As a father with a toddler at home, we use the baby monitor as a dumb radio in case we can't hear his cries through the walls. (We usually can, he's loud when he wants to be heard.) I wouldn't want any other features because I'm the parent, not the dumb radio.
Create your own smart baby monitor with a RaspberryPi and TensorFlow
121–130 of 162 posts
Re: Create your own smart baby monitor with a RaspberryPi and TensorFlow
#122Please, 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…
I agree. I feel like the other people replying to this comment is misunderstanding the intention of having a baby monitor and the state of a mind a new parent is in.
I still remember the panic that set in when the cheaper camera loss signal and didn't notify us. The good monitor made a loud beeping sound if it's losing connection or is low on battery. It's a peace of mind knowing there are safe guards when the technology fails you.
I don't expect a baby monitor to keep track of the child's health status, but I do expect it to work reliably as digital link to the room.
Re: Create your own smart baby monitor with a RaspberryPi and TensorFlow
#123As a father with a toddler at home, we use the baby monitor as a dumb radio in case we can't hear his cries through the walls. (We usually can, he's loud when he wants to be heard.) I wouldn't want any other features because I'm the parent, not the dumb radio.
Also, the line about notifying on your phone if your baby is crying really, really struck me the wrong way. Like, you need your phone to tell you if your own flesh and blood is in distress? Come on man, be a better parent than that.
Re: Create your own smart baby monitor with a RaspberryPi and TensorFlow
#124So, don't get me wrong. This is a fun project and a neat little device. I don't mean to take away from it in any way. However it is really important to consider why baby monitors are so primitive: because the cost of a false negative is huge. I didn't see any mention of this in the author's experiments (only a '>98% accuracy' note). So let's talk about this a little bit: is "accuracy" what we want? Probably not---I d…
Wonderful analysis.
Re: Create your own smart baby monitor with a RaspberryPi and TensorFlow
#125Earlier quoted context omitted.
Please fill me in as a non-parent : what was actually up when the baby cried like that?
Our son at ~8 months had managed to get his leg in between the slats in the crib past his knee. I agree with OP -- this was instantly distinguishable from a normal "pick me up" cry.
It's so weird, with COVID time at home, it's almost like I've picked up on my 18 month old's language. All his little noises and cries absolutely have meaning, they're just not in a language I understand. I can't wait until he is able to use words though, it will make it a lot easier!
Re: Create your own smart baby monitor with a RaspberryPi and TensorFlow
#126There's a lot of negativity in these comments, but I'm excited because I'm working on exactly the same thing. I have a raspberry pi 4 hooked up to a PS3 eye camera/mic, and have been tweaking it to only forward audio when my child cries.
I wasn't going to start with ML - just send the audio if it was over a certain threshold for a certain amount of time (say, 5 or 10 seconds of noise that's above the normal ambient background for that room).
For everyone chiming in about how this is terrible parenting, I know it comes from a place of concern, but I personally am not worried about using this, and I can imagine that the author of the article is probably thinking similarly to me.
I would not use this monitor in a situation where the health of my baby was in any way suspect. My baby tends to make lots of noise at night - shifting around, sighing to herself, and occasionally uttering a single piercing wail for absolutely no reason for just one second (sounds like an audio hardware test, just the brain exercising the circuitry during sleep). While none of this bothers the baby, I am a very sensitive sleeper and having her in my room is completely destroying my sleep.
I'm going to use this to be able to move her to another room. It's a room adjacent to mine. It's close enough that if she works herself up to her full volume I'm sure I would still wake up and hear her. This is so I can filter out her background noise, but still respond to her night wakeup crying without having her reach her full protesting volume. I think it's nicer for her that way. It is not dangerous; just a means for me to get some more sleep while still being able to respond promptly when she wakes up.
Re: Create your own smart baby monitor with a RaspberryPi and TensorFlow
#127Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
I don't even know anyone who uses a baby monitor. I think we can get by. If someone relies on one to the exclusion of actually checking on their child from time to time, the failure of the monitor is probably the least of risks.
I know we were gifted one, and it didn't ever get used.
When the baby was brought home he shared the bedroom with the pair of us, and it was immediately obvious if he was crying.
Later when he moved to sleeping in his own room we could still easily hear the noise of crying, as the room was immediately adjacent to our own, and we left the doors open.
I remember we setup a routine at some point where one of us would sleep in his room with him, leaving the other one free to sleep through the whole night.
Maybe if you live in a mansion, and you can't hear a baby crying from the other wing it might be necessary. But most of the parents I know have always been close enough to hear crying just with their ears. (Although I know there certainly are days, especially early on, where you'll hear but be half-asleep and not really do anything!)
Re: Create your own smart baby monitor with a RaspberryPi and TensorFlow
#128Came 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).
This camera stuff scares me
Re: Create your own smart baby monitor with a RaspberryPi and TensorFlow
#129Earlier quoted context omitted.
Our son at ~8 months had managed to get his leg in between the slats in the crib past his knee. I agree with OP -- this was instantly distinguishable from a normal "pick me up" cry.
It's so weird, with COVID time at home, it's almost like I've picked up on my 18 month old's language. All his little noises and cries absolutely have meaning, they're just not in a language I understand. I can't wait until he is able to use words though, it will make it a lot easier!
Maybe he thinks, “I wish this large baby would speak my language.”?
Re: Create your own smart baby monitor with a RaspberryPi and TensorFlow
#130Does 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?
Yep, I think sometimes working in tech can bite back along the “medium is the message” lines. In engineering sure tech is the answer. With kids it’s not always so.