I-Corps: Dream Catcher: A High-Fidelity Baby Sleep Monitor

New York University, New York NY

Investigators

Abstract

Sleep is a major problem for parents of young children. This is demonstrated by the large number of best-selling books on "sleep training" geared toward new parents, and by the numerous courses offered to new parents focusing on helping them get a better handle on their infant's sleep. But despite the attention given to educating parents about how to teach their children to sleep, getting a good night sleep remains one of the most anxiety-provoking aspects of parenting. There are a large number of baby monitors currently on the market, but none provide direct information about sleep. The majority of devices provide an audio monitor so that parents can hear whether their baby is crying. But sound is a poor proxy for sleep. The proposed project will solve this problem by developing the high-fidelity baby sleep monitor for use at home by parents. This I-Corps team will develop a consumer product that will provide better and more direct information about sleep. The team will leverage recent developments in both hardware and software to make measuring and monitoring sleep simple and cost effective, so that parents will be able to monitor their infant's sleep. The team will develop a product that provides parents with useful information about their baby?s sleep by comparing measurements from their baby with the rest of the database. The team intends to apply the technology in a wide range of neurometric consumer products including self-monitoring of sleep throughout the lifespan, monitoring arousal/vigilance of professional drivers (e.g.,truck drivers) and pilots, and monitoring arousal/vigilance of security personnel (e.g.,TSA).