monitors should not be connected to the internet, rely on machine learning to make decisions for you, or rely on push notifications to gain your attention. Keep them simple, local, reliable, and dumb AF. In this use case, less is most definitely more.

I received a hand me down Motorola baby monitor + camera. It doesn't connect to the Internet. It'll beep if the camera is disconnected. The monitor has power save capability (video feed off, sound on), let me know if power is low....It has everything I need. I just needed to replace the battery for a very cheap price because the charge didn't hold as long.
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